fix(menu): #131 — size text menus in ch with a cap, not in % of the monitor
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Bernardo saw Recovery ellipsize on a 2560x1440 external, which falsified
the item's model (40% + Inter 11 → "only below 1920"). Real cause: text
menus render through themes/<slug>/rofi.rasi, where boreal + neon-glass
pinned width: 620px (fixed — a wide panel buys nothing) while seven used
40%, and the font is whatever that file says — mostly monospace, far
wider than the Inter that was measured. The modelled combination ships in
no theme.

The insight: a menu must fit its longest label, which is a count of
characters in the THEME's font — so the window must scale with the font,
not the screen. 40% gives a 1366 panel 546px and a 2560 one 1024px for
the same row, and a 14pt mono theme needs ~25% more room than an 11pt one
on both; a percentage cannot see either fact.

Rofi has the right unit (`ch` = width of one digit in the current font)
and `calc( a min b )` to cap it, so every text menu — generated and all
nine whole-swaps — is now `width: calc( 84ch min 65% )`. 84ch fits the
longest row we ship (69 chars) plus icon and padding; the cap is
Bernardo's condition (never sprawl on a low-res panel) and it is
measured, not assumed.

Verified on hardware, not by arithmetic: 84ch = 756px in GeistMono 11 and
924px in JetBrainsMono 14; `calc( 84ch min 300px )` → 300px, so the clamp
really clamps. Screenshots at both ends — the real Recovery menu at 756px
(29% of 2560) with every label complete, and the Acer worst case
reproduced pixel-exactly (888px = 65% of 1366, JetBrainsMono 14) also
complete. Grid views override width per-invocation and are untouched.
checks.rofi-text-width guards the class, proven by pinning boreal back to
620px and watching it fail by name. Acer V3 queued for its own fontconfig.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
This commit is contained in:
2026-07-16 10:20:49 +01:00
parent 39c8b3e0eb
commit 5aad3153ce
15 changed files with 106 additions and 71 deletions

View File

@@ -153,64 +153,6 @@ whether Nomarchy holds itself higher — darker label, or a darker accent mix
for light palettes — and note `tools/check-theme-contrast.py` covers palette
pairings only, never GTK widget surfaces. `[human]` for the aesthetic call.
### 131. Recovery cost labels truncate on 1366-wide panels
#111 gave Recovery scope-first labels that carry the cost inline — "Desktop
generation — themes & home config (instant, reversible)" and "System boot
generation — older NixOS (reboot, then pick in boot menu)". They ellipsize,
**and the cost hint is exactly the part that gets cut**.
**Observed 2026-07-16 (Bernardo, T14s on a 2560×1440 external), which kills
this item's original model.** It said `width: 40%` + Inter 11 → truncation only
below ~1920, "confirm on the Acer". Both halves were wrong, and a wide monitor
is where he saw it:
- **Width does not track the monitor.** Text menus render through
`themes/<slug>/rofi.rasi`, and the whole-swaps disagree: **boreal (his) and
neon-glass pin `width: 620px`** — fixed, so a 2560 panel buys exactly nothing
— while the other seven use `40%`. (`launcher.rasi`'s 780px is a red herring:
it themes `-show drun` only, as its own header says.)
- **The font is not Inter 11.** A whole-swap's text menus use whatever that
file sets: boreal **GeistMono Nerd Font 11**, summer-day/night and kanagawa
**JetBrainsMono 14**, nord/lumon/retro-82 13, executive-slate Inter 13. Most
are **monospace** — far wider per character than the Inter the item measured.
Only the *generated* (non-swap) theme follows `t.fonts.ui`/`size`.
- So the modelled combination — 40% + Inter 11 — **is shipped by no theme**,
and truncation is not an Acer edge case: it is most theme × monitor pairs.
Measured for boreal, matching what he sees (GeistMono 11 ≈ 9.33px/char,
measured off Kitty at the same font/size; text room ≈ 518px = 620 32 window
padding 28 element padding 30 icon 12 spacing):
| row | chars | px | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Desktop generation — themes & home config (instant, reversible) | 63 | 587 | **cut** |
| System boot generation — older NixOS (reboot, then pick in boot menu) | 69 | 643 | **cut** |
| Files (BTRFS) — restore files or roll root (password + confirm) | 63 | 587 | **cut** |
| What changed — the last few generations, side by side | 53 | 494 | fits |
Three of four — "*some* of the submenus", exactly his words.
**The decision this needs (`[human]`-ish), because the cheap fix is a trap.**
Shortening labels to fit means fitting the *narrowest* combination we ship, and
that is not boreal: `40%` at 1366 with JetBrainsMono 14 leaves ~444px ≈ **39
characters** — which cannot hold a scope *and* a cost, so it would gut #111's
whole design for every user on a big screen. Options, and this is Bernardo's
call:
- **(a) Size the picker in `ch`** (rofi supports it) — e.g. `width: 72ch` in
every rofi.rasi + the generated theme. The window then scales with the font,
so a 14pt mono theme gets a wider window and a label that fits by
construction, on any monitor. Fixes the class; costs one line × 9 theme files
(the parity tax, same shape as #141).
- **(b) Keep labels short, move cost to rofi `-mesg`** — one line under the
prompt, full width, no per-row budget. Changes #111's "cost travels with the
row" premise.
- (c) Shorten to ~39 chars — cheapest, and the one that quietly loses the
information #111 added.
Whatever wins, **#132 stands**: the VM cannot judge this, so it needs a look on
real hardware (boreal on the dev box is now a positive control — it truncates).
### 132. VM cannot judge rofi menu geometry
The guest renders the picker with icons at roughly a quarter of `ui.iconSize`