How to change font in uTorrent 1.8

[zYx]

Hi,

v1.8 seems to have different font, bigger which doesn't look nice and also I can see less torrents.

How can I change that?

Cheers.

[Ultima]

It follows the desktop shell settings, so changing settings in the Display applet in the Control Panel should change the fonts in µTorrent.

[zYx]

Ok, but I haven't changed anything, I only upgraded uTorrent to 1.8 when requested and the font has changed.

So what font do you think I should change?

Thanks

[Ultima]

Can you take a screenshot of µTorrent with a Windows Explorer folder open as well, and post it here?

[zYx]

Yes, this is the screenshot of uTorrent and Windows Folder and yes the font is the same, but previous version o Utorrent which was 1.7.7 had smaller font so I could see more torrents. I don't remember the font name because off course I never paid attention to it...

[Ultima]

You'll need to change the font size globally in the Display applet's advanced appearance section. It's using the same size as Explorer because µTorrent respects the Windows settings.

[zYx]

So there is no way of editing uTorrent resource and change it manually just for uTorrent?

[Ultima]

I suppose you can try ResHacker on it, but I can't vouch for it, and we don't really support that either.

[zYx]

Res Hacker didn't work.. but thanks anyway.

[slaingod]

Yea, the uTorrent Devs need to get off the "it's too hard" mantra for changing fonts. Any competent programmer can make these changes in a day, it it would seem that there are a few competent programmers involved in uTorrent...just not many good UI designers, given the 1.8 RSS changes and the inability to do something so basic like change the font.

And saying "it uses the Windows default font just like Explorer" isn't true. And pointing to 'change the global DPI' isn't always an option, much less a good excuse when it affects every other application as well.

You can see here that

a) the fonts in explorer and utorrent are different

Extra Large Fonts are selected

Since this is a Remote Desktop/Terminal Server Connection, DPI settings are not available.

Just add this feature already. Put in a default font, try a couple of others out and rearrange things if needed. Leave the progress bar text as is if that is a huge deal. Do a search through the code base for places where it gets text metrics only by just grabbing the 'system' font and change them to use a custom font instead. Add the feature for those who need/want it; it shouldn't be rocket science.

Thanks. Sorry if this is rant-ish, but this is one of those things that pisses me off, because I program for a living as well, and excuses are just that.

[Ultima]

NOWHERE did we say that it was too difficult. I suggest that you REREAD my post before shooting your mouth/fingers off. If there is an issue with it not respecting Windows fonts, then fine, it'll need fixing.

Putting words in other people's mouths doesn't make anyone want to help you.

[thelittlefire]

You're a moron. It was SET by the program before. Right now it follows the user's profile settings. Not much of a rant, more of a uninformed.

[slaingod]

People have been asking for years for this basic functionality. If 'being a moron' gets this a little attention, then so be it.

theLittleFire said:

It was SET by the program before. Right now it follows the user's profile settings. Not much of a rant, more of a uninformed.

Maybe I am a moron, cause I'm not sure what 'follows a user's profile settings' means, other than what I was already indicating: that relying on the global user fonts selection and not providing any means of customization in the application is pretty lame. As of 8/25/08, Ultima was indicating that you would somehow "need to change the font size globally in the Display applet" to change the font (though this is not working for me at least as is shown in the image).

If there is some way that you are aware of that I can change the font size in uTorrent itself (as opposed to OS wide changes which aren't being honored by uTorrent either in my case), I would be happy to be 'informed'.

Ultima:

I would hardly say my post rose to the level of 'shooting my mouth off', but I have been wrong before. Also I wasn't necessarily referring to *your* posts w/r/t 'it being hard':

I paraphrased from "Firon=>This won't work without a lot of retooling. The GUI is basically not dynamic at all, so this would just make it look horrible." (from last post in http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=4141 a year ago). Maybe I should have made it clear that I read all of the other posts (that I found) on the subject as well.

I will admit my RSS jab was a little below the belt. Being forced to have the side bar open now and just how all of the feed data (filenames) runs together annoys me, since it doesn't show the show name separately now, etc. It is a lot more for the eye to parse, which is probably why I want to increase the font size. Hell, it took me 5 minutes to figure out how to even see RSS feeds in 1.8 after adding the same one over and over, assuming it wasn't working for some reason.

And too make things easier, most of the people that have issues with the font size really only care about the grid, IMO. I don't think it would be that hard to at least start down the path of allowing font size changes by starting with the grid.

[thelittlefire]

It follows your display profile. You didn't set your setting. It must be accepted... It accepts both the changes to DPI under advanced, and your alternate font sizing.

[slaingod]

You seemed to have missed the part where I said DPI settings are not available in Terminal server sessions. Lol, and if you are suggesting that the font hasn't changed because I didn't hit 'OK', then I think there is a kettle I would like you to meet. It should be obvious that the font size (Extra Large Fonts) was accepted previously, which was the whole purpose of including Explorer in the screenshot, to show the size difference.

( I run all of my utorrent, newsleecher, mirc, rails servers, etc. on a Windows Server 2k3 box in a Terminal session. Better TCPIP.sys, etc. Used to use VNC to accomplish the same thing. Then when I need to see that box from my main system, I just pop up the session window. The nice thing about Terminal session is I can set my screen size to be 1880x1040 ( + window borders in the RDC app), to match my main system's 1920x1080 monitor, whereas the server 2k3 box doesn't have that high res of a monitor attached. )

[Firon]

The font used to be hardcoded to Tahoma. Now it's MS Shell dlg.

[slaingod]

Not really sure how "MS Shell Dlg" would help with the font size too much, though interestingly someone mentions uTorrent font sizes in the forum post linked below about using ResHacker. Seems like an awful lot of trouble to make users go to to try to change something as simple as a font size.

http://www.msfn.org/board/lofiversion/index.php/t84075.html

I get that most of the UI needs to be fixed because it is a pain to use flow boxes for controls and have it all jibe consistently without some effort, or to have to get font metrics on every little thing and calculate it out. But the grid already has scroll bars, so it really shouldn't take much at all.

[thelittlefire]

Again, it means it's set from Windows. uTorrent was (in some cases) showing very wrong fonts, for instance when Tahoma was uninstalled/br0ken. If people want to change their font in ONLY uTorrent it is not up to the developers to provide that.

[slaingod]

Then who is it up to? I mean, if your position is that it is unreasonable to expect uTorrent to allow users to choose their font, then we really aren;t ever going to see eye to eye on the subject.

I mean I just went thru the list of apps I have running:

Directory Opus: Let's me change font/size

MySql Query Browser: Let's me change font/size

Newsleecher: Let's me change font/size

Outlook: Let's me change font/size

Flex Builder(Eclipse): Let's me change font/size

E Texteditor: Let's me change font/size

Pidgin: Let's me change font/size

SecureCRT: Let's me change font/size

MIRC: Let's me change font/size

Console: Let's me change font/size

eMule: Doesn't let me change size for list view

Tag'N'Rename: Let's me change font but not size

uTorrent: Doesn't let me change the font or size

Seems pretty clear that most apps provide for it. eMule has the same sort of threads as uTorrent does too. Fortunately, you can go and compile eMule/patch yourself if you want to change the font.

[thelittlefire]

GUI is the last to change in applications like this. The developers and staff have more important things to do, like fix bugs, fix regressions, before well... adding features.

Your attitude doesn't help your case. If you hadn't been intransigent I may have even piped up that I think allowing changing in-program has merit, unfortunately you lost all points you gained through argument by jibing that uTorrent isn't open source. It shouldn't be. You want to decompile/hack the EXE, it's released in uncompressed versions all the time. ResHacker can mess with it. Go do that and go back under your rock.

[slaingod]

If you just want to interpret my typing in an insulting way, I guess you could come up with that. I'm not really looking for 'points'. If the developers somehow decide to take my criticisms in the wrong light, and say 'we will never implement this feature now, cause we think that dude was a dick', then something is very wrong at BitTorrent/uTorrent as a company. I am more optimistic. Unless I am mistaken, the uTorrent dev's aren't working for free, so as paid programmer's they would need to be able to handle constructive criticism about their product without going all Rambo. Nothing I've said goes beyond mild sarcasm. I didn't call anyone names, or say that uTorrent sucked, or anything of that nature. I just made my argument forcefully.

I think it is a flip response to their users to say 'we use the default fonts, that should be good enough' when the fonts either don't actually follow the defaults in some cases or a number of users are requesting the feature. One thing developers tend to underestimate is that not everyone who wants that feature actually complains about its lack. I actually [care /am a dick] enough to complain about things that I see as 'low hanging fruit'/annoyances. Most people who might also agree won't go to the trouble of registering for the forums and making the request when they see that the other requests have gone unanswered for years. They will just suffer in silence or take their business elsewhere. I was never one of those people.

While obviously I would appreciate whatever support someone might want to add to the various requests for this feature, I was pretty sure I wouldn't get your support from the first 'moron' name calling, lol. C'est la vie.

I do like your profile's 'last name' tho, haha.

[TheDevian]

I just installed this program today, trying it out, I was also looking to find a way to change the font size. I found a few threads here about it, and some in other places as well. No one having a functional solution. I have gone into my display settings and changed every font to a much bigger one and yet this program still maintains a 9pt font. Even my tool tips are bigger than the text in this program. If there is in fact a setting that does it, maybe all of you people saying it can be done there in the advanced settings would be so good to tell the rest what setting specifically? there are 18 of them, 8 that have a font to size. I don't want to have to sit that closely to the screen and I can't see that well from sitting to close most of my life, nor do I want to change the size of every other font in my system to make up for the lack of functionality of one program. Why? because I am not an idiot, I also won't use white out on my screen to make a correction, or unplug the computer to turn it off, go figure.

I registered for this forum solely to post my agreement with slaingod, and to say that the response he and others have gotten here have made me decide to go back to my old client. good luck with your inability to change. even if it does "look bad" as your rep stated in another post, shouldn't that be for us to decide? for some of us looking bad is still better than not seeing at all.

thx for wasting my time

[kwai]

Long time Utorrent user here. Love the client, very stable, nice options, but I too would love to see a way to increase the font. In my case, I use a 46" LCD TV, with raised DPI and several other tweaks to make Windows more usable from 12" away. However, I have to strain my eyes to read anything in Utorrent. It's a minor inconvenience, but enough of one that I Googled and found this thread.

Sorry to raise a dead thread.

[db7178]

Allllllllrightey. I will tell you all below HOW TO CHANGE THE FONT AND SIZE IN uTORRENT.

I can't speak for Windows 7, but in Vista and XP and 98 (if your system is so antiquated), you can change such settings of your interface as title-bar size and menu fonts -- these settings are global. I forget how to access the XP or 98 settings, but in Vista (for which there's an extra step to get to these settings), this is how:

-- Right click on the desktop

-- Choose Personalize

-- Select "Window Color and Appearance"

-- Click "Advanced..."

-- Scroll to "Message Box" under the "Item"

The font selection, size, color, bold and italic settings here are the settings that control how uTorrent displays the torrents in the main window.

Choose what you'd like and you're done.

Bam.

I know this technique because never, ever on a Windows machine have I left it up to Microsoft to decide how oversized my title bars are or what my menu fonts are. And, being an old-school bitmapped-screen-font kinda guy, I've always chosen Andale Mono or Consolas or Monaco (which i ripped from my old mac 10 years ago). So because uTorrent displays its torrents in my usual font of Consolas, I knew it was abiding by one of my font settings. It was just a matter of figuring out which. And this morning, having amassed wayyyyyy too many torrents, I decided I needed to decrease the font size by a point so uTorrent could display more on the screen. So I went on the hunt.

This thread shows a lot of frustration that I totally understand and agree with. We oughta be able to change these settings microcosmically, so to speak, rather than to set them in the macro world of Windows itself.

In any case, the option is there. You just need to know how to get there.

[strewthmonkey]

I am also having a problem with font size being too small and, as slaingod mentions, changing global settings has no effect.

I registered on this forum after seeing the bad attitude of the forum administrators towards slaingod. He makes some simple points, not from ignorance but backed up by research and previous knowledge, and how do your administrators react? By getting upset and accusing slaingod of running his mouth off. This is ridiculous! Maybe when someone mentions a issue which should be easy to resolve you should try adressing this issue instead of getting narky with them. In conclussion slaingod, with his pre-empted appologies and thoughtful non-insulting attitude comes out of this thread lookig like a saintly genius, the opposition however come out of this looking rude and childish. Maybe in the future you will try actually having conversations with people who have different views to you rather than making accusations and bandying about the insults. The straw that broke the Camel's back was when you accused slaingod of being intransigent, if anyone was being intransigent it was you.