4 ms·

I can't stand Netbeans on Linux because of the awful Swing font rendering. Eclipse respects the font settings of my desktop environment. Netbeans looks terrible

by Legion 15y ago

I can't stand Netbeans on Linux because of the awful Swing font rendering. Eclipse respects the font settings of my desktop environment. Netbeans looks terrible no matter what.

niclupien 15y ago
Netbean's text looks fine to me on my ubuntu box which i use every day at job.
- Legion 15y ago
  I get that response sometimes, and it almost always turns out the person that thinks the text "looks fine" is not using AA, subpixel rendering, etc. I snapped a picture of a GNOME menu overlayed on top of Netbeans, so Netbeans' complete failure to match the fonts of the GNOME desktop is made crystal clear: http://bit.ly/eSQy3d http://bit.ly/eSQy3d
  - nuclear_eclipse 15y ago
    Is it bad that I think that looks just fine? What am I missing?
    - naveens 15y ago
      I think Netbeans is not getting the font settings from GNOME. From what I can see from the panel, GNOME uses slight font hinting here. But the Netbeans window uses full hinting. The fix would be to roll our own matching ~/.fonts.conf or /etc/fonts/local.conf for all the non-GNOME applications.
      - Legion 15y ago
        As of the last time I tried Netbeans (I have long since moved exclusively to Vim), this was not successful either. I have my font preferences replicated in ~/.fonts.conf and I could not get Netbeans to use those settings either.
  - saem 15y ago
    I'm running KDE/Fedora as my main machine, and Netbean fonts made my eyes bleed. This precipitated a flurry of searches as to how to fix the problem -- my desktop fonts are pretty, but the Netbean ones are awful. Rather quickly you'll find that there are two tracks, one is to change the config/command line parameter to launch it (I believe it's: -J-Dswing.aatext=true), the other is to use the official Oracle JVM/JDK, and version 6, along with ensure Netbeans is launching with that (see JAVA_HOME). It has better font rendering/handling. I've done the former, but haven't bothered with the latter, as I prefer Fedora managing my packages. I hope that helps.
    - vrotaru 15y ago
      It's a hack of of course, but you can set `swing.aatext=true system-wide`. Run: sudo java -jar jpui.jar and set that property under System. `jpui.jar` can be get from http://jpui.sourceforge.net/ http://jpui.sourceforge.net/ The other related property is `awt.useSystemAAFontSettings=on`
mrj 15y ago
Ha, glad it's not just me! Though you can add this to the netbeans.conf to disable the AA fonts (makes it much, much more readable): -J-Dswing.aatext=false

by Legion 15y ago

I can't stand Netbeans on Linux because of the awful Swing font rendering. Eclipse respects the font settings of my desktop environment. Netbeans looks terrible no matter what.

niclupien 15y ago

Netbean's text looks fine to me on my ubuntu box which i use every day at job.

Legion 15y ago
I get that response sometimes, and it almost always turns out the person that thinks the text "looks fine" is not using AA, subpixel rendering, etc. I snapped a picture of a GNOME menu overlayed on top of Netbeans, so Netbeans' complete failure to match the fonts of the GNOME desktop is made crystal clear: http://bit.ly/eSQy3d http://bit.ly/eSQy3d
- nuclear_eclipse 15y ago
  Is it bad that I think that looks just fine? What am I missing?
  - naveens 15y ago
    I think Netbeans is not getting the font settings from GNOME. From what I can see from the panel, GNOME uses slight font hinting here. But the Netbeans window uses full hinting. The fix would be to roll our own matching ~/.fonts.conf or /etc/fonts/local.conf for all the non-GNOME applications.
    - Legion 15y ago
      As of the last time I tried Netbeans (I have long since moved exclusively to Vim), this was not successful either. I have my font preferences replicated in ~/.fonts.conf and I could not get Netbeans to use those settings either.
- saem 15y ago
  I'm running KDE/Fedora as my main machine, and Netbean fonts made my eyes bleed. This precipitated a flurry of searches as to how to fix the problem -- my desktop fonts are pretty, but the Netbean ones are awful. Rather quickly you'll find that there are two tracks, one is to change the config/command line parameter to launch it (I believe it's: -J-Dswing.aatext=true), the other is to use the official Oracle JVM/JDK, and version 6, along with ensure Netbeans is launching with that (see JAVA_HOME). It has better font rendering/handling. I've done the former, but haven't bothered with the latter, as I prefer Fedora managing my packages. I hope that helps.
  - vrotaru 15y ago
    It's a hack of of course, but you can set `swing.aatext=true system-wide`. Run: sudo java -jar jpui.jar and set that property under System. `jpui.jar` can be get from http://jpui.sourceforge.net/ http://jpui.sourceforge.net/ The other related property is `awt.useSystemAAFontSettings=on`

mrj 15y ago

Ha, glad it's not just me! Though you can add this to the netbeans.conf to disable the AA fonts (makes it much, much more readable): -J-Dswing.aatext=false