Gentoo Linux GTK+ 2.14.7-r2 (highest version marked stable on Gentoo at the moment); Inkscape svn21520
There is a long delay when first selecting the font menu which I assume is the drawing of the samples. With a lot of fonts it is disconcerting but okay when you're expecting it, and it does only happen the first time you select the menu so it's not too much of a big deal. At least, not compared to the other problem.
It doesn't actually change the font for me. The name in the box changes but as soon as I start to type it reverts to whatever the previous setting was. If I select some already placed text, highlight the characters and then select a new font then the name in the fontbox doesn't even change.
The only way to change the font is to type some text, go into the text dialogue and change it there. Whatever font I pick in that dialogue is the one I get with the text tool from then until I go back and change it. It doesn't matter if I have the text tool set to "last style used" or "own style".
Sorry :(
I'm with you 100% in the GTK thing too. It drives me mad that I can't select my printer from GTK programs because the library ignores printcap printers and the fileselector is cluttered up with all sorts of shortcuts I can't change or delete. Configuration is a dark art and the library seems to assume that you're running a GNOME desktop much of the time.
Bah!
TWW
On Tue, 09 Jun 2009 06:51:30 +0100, bulia byak <buliabyak@...400...> wrote:
The usability of the font family drop-down list in the Text tool controls bar has been improved: it no longer steals focus, all keyboard shortcuts work as designed (Alt+X to access the family control, Alt+down to open the drop-down list, arrows to move in the list, Enter to set chosen font) and the completion feature works (start typing a family name and a pop-up list with possible completions appears). Remaining problems that may be fixed in the future versions:
* The first opening of the drop-down list of family names maybe slow if you have many fonts installed (the delay is Inkscape generating the previews for all fonts).
* By default on Linux, the drop-down is shown as a menu (graybackground, wide panel without horizontal scrolling) instead of a list (white background, narrow panel with horizontal scrolling). The menu style is inconvenient because of its excessive width. To fix this, find your ~/.gtkrc-2.0 file and inside the style that applies to all widgets, add GtkComboBox::appears-as-list = 1. For example:
style "user-font" { font_name="DejaVu Sans 10" GtkComboBox::appears-as-list = 1 } widget_class "*" style "user-font"
Windows version uses the list style by default.I should add that, after several days of tweaking this, starting from a patch by Felipe, I hate GTK more than ever. Its inconsistent behavior across platforms, poor configurability (can anyone please suggest how the list style can be set programmatically, not via an rc file? this style property is read-only in GTK!) and ambiguous documentation are really a shame. In the end I fixed everything except the above listed issues, using a few weird tricks but nothing really insane (standard GTK widgets only), and I think it should be good enough to release in 0.47. If and when someone comes up with a more advanced solution, it must be at least as good usability-wise as this one.
I tested it on Linux with GTK 2.15.4 and on Windows XP. Please report any problems to me, listing your platform and GTK version.