Ubuntu – How to change the size of the Dash font

fontshudunityunity-dash

I've just installed and configured Ubuntu 12.04 on my machine. I've changed all font sizes, with the myunity tool, and they're now all set to the Ubuntu font size 9.

However, I can't find anywhere in Ubuntu a way to change the HUGE dash search/UI font. Any idea on where I can change it? Any dconf/gconf setting option?

Here are some screenshots, compare the size of the dash fonts to desktops apps.

Dash font:
enter image description here

Desktop font:
first screen

second screen

Best Answer

Unfortunately, the current answer is: you cannot (unless you figure out and modify the source code).

In this answer, I list the ways which do not work, to save future reader-modders the time and trouble of trying and failing.

A. Existing bug report

  • Bug #756845 ("Unity dash search unable to change font/icon size") refers to this exact problem, as shown by part of the screenshot for the bug report:

    enter image description here

  • The bug has been confirmed and labeled "low importance", with no comments by developers or anyone else on a workaround or when it will be resolved.

B. Changing fonts or the scaling factor in gnome-tweak-tool

  • This does not work either:

    enter image description here

  • Changing the scaling factor appears to change everything BUT the dash/hud font size (that's a 1920x1080 screenshot below -- compare the terminal font size!):

    enter image description here

C. Editing dash-widgets.json in the Unity Theme folder

  • You can find a file called dash-widgets.json in /usr/share/unity/5/ and /usr/share/unity/themes. This contains a bunch of CSS-like settings that may give you hope, such as:

      "preview-heading-small"  : {
    "main-title-size"    : 23.0,

    but changing them does not work. (the Dash font is approximately size 22)

D. Changing the Launcher Icon size Doesn't Affect It

  • Since the dash text field is almost exactly the height of the Ubuntu launcher icon, you might think decreasing the icon size would change the height of the text field and make its font smaller.

    • Changing the icon size is easy from the Unity Plugin in CompizConfig Settings Manager (ccsm), or from its MyUnity frontend:

    enter image description here enter image description here

    • But decreasing to the minimum, 32, doesn't change the dash font size!

    enter image description here