Console font size is 'tiny' on large displays, add configuration to set up

Jeff_Birt

RPie 3
42" LCD display, HDMI 1080P

I found that the font size used for the console, and thus many configuration menus for the RetroPie were very, very small to the point of being unreadable when displayed on my 'big' TV.

I used: sudo dpkg-reconfigure console-setup , to set the console font size to:14x28 (framebuffer only) , which seems to be a nice size for reading from my easy chair :)

It seems this might be a nice thing to add to the RetroPie configuration menu as it is something that does need to be tailored to the display used (unless it is there and I missed it.)

Now to figure out how the color scheme works for the dark grey text on light grey text boxes work (the ones displayed when you launch a game, as the emulator is being started.)

BuZz

@Jeff_Birt Ideally it would be added to raspi-config rather than retropie directly - there was a discussion on the forum recently. I may submit a patch to raspi-config if I get some time.

You can change the colours of the dialog via /opt/retropie/configs/all/runcommand-launch-dialog.cfg - you can disable it and use artwork etc via runcommand configuration from the RetroPie menu on emulation station.

Jeff_Birt

@BuZz said in Console font size is 'tiny' on large displays, add configuration to set up:

@Jeff_Birt Ideally it would be added to raspi-config rather than retropie directly - there was a discussion on the forum recently. I may submit a patch to raspi-config if I get some time.

That makes sense. I'll try to do some searching on how to modify raspi-config, never a bad time to learn something new :)

You can change the colours of the dialog via /opt/retropie/configs/all/runcommand-launch-dialog.cfg - you can disable it and use artwork etc via runcommand configuration from the RetroPie menu on emulation station.

Thanks for the pointer. I'll have to play with that when I get home.

meleu

@Jeff_Birt https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/FAQ#how-can-i-increase-the-console-font-size

psyke83

I wrote a scriptmodule to configure the font size mainly for personal use (and also before I searched the forum and saw that you preferred to send the feature upstream to raspi-config).

Implementing in raspi-config is a good idea, but I imagine that the means by which it would be done would be to simply wrap the dpkg-reconfigure command. The problem is that it presents the opportunity for users to screw up their locale settings in the process of changing the font if they don't pay attention.

Since it's finished already, I might as well share it. If you change your mind and think it might of be use in RetroPie-Setup, I'd be happy to send a PR. Otherwise, never mind :).

https://gist.github.com/psyke83/2a320e8b75692bc5b8cef58c8758e281

BuZz

@psyke83 You could probably upstream something user friendly like your module (but built into raspi-config) - or at least see if they would be willing to accept it. I think it would be useful for all Raspbian users.

I'll accept your module though if you do a PR , thanks - although it needs a few minor changes -

we use bash [[ not [.
It should not have any install/remove function.
It needs to exclude x11 via rp_module_flags
I think the word tweak should be removed from the name.
Instead of a quiet parameter, you can report the change in the gui_ function, but leave the config_ function so it's always quiet for command line use.
I would call the functionset_ rather than config_ to avoid confusion with configure functions.

psyke83

You've added my script - thanks! As I said, I'll investigate raspi-config, but this will probably remain useful if you start supporting different boards that use KMS.

I've added the information about the script module to the FAQ as well.

BuZz

@psyke83 Cheers!