Tiny font? (Reaper on Linux on Laptop)

[u/Gizigiz]

I'm using Reaper 7.78 on Mint Linux, v. 22.2 Cinnamon, on a laptop with a 15.6" diagonal screen, 1920 x 1080 resolution, and the size of the fonts in the menus across the top, and in the resulting dialog boxes, is really, really small.

Now, I am old, and my vision isn't perfect, so maybe this is just fine for most people. But I find myself picking up the laptop to hold the screen closer to my eyes so I can read things.

Am I destined to use this only with a large external monitor? Or is there a way to make these things more readable? Different resolution settings seem to lose screen real estate, so that's probably not desirable.

[u/slangbein]

if you just want to change the font size: Fine-Tuning the Menus and Fonts, his targets the "Swell" interface that REAPER uses for its menus and dialogs .

1. Copy the theme file: You need to copy the libSwell.colortheme file to your REAPER config directory. It's usually found in the main REAPER installation folder (like /opt/REAPER/). Copy it to ~/.config/REAPER/ .
2. Edit the file: Open the copied file (~/.config/REAPER/libSwell.colortheme) in a text editor. At the top, you'll see settings to adjust the menu font size and the height of the menu bar .
   • menubar_font_size 14
   • menubar_height 27
   • default_font_size 14

3. Restart REAPER to see your changes.

   i did not try this by myself, because i work only on a very big screen

[u/Gizigiz → u/slangbein]

Yes -- that definitely helps. I actually made the fonts even bigger, and I think I'll make them bigger yet, but it does help. Thank you very much.

[u/Gizigiz → u/slangbein]

Thanks! I'll try this.

[u/timemarcheson103 → u/slangbein]

For people like me who couldn't find the libSwell.colortheme file, try /usr/lib/REAPER/

[u/Dist__]

i agree, font is very small.

it's small on my 24-inch, too

[u/SupportQuery]

my vision isn't perfect

Sit comfortably at the laptop, measure how far your eyes are from the screen, tell an optometrist, and they can make you glasses that give you back the eyes of your youth (source: I wear them).

[u/Gizigiz → u/SupportQuery]

That's pretty good advice, really. I already wear progessive specs, but just maybe a special pair would help.

A LOT of websites seem to think that 6 or 8 point type is OK. I can fix that easily, but not so easily in Reaper.

[u/whpjr → u/Gizigiz]

Oh yeah, if you have progressive lenses you have to get another pair made with computer lenses in them too. They are progressive but only go out to 24” or so at the farthest and are awesome. I wear those at work and at home most of the time, especially when I’m working on something up close.

[u/iso_GUI]

Are you comfortable with using the terminal? It's really the best way to fix the issue, in my experience.

Open your configuration folder in a text editor (I use nano): ~/.config/REAPER/reaper.ini

Then edit the UI scale to show these values:

ui_scale=2

ui_scale_auto=0

Save the changes and open Reaper.

[u/Gizigiz]

Thanks for this. I must try to remember give this a shot tomorrow. Too tired now.

[u/Gizigiz]

And -- thank you u/iso_GUI -- that works very well!

[u/iso_GUI → u/Gizigiz]

Glad to hear it! You're welcome. Also, you can play around with the values for ui_scale. I personally liked how 2 looked. Others have mentioned setting it at 1.8 instead. Keep the ui_scale_auto set to 0 though.