Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[ETP]

Screen Resolution:

Whilst selecting say 640x480 will result in large text & icons it will not provide the best clarity. The best approach is to begin by selecting the highest resolution that your particular graphics card & screen will support and then to make suitable adjustments.
Initially this first step will make everything too small but things will get better very quickly.

Basic Tweaks:

Some of these are interdependent and the golden rule is to make only small adjustments to begin with and then refine them to suit your needs by making further small adjustments. I have suggested some safe starting points which should work with resolutions from 1280x1024 to 1920x1080.

Try the following (in order):

1. Select "no shadow" in Rox options (leave the font as you find it for now)

2. In desktop "select global font size" increase by no more than 2 buttons. (Start point = 96)

3. If using LCD load the Fontwizard.pet, run, select all tick boxes then restart X.

http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/puppylinux/pet-packages-lucid/fontwizard.pet

4. Back in Rox options pinboard, increase font size by one or two points (Start point = DejaVu Sans 12pt BOLD)

5. In desktop/GTK theme chooser, increase the font size.
(Click on font & increase point size) (Start point = Sans 13)

6. May need to then tweak 2, 4 and 5.

Desktop Tweaks:

Icons
Select a desktop icon theme that you find to be both clear and legible. You may find that a simple dark coloured background is better than artistic wallpaper:

Example:
(faenza_lrx_new.pet by 522256741 & big_bass)

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?mode=attach&id=38334&sid=e3310b37e6ac9fbad7bf9f1ac8bcca14


Cursors:
A larger or more distinctive cursor may help. Load a pack before selecting from the desktop menu.

http://ftp.nluug.nl/ftp/pub/os/Linux/distr/puppylinux/pet-packages-lucid/Cursor_themes-1-Lucid.pet

JWM Themes:
There are many icon packs & theme packs to be found in the “Eye Candy” section of the forum. Of particular merit is Dewbie’s Blue-Tripack.pet

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?mode=attach&id=50089


GTK Themes:
The excellent Stardust theme (included in many pups) by Zigbert complements the above JWM theme.


JWM Tray Height:

In JWM config manager navigate to tray management then to tray height. (Start point 125%)

JWM Clock Font:

Go to Desktop Settings/Pupclockset Manager & then the JwmFnt tab.
Move down to the color selector and change the colour of your text to say black.
(You may also want to increase the point size slightly and/or use bold) (start point = Sans 13 BOLD)
Save changes then restart JWM.
Warning – do not select a text colour that matches the clock background colour as it will render the text invisible!

JWM Menu:

Pressing F12 will bring this up on screen. Esc will exit. Navigate the menu structure using your 4 arrow keys.

Browsers:

It is all too easy to be squinting at small text on a site forgetting about the built in zoom abilities of most browsers. Holding down the CTRL key then tapping the plus or minus keys will enlarge and reduce the text size. As an added bonus most modern browsers retain page level zoom data so that if you re-visit the page it will apply the correct degree of zoom.

Advanced Tweaks:

N/B Before applying any of these backup your save-file first in case of any unintended consequences.

HOT KEY- to move cursor to centre of screen: (Windows key)

If you frequently loose track of your cursor this may help. A seemingly simple request by Flash followed by a collaborative effort detailed in another “How To” ultimately provided a simple method. Begin by loading Stu90’s .pet for xdotool

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?mode=attach&id=43168

Then
1. Backup your save-file just in case of unintended consequences.

2. Open a urxvt terminal, type xev & press enter

3. Briefly press & release the desired windows key.

4. Note the keycode that appears in the two events (press & release)
- In my case this produced 115 - YMMV -

5. Using the keycode that you obtained, if it differs from 115, add the following block of code to the keycode section of the hidden file /root/.jwm/jwmrc-personal