Note solution to Thunderbird UI scaling problem
authorSiraaj Khandkar <siraaj@khandkar.net>
Sun, 1 Mar 2020 02:47:47 +0000 (21:47 -0500)
committerSiraaj Khandkar <siraaj@khandkar.net>
Sun, 1 Mar 2020 02:47:47 +0000 (21:47 -0500)
notes-thunderbird.md

index 12044d3..ca67872 100644 (file)
@@ -16,4 +16,29 @@ and select the desired profile, after which normal starts will use it:
 
 I copied a profile from 4k resolution computer to a 2k one, now icons and text
 are huge. How to scale it back down? Don't see anything relevant-looking in the
-settings...
+settings; I looked for "scale", "zoom" and "size".
+
+### Solution
+
+In config editor, find property:
+
+    layout.css.devPixelsPerPx
+
+then change its value from 2.0 to 1.0.
+
+#### Source
+
+Make a fresh profile and examine `prefs.js` diff until something looks promising.
+
+    $ thunderbird  # Looks bad. Close it.
+    $ mv ~/.thunderbird ~/.thunderbird.bak
+    $ thunderbird  # Close it. Now we have a fresh profile.
+    $ vimdiff ~/.thunderbird/newxxx.default/prefs.js ~/.thunderbird.bak/oldxxx.default/prefs.js
+        # Examine every difference until something looks promising. Value 2.0
+        # looks like a zoom value and it is refering to some pixel-to-pixel
+        # ratio - looks promising!
+    $ rm -rf ~/.thunderbird
+    $ mv ~/.thunderbird.bak ~/.thunderbird
+    $ thunderbird
+        # Open config editor, look for devPixelsPerPx and change to 1.0.
+        # Looks good!
This page took 0.021613 seconds and 4 git commands to generate.