Installing An Older Package

Question

I cannot stand the way Mozilla 1.4 renders fonts on the tool bars and in the menus. I know, I know they're configurable by editing userChromer.css but have you ever tried making sense out of their syntax; I can't, I'm just a human being.
Anyway, I've been perfectly happy with Mozilla 1.3.1 and because of those infinitessimal toolbar fonts in 1.4 don't want to change. I see that we have a PKGBUILD at CVS for 1.3.1. I can't make sense of how to access it. I'd dearly like to have 1.3.1 on this machine. What do I have to do?
jlowell

Answer 1

jlowell wrote:
marin_linuxer,
Would you kindly expand on a couple of things here:
1. Respecting Mozilla's Preference -> Appearance -> Fonts and the selection of "Other" in the Display Resolution Area, precisely how and  what are you measuring with your ruler?
2. Explain xrdb -merge kindly.
I looked at the possibilities of making an adjustment of display resolution but never knew where I was starting from because "system settings" was selected. Have had to edit userChrome.css to deal with menu items and toolbars. I'd appreciate your going into some more detail.
jlowell
1. Moz draws a line in a dialog box right in the middle of your screen ('bout 3" or so horizontal)  measuring that tells moz your exact Horiz dpi so it can draw the menu bars and such regardless of your X or Windoze screen settings.  To get your 'starting' dpi, which moz refers to as 'System Setting', do the following:
# xdpyinfo |grep 'resolution'
2.  I'm afraid I don't know much 'bout the xrdb thingy, I've never used it.  The solutions I mentioned always did the trick.  The 'DisplaySize' variable in the XF86Config lets the X server know the dimensions of your monitor's 'viewable' area in order to compensate for whatever resolution you choose(i.e. 1024x768; 800x600; etc.).  When I say 'viewable' area, I mean: 
1.  Turn monitor brightness to MAX
2.  Measure, in mm the 'exact' viewable dimensions of the actual 'glowing' part of your monitor, _NOT_ necessarily the edge-edge of the glass or plastic frame.
3.  If using LCD monitor, you can also get these specs from your owner's manual since LCD's are fixed and constant(unless you've done someth'n really weird to your settings(!) -- just hit the 'AUTO' adjust button in that case--IMHO).  Then measure the exact H & V of the visible pixel map, again, in mm using your ruler.
Hope that helps and just so you know, by doing these things you are adjusting the core of the display system instead of of making compensations later in the cycle.  Now XFT/Freetype/Fontconfig are another beast altogether and whomever said it earlier about needing the XRDB thingy may be correct for those issues(RGBA/hinting/etc.).  I've been fine with their defaults after making my corrections initially.  IceWM has XFT support and it looks great without the XRDB stuff, so ....... YMMV!!
Cheers.