On Thu, 12 Dec 2019, Felix Miata wrote:

> Felmon Davis composed on 2019-12-13 03:08 (UTC+0100):
>
>> I still can't quite get Firefox to behave; I'm essentially running
>> Firefox-esr. Firefor 71.0 just ignores userChrome.css and I cannot
>> find the magic gtk spell for it.
>
> Try tqtconfig to set qt font size for KControl applets. In Buster it comes from
> tqt3-qtconfig.

first I have to note my earlier attempt did not succeed in enlarging 
the fonts on the "TDE Control Module" and similar windows - I was 
mistaken I think.

yesterday I downloaded tqtconfig but I didn't see any results. 
(ironically it itself is in a teensy font size. I may be missing 
something so I'll play with it again.

> The real magic is to not use MozillaFirefox. Instead, use firefox-esr. Its
> annoying regressive  changes occur less often than once per year instead of every
> 6-10 weeks. Another option is to use palemoon (newmoon in some distros), which is
> a fork of Firefox created back around FF28 or thereabouts.

I see subsequent discussion about this suggestion. I have both esr and 
71.0 and esr plays fine with userChrome.css but 71.0 is not 
responsive.

*however* I have domesticated FF 71.0 somehow, we'll see if it lasts 
through the next session log-out or re-boot. I don't know how. I get 
the impression that setting DPI to 120 and then *back* to 96 may have 
brought it to its senses. this is speculative; I'll try to make more 
observations.

> If your distro doesn't offer esr even via a ppa, you can uninstall its package and
> use the version provided by mozilla.org:
> http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/68.3.0esr/
> Using the mozilla.org version allows the possibility to more easily exercise
> control over when its updates occur.
>
> If you use a fresh virgin profile, does the problem remain?
>
> What does
>
> 	xrdb -query | grep dpi

right now DPI is 96. I'll try the profile experiment a bit later.

through foolin' around I now how several profiles. that's no problem, 
I'll sort it out.

strangely FF 71.0 will complain if I try to force certain profiles 
(esr ones) and refuse to start.

> report? This is the mechanism Gnome/GTK observes for controlling DPI. Kcontrol
> uses it, but allows only the options 96 and 120. If you leave it at default (not
> controlled), then you can set it to anything you like via Xft.dpi in ~/.Xresources
> or ~/.Xdefaults. GTK3 since version 3.17 forces it to 96 instead of leaving it
> null unless something forces it to something else, or you are using openSUSE,
> which reverted upstream's abusive imposition. I haven't checked. There could be
> other distros that have also reverted it.

good information.

not openSUSE but something called q4os.

> Instead of literally creating a new profile to test with if you find it too
> intimidating, you can back up the profile directory, then empty it before
> restarting Firefox. After the test, delete the content again, then restore from
> the backup. A read of ~/.mozilla/firefox/profiles.ini will tell you the name of
> the directory whose content to delete, the actual profilename. Don't delete the
> directory, only its (entire) content. Alternatively, create another directory,
> then substitute that directory for the directory name in profiles.ini for making
> the test.

yeah, like I said, I got plenty of profiles now!

so where I stand is:

(a) in general things are kind of satisfactory but I'm not sure how 
stable;

(b) the teensy font problem on the TDE Control windows is still there;

(c) I don't think tqtconfig worked but I should try again;

(d) the situation of Firefox-esr is fine; Firefox 71.0 is ok but not 
sure it will survive a reboot or re-start of the session.

thank you for pitching in; you helped me before with this kind of 
problem. I learned a bit.

fjd


-- 
Felmon Davis