History of KDE desktop styling and usability problems - Phase Two

Wiki pages are not the best place to progress developments in a problem, but they are more controllable than the time ordered blog entries. The next step in this thread is Plasma 6 KDE with X11 on Tumbleweed which is the situation as of 7/7/2025.

Application UI scaling was a previous note on the problem of fonts on the KDE desktop, but this is an attempt to document exactly what I AM seeing.

The starting point with all this was the high resolution monitor that I switched to as the four 27" HD monitors were no longer available. It was augmented by a 19" HD monitor, but that just seemed to confound things, so having saved up a little money, a second reconditioned 32" 4k monitor now sits in it's place. Yet still things are proving to be difficult. I KNOW that the starting point should be to simply wipe everything back to default, but just how precisely does one do that? In X11 I have a global scale option on the Display & Monitor Display Configuration page which modifies both monitors, while on wayland each is changed separately. Currently I have all back at 100% along with switching off the font DPI override in X11. That one does not appear in wayland. Is there anything else that needs to be cleared to give a base to work from? Not sure, but at least this is a starting point.

So now I should be able to set a suitable font size for the screen size? On wayland I've just changed from 10pt to 12pt and the screen font went DOWN is size, so need to compare that action with X11. Time to save this and re-log in. I really must look and see if I can recable the two displays since while logged out they are the wrong way around! Anyway now back in on X11 and after changing away from 12pt and back I seem to have the same font size as under wayland. A start at least. An more important, I can actually read the text around the firefox window such as the tabs. THAT has been a problem with wayland which I need to go back and cross check ... however in Thunderbird I have to set the font option to 24pt to get something similar to the 12pt in other windows. The major problem IN Thunderbird is, as with other applications, pop-up windows like search messages open up with a font half the size of that in the main window. So where exactly is this getting broken?

Going to head out for a bit so back to this latter when I'll go through a few more of the problem apps and see what the starting point is there ... then cross check with wayland. One that may be a problem is KiCAD which has already put it's hand up to the fact that things it relies on to function as it does are deliberatly removed in wayland, so I should stay with X11 anyway to maintain a key factility I have built a lot of designs on in the past.

From the previous notes ...
Plasma 6 KDE with X11 on Tumbleweed, Application UI scaling and various points in blog posts since ...

Todays fun is simply growing ...
FreeCAD fails to build, cannot dup with current version - so currently I can't work on the model railway stuff and get profile drawings made until that is fixed. It first broke some time before the reported date, but people were expecting a quick update to the libraries.
Also broken once again is the wired network connection. I've had to drop back to kernel 6.19.8-1 in order to get back to a working build when we are currently on 6.19.10-1 the Ethernet controller seems to get weekly updates and monthly failures, but at least I do know I can drop back to get it working again. The wireless backup is working and for the first time in all the years I've been paying for 6G the PHONE is actually claiming to be using it! Final the Vodafone merger is showing a dividend, just a pity I can't rely on it.
Others are now reporting on the Wayland failings such as ; Wayland Plasma puts all restored window to the wrong screen and I've posted my own experiences there. Basically I was having problems again with the X11 session so switched to a Wayland one, but every time you log in it takes time to get in sync with the actual screen setup. It does not help that I actually have 4 by 4k monitors attached to the desktop machine, and while logged out they have a different layout to what is set once logged in. I have M1, M2 nad M3 left to right and TV is behind M3 so I can set up something on the monitor and switch over the TV to watch it on the 42". But when I log out the order is M2, M3, TV and M1. Not really a problem as the mouse normally stays on M2 and I only need one screen to log in, but logging in as Wayland, the right hand screen has three quarters of a picture from the left hand wallpaper until it all goes blank and comes up again ... with the normal app all in the wrongs places. Even after logging OUT from a previous Wayland session! In addition, I finally spotted that the problem I originally had with the screens not going to screen save was only happening on the Wayland session and I had been logging out at night to get them to switch off. The X11 sessions time out as expected, but keep waking up during the night and since the desk is in the corner of the bedroom ... I still have to log out at night. I can't switch off as the three machines backup amongst themselves over night.

The main gain in Wayland is that most of the windows display at proper sizes while on X11 some have fonts that are rather too small. Things have been improving, but some apps are easier to use on X11 and others on Wayland. Not much help if one is in a rush so have to put up with the poor quality screens. I'm back on X11 at the moment and just spotted a 2773 file update having had nothing for some days. Just hope that it has a fix for the wired connection as I only get one previous build on the boot screen!

The main thing is that I have almost nailed down release 5.0.0 of the bitweaver framework including building a new site from scratch using Firebird. A few loose ends, but all the live sites are running better than they have been!