On Linux, Obsidian not respect desktop environment font settings

HnKQJyODsaAq · March 4, 2023, 4:11pm

Steps to reproduce

Install flatpak and
flatpak install flathub md.obsidian.Obsidian

Open sandbox vault
Confirm white or gray white font are very colorfulness

Screenshot, zoom, discovered subpixel font rendering

Expected result

I have disabled subpixel font, and use only grayscale in LXQt font settings:
Firefox render website use grayscale without adding colored edge to font

Actual result

Obsidian use subpixel font and does not apply settings from user

Environment

Operating system: Linux fedora 37 6.1.13-200.fc37.x86_64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Wed Feb 22 17:53:57 UTC 2023 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Debug info:

SYSTEM INFO:
Obsidian version: v1.1.16
Installer version: v1.1.16
Operating system: #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Wed Feb 22 17:53:57 UTC 2023 6.1.13-200.fc37.x86_64
Login status: not logged in
Insider build toggle: off
Live preview: on
Legacy editor: off
Base theme: dark
Community theme: none
Snippets enabled: 0
Restricted mode: on

RECOMMENDATIONS:
none

Additional information

I see you have a release with “The editor text should now always stay clear using subpixel-antialiasing, instead of jumping to blurry grayscale from time to time.”

https://forum.obsidian.md/t/obsidian-release-v0-10-8/11323

But no, subpixel always hurts my eyes, I’m comfortable with grayscale AA

May I have a CSS hack or a switch in settings, or obsidian may turn off subpixel to respect LXQt desktop environment settings?

WhiteNoise · March 6, 2023, 3:04pm

we don’t provide support for the flatpak version becuse we don’t make it.

Nevertheless, I don’t consider this a bug and if you wanna use specific fonts configurations, use CSS.

HnKQJyODsaAq · March 20, 2023, 9:41am

This indeed is a flatpak issue

github.com/flatpak/flatpak

[Bug]: Flatpak apps don't read user defined fontconfig files

opened 04:02PM - 12 Feb 22 UTC

Motor-head

bug

### Checklist - [X] I agree to follow the [Code of Conduct](https://github.com/…flatpak/flatpak/blob/main/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md) that this project adheres to. - [X] I have searched the [issue tracker](https://www.github.com/flatpak/flatpak/issues) for a bug that matches the one I want to file, without success. - [X] If this is an issue with a particular app, I have tried filing it in the appropriate issue tracker for the app (e.g. under https://github.com/flathub/) and determined that it is an issue with Flatpak itself. - [X] This issue is not a report of a security vulnerability (see [here](https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak/blob/main/SECURITY.md) if you need to report a security issue). ### Flatpak version 1.12.4 ### What Linux distribution are you using? Fedora Linux ### Linux distribution version 35 ### What architecture are you using? x86_64 ### How to reproduce 1. create a user defined font config file (say `mylist.conf`) in `~/.config/fontconfig/conf.d/` 2. run any flatpak app (ex., Ungoogled Chromium or Libreoffice) ### Expected Behavior The flatpak apps should read the `mylist.conf` and load defined fonts in order to render Complex Text Layout (CTL) fonts. ### Actual Behavior Flatpak apps don't read `mylist.conf`, using `DejaVu Sans` as default font (in my case) for CTL fonts. ### Additional Information `Mylist.conf` is a list of fallback fonts I made for rendering Indic fonts. All non-flatpak apps obey this file, except Flatpak. Temporary solution is to create a symlink of `fontconfig` folder in `~/.var/app/<APP>/config/` folder. But this is not feasible in case there are too many flatpak apps. Flatpak should automatically read and obey user defined config file.

And what CSS property should I use to enable grayscale font antialiasing instead of RGB?

HnKQJyODsaAq · March 20, 2023, 9:59am

OK, there is no CSS property is required.
According to flatpak issues 4742, I made a script to fix this

Save this code to FixFlatpakFont.sh, chmod +x FixFlatpakFont.sh

#!/bin/bash
FONT_CONF="$HOME/.config/fontconfig"
DEST="$HOME/.var/app/$1/config/fontconfig"

ln -s $FONT_CONF $DEST

And run ./FixFlatpakFont.sh md.obsidian.Obsidian, close Obsidian, open again, confirm font rendering is fixed.

For other flatpak apps, look at ls ~/.var/app, folders inside this path go to script first argument.

jstone · March 22, 2023, 12:31pm

Looking at several apps, it might be feasible to fix this without a workaround script:

Can you see if removing the symlink and then running either of these fixes your issue?

$ flatpak run --filesystem=xdg-config/fontconfig:ro md.obsidian.Obsidian

$ flatpak run --filesystem=xdg-config/fontconfig:ro --persist=xdg-config/fontconfig md.obsidian.Obsidian

If they work, then I can update the flatpak permissions.