Towards making the Zipit Z2 a useful small computer, there are a few distinct paths:
- Optimize it as a command-line oriented, text-based tool, with lots of custom scripts and appropriate applications.
- Optimize it with a Linux GUI and adapt normal Linux applications to work with the small screen (320x240 pixels)
- Adapt prior work from small screen, PDA-oriented Linux GUIs, such as the work done for the Zaurus platform
I've been making efforts from all three angles... the first being easiest and simplest to acheive, the last offering the cleanest solution through the most effort. Today, I'd like to share some of my success in the second arena.
On my Zipit running Debian, I've finally managed to control font sizes.
Specifically, the huge fonts for in-program menus and text was driving me crazy, as it made most programs unusable at 320x240. For Fluxbox and Matchbox, the setting for this is in the same system, GTK. You can control the fonts by adding one simple file to your home directory (/root or ~). The filename is .gtkrc and here are the contents:
style "default-text" {
fontset = "-*-arial-medium-r-normal--*-60-*-*-*-*-iso10646-1,\
-*-helvetica-medium-r-normal--*-60-*-*-*-*-*-*"
}
class "GtkWidget" style "default-text"
This will make the fonts extremely small, yet readable. Changing the 60s to 70s may be more comfortable.
