Jabref dialog doesnt respect font size 13558 #13667

chrisdenman · 2025-08-06T23:12:53Z

I fixed the issue whereby the About dialog was not honouring (it was using constant font-sizes in the .css file) the user's configured font (&size) preferences.

A also fixed the issue such that the application needed to be restarted for the About dialog to pick up changed font preferences.

Both done in the same way, by utilising themeManager.updateFontStyle in AboutDialogView whenever the dialog pane's scene property changes.

Steps to test

Manually testing the default font size

Run app before pulling
Ensure the File|Preferences|General|Override default font settings is unchecked
Take a screenshot of the Help|About dialog
Terminate the app
Pull in code with fixes
Run app
Ensure the File|Preferences|General|Override default font settings is unchecked
Take screenshot of the Help|About dialog

Compare the before and after shots. In particular the font-sizes can be examined.

Manually testing various font-sizes

Repeat the above tests for varying sizes of user-defined font size preferences

Testing that the About dialog responds to updated user font preferences

Run the app
Ensure the File|Preferences|General|Override default font settings control is checked
Choose a font size, say 9pt.
Close the Preferences dialog
Open the Help|About dialog
Note the size of the text (small/normal)
Close the Help|About dialog
Open the File|Preferences|General dialog
Choose a large (noticable) font size, say 22pt.
Close the Preferences diagog
Open the Help|About dialog and note the size of the text (it should be big)

I've done lots of manual testing and i'm happy with the changes.

Mandatory checks

I own the copyright of the code submitted and I license it under the MIT license
Change in CHANGELOG.md described in a way that is understandable for the average user (if change is visible to the user)
[/] Tests created for changes (if applicable)
Manually tested changed features in running JabRef (always required)
Screenshots added in PR description (if change is visible to the user)
Checked developer's documentation: Is the information available and up to date?
Checked documentation: Is the information available and up to date?

`New` About Dialog 9pt Font Size

`New` About Dialog 12pt Font Size

`New` About Dialog 15pt Font Size

`New` About Dialog 18pt Font Size

`New` About Dialog 21pt Font Size

`New` About Dialog with System Default Font Settings

`Old` About Dialog with System Default Font Settings

- note 18 :: 30 == 1.44 :: 2.4 == 0.6 - manually verified original and modified pixel heights

See https://github.com/JabRef/jabref/actions/runs/16790829755/job/47551968304

Yubo-Cao

Great work! The intent of the original issue was a bit broader than the current fix on AboutDialog only. The issue lies in that a lot of other dialogs (to give an example, if you open the example library, go to the general tab, then select download from a URL), that's using the DialogService also doesn't respect the font size settings, and we are hoping to provide a more generalized fix across all those dialogs.

Thank you so much!

Yubo-Cao · 2025-08-06T23:58:12Z

jabgui/src/main/java/org/jabref/gui/help/AboutAction.java


    public AboutAction() {
        this.aboutDialogView = new AboutDialogView();
+        this.dialogService = Injector.instantiateModelOrService(DialogService.class);


We typically prefer to have the callee pass in the injected variables, rather than the implementation to inject for themselves.

Y lol. I just 'reused' the original code. My brain wasn't switched on lol.

calixtus · 2025-08-07T07:38:58Z

Great start! Can you also look into the issue about ellipsis at the end of the texts? I mean a huge font size is only helpful if not the larger part of the text is hidden behind three dots... 😅
You can surely propose a creative solution.

chrisdenman · 2025-08-07T08:28:21Z

Great work! The intent of the original issue was a bit broader than the current fix on AboutDialog only. The issue lies in that a lot of other dialogs (to give an example, if you open the example library, go to the general tab, then select download from a URL), that's using the DialogService also doesn't respect the font size settings, and we are hoping to provide a more generalized fix across all those dialogs.

Hi. Thanks for the feedback.

OK I see. Perhaps we need another few tasks? One to investigate and enumerate the dialogs that don't honour the font settings and another one (or more) to fix the dialogs? I'm just wondering if it's too big of a task for a single issue?

If there are lots of dialogs, it seems like a significant amount of coding and testing work. Looking into a properly functional testing methology would seem to make sense, if this is true.

See JabRef#13667 (comment)

trag-bot · 2025-08-07T08:46:33Z

@trag-bot didn't find any issues in the code! ✅✨

koppor · 2025-08-07T09:04:32Z

If there are lots of dialogs, it seems like a significant amount of coding and testing work. Looking into a properly functional testing methology would seem to make sense, if this is true.

Yeah! Closely related: #6089 (concerning the larger scope 😅)

chrisdenman · 2025-08-07T13:58:30Z

I think this is done now; however... another task to capture the work of enumerating all the Dialogs that don't follow the user font preferences is probably a good idea.

chrisdenman · 2025-08-07T15:59:53Z

I'm happy creating an issue for the work of enumerating all dialogs with issues but I don't think it falls under either: bug or feature - which is all i can create it seems.

Siedlerchr · 2025-08-07T17:07:51Z

It doesn't matter if you create it as feature or bug. you can edit it afterwards and we can change the labels accordingly

Siedlerchr · 2025-08-07T17:20:33Z

Looks good on my mac as well:

resolved

calixtus · 2025-08-08T12:50:30Z

Hey, was the issue about the ellipsis solved?

chrisdenman · 2025-08-08T13:03:04Z

Hey, was the issue about the ellipsis solved?

I didn't notice any ellipsis issues with the About dialog (or in this ticket's description). Can you create a ticket for it with steps to reproduce etc....

Thanks

calixtus · 2025-08-08T18:39:34Z

Tested it. Does NOT work.

after setting font size to a higher value the about dialog has to be opened twice to adapt new font size.

after setting back font size it does not adapt properly

koppor · 2025-08-08T18:53:42Z

Hey, was the issue about the ellipsis solved?

I didn't notice any ellipsis issues with the About dialog (or in this ticket's description). Can you create a ticket for it with steps to reproduce etc....

It was in the review comments - #13667 (comment)

Carl provided a screenshot here showing that text is simply cut off without any "..." (called ellipses) at the end...

chrisdenman · 2025-08-11T14:00:08Z

Tested it. Does NOT work.

after setting font size to a higher value the about dialog has to be opened twice to adapt new font size.

after setting back font size it does not adapt properly

Thanks, I'll take a look.

chrisdenman · 2025-08-11T14:54:59Z

Tested it. Does NOT work.

after setting font size to a higher value the about dialog has to be opened twice to adapt new font size.

after setting back font size it does not adapt properly

I can't reproduce this unfortunately. I'm on Linux (if that makes a difference).

chrisdenman added 5 commits August 6, 2025 23:02

Made the AboutDialog's View's Fonts Size's Relative

6e1ec60

- note 18 :: 30 == 1.44 :: 2.4 == 0.6 - manually verified original and modified pixel heights

AboutDialogView responds to preference's font size changes

a44bcbc

Renamed some unused vars to remove IDEA warnings.

c1195af

Added information about our fix.

cd08f45

Removed offending trailing space.

9c1cc8d

See https://github.com/JabRef/jabref/actions/runs/16790829755/job/47551968304

chrisdenman marked this pull request as ready for review August 6, 2025 23:35

Yubo-Cao previously requested changes Aug 7, 2025

View reviewed changes

AboutAction does not do its own injection now.

2dca40a

See JabRef#13667 (comment)

Siedlerchr approved these changes Aug 7, 2025

View reviewed changes

Siedlerchr added this pull request to the merge queue Aug 7, 2025

Merged via the queue into JabRef:main with commit 8335db0 Aug 7, 2025
1 check passed

github-actions bot mentioned this pull request Aug 7, 2025

JabRef dialog doesn't respect font size #13558

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2 tasks

chrisdenman mentioned this pull request Aug 7, 2025

Investigate which dialogs do not correctly honour the user's font preference settings #13670

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Jabref dialog doesnt respect font size 13558 #13667

Jabref dialog doesnt respect font size 13558 #13667

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chrisdenman commented Aug 6, 2025

Steps to test

Manually testing the default font size

Manually testing various font-sizes

Testing that the About dialog responds to updated user font preferences

Mandatory checks

New About Dialog 9pt Font Size

New About Dialog 12pt Font Size

New About Dialog 15pt Font Size

New About Dialog 18pt Font Size

New About Dialog 21pt Font Size

New About Dialog with System Default Font Settings

Old About Dialog with System Default Font Settings

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calixtus commented Aug 7, 2025

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koppor commented Aug 7, 2025

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chrisdenman commented Aug 7, 2025

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chrisdenman commented Aug 7, 2025

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Siedlerchr commented Aug 7, 2025

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Siedlerchr commented Aug 7, 2025

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calixtus commented Aug 8, 2025

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chrisdenman commented Aug 8, 2025

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calixtus commented Aug 8, 2025

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koppor commented Aug 8, 2025

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chrisdenman commented Aug 11, 2025

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chrisdenman commented Aug 11, 2025

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`New` About Dialog 9pt Font Size

`New` About Dialog 12pt Font Size

`New` About Dialog 15pt Font Size

`New` About Dialog 18pt Font Size

`New` About Dialog 21pt Font Size

`New` About Dialog with System Default Font Settings

`Old` About Dialog with System Default Font Settings