Retain font and size in Write Activity

[krid]

Dear madam, sir,
The Write Activity has a preset font (Dejavu Serif) and font size (12 pts). The font size is much too small for young students and a serif font is rather unusual when learing to read and write. No reading/writing method in the Neterhlands uses serif fonts and we expect the same in other countries.

Request:
Would it be possible to select font and size _and retain_ them in such a way that at a next startup it is not necessary to set font and size again

This feature would be much appreciated. We know font and size can be hard hard coded on every XO, but those settings are lost with every upgrade.

Thank you in advance for reading our request,
with amicable greetings, and thank you for a great project!

Dirk Schouten
Public Primary School Rosa Boekdrukker
the Netherlands

[RafaelOrtiz]

I agree with the default font size, this should be greater than 12 (at least 14),
what default font should be preferred here talking into account that we must use free fonts?

[humitos]

What is the best way to do this?

I'm thinking about save the last Size & Font used by the child in .ini to be parsed with ConfigParser the next time that the Activity is launched.

What's about gconf?

What do you think?

[godiard]

I propose do the same we are doing in GetBooks activity.

Use a .ini file, but check first if there are a similar file in /etc/

This is useful for deployments to change the config. By example, australia use a particular font.

[manuq]

Replying to godiard:

I propose do the same we are doing in GetBooks activity.

Use a .ini file, but check first if there are a similar file in /etc/

This is useful for deployments to change the config. By example, australia use a particular font.

+1

[sascha_silbe]

There was some discussion about this  on iaep in January 2010. Some concerns raised were:

• It's just one particular example of the general scaling / sizing problems in Sugar. See #39, #871 and  an explanation (on sugar-devel) of relationship between number of pixels, physical screen size, viewer distance and angular size (the one perceived by the viewer).
• A well-chosen default font is likely to have a better effect overall.
• Saving the last-chosen font globally means you can break the entire Write activity, rather than just a single instance. You can't just start over or resume a previous version.

Sugar doesn't have a concept of global configuration for an activity yet (though there is  a suitable place for storing activity-global data), at least partly because of the above concern (regarding breaking all instances rather than just a single one). Please ask the  Design Team for input if you still plan on implementing this.

[lionaneesh]

Patch, Note: This is a GCI task ( http://www.google-melange.com/gci/task/view/google/gci2012/7950210)

[lionaneesh]

Patch for sugar-0.94, Note: This is a GCI task ( http://www.google-melange.com/gci/task/view/google/gci2012/7950210)