Regression: changing font size cause nothing in density

[BadIDMan]

Checklist

• I can reproduce the bug with the latest version given here.
• I made sure that there are no existing issues - open or closed - to which I could contribute my information.
• I made sure that there are no existing discussions - open or closed - to which I could contribute my information.
• I have read the FAQs inside the app (Menu -> About -> FAQs) and my problem isn't listed.
• I have taken the time to fill in all the required details. I understand that the bug report will be dismissed otherwise.
• This issue contains only one bug.
• I have read and understood the contribution guidelines.

Affected app version

1.5.0

Affected Android/Custom ROM version

Android 10

Affected device model

Huawei Mate 10

How did you install the app?

F-Droid / IzzyOnDroid

Steps to reproduce the bug

While having in Font size selected Medium or Large go to Settings again - Font size and select Small.
Go back to messages.
Result: number of messages is the same and space between messages is increased.

Expected behavior

Expected behavior is like it was in version 1.4.0 - when you change Font size from Large or Medium to Small then space between messages is changing and results in more messages are visible on the screen.

Actual behavior

when you change Font size from Large or Medium to Small then space between messages is not changing and result is that the same number of messages is visible which is awful.

Screenshots/Screen recordings

Version 1.4.0:
https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/a9baf5dd-298c-4b3f-8edd-abf9357427c6

Version 1.5.0:
https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/1c8dca45-c5b7-4aa5-ab98-66b00b5e16c2

Additional information

No response

[naveensingh]

While having in Font size selected Medium or Large go to Settings again - Font size and select Small.

It does change size when going from Large to Small, but how much depends on the device screen and configuration.

This is the expected behavior now as per the Material specifications (list items have a minimum height as I mentioned here). Does anyone else consider this an issue?

[antodc]

@BadIDMan In my case, going from medium to small actually increases the number of items that are shown. My impression, is that you get that "strange" result because of the size of the contact icons on your phone. The size of the icons do not seem to adjust to the size of the text and in the medium/small case you have the icons large enough that they determine the space between items. Instead, when the text is set to Large, it is larger than the icons and the distance between items is then determined by the size of text, not by the size of the icons. Not sure I was able to make me understood. :-)

@naveensingh In the current implementation, neither the distance between items nor the size of the contact icons seem to change when the size of the font is modified. I was wondering whether this is the expected behaviour. In my case, for instance, when the font is set to Very Large is does not look nice to still have rather small icons. Perhaps one would expect to have larger icons as well. I do not use the Very Large font, so personally I do not care, but maybe others would prefer otherwise.

[BadIDMan]

@antodc "because of the size of the contact icons on your phone" - I don't think it's a root cause. Size of contact icon is not editable. The same result is on my old-Huawei Mate 10 phone as well as on Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra. What is your phone model? It's interesting you do see result of more items shown on your device when changing Font size from Large to Small.

[antodc]

I am on Android 11, and in Settings -> Display there are two interesting options: "Font size" and "Display size". The former is obvious. The latter modify everything on your screen, including icons. Probably, you never changed those settings. If I set both to "Default" on my phone I get the same results as you, that is the number of items is the same for Medium and Small font in Fossify Messages.

However, in my phone I prefer to set "Display size" to "small", because I prefer to see smaller icons everywhere. At the same time, I set "Font size" to "Largest", because in that way the size of the text looks like it would be with the default "Display size". With that combination of Display/Font size, contact icons on my phone are smaller than contact icons on your phone, but the text size is more or less the same. So, that explains my suggestion/observation that your issue is probably more linked to the size of the icons than to the size of the text. Maybe you can try to see what happens if you modify the font size in Messages after changing "Display size" to small and "Font size" to largest in the phone preferences.

[naveensingh]

In v1.4.0, the maximum/minimum row height was determined by the tallest element in the list (contact photo, name + last message text, etc.) + padding but in v1.5.0, the minimum row height is 72dp (think pixels) regardless of how small the elements get. As per Material guidelines, this is the expected behavior for two line list items and many other Fossify apps don't yet respect this requirement. Such limits are usually there because high density/compact layouts do not meet accessibility requirements.

This is another reason why I think the in-app preference for font size is problematic and should be removed in favor of system options once Fossify apps switch to using standard font size as reported here. Some places like the chat screen could have pinch-to-zoom feature instead.

In the current implementation, neither the distance between items nor the size of the contact icons seem to change when the size of the font is modified. I was wondering whether this is the expected behaviour.

Yes, this is the expected behavior as of now. The preference strictly affects font size only, everything else is a "side effect".

@BadIDMan

If you'd like a more compact layout, please set Display size to smallest in your system settings. This is the way.

[antodc]

This is another reason why I think the in-app preference for font size is problematic and should be removed once Fossify apps switch to using standard font size as reported here. Some places like the chat screen could have pinch-to-zoom feature instead.

While I think that introducing a pich-to-zoom feature would be nice, I kindly disagree with the suggestion to remove the in-app preference for font size. In my opinion, that is a nice customization that should be preserved. Perhaps it would be enough to set the "Medium" size equal to the standard font size (whatever it is), if that is part of the problem mentioned in #118.

[BadIDMan]

On Samsung there are settings called Screen zoom and Font size.
I played with them but I can't achieve result as good as it was in 1.4.0 version of Fossify Messages.
But it's OK, I fully understand Fossify developers lacking knowledge and skills how to make in app a fully customized options to control size of fonts, icons, spacing between lines, etc... Maybe they should learn a little bit more or get lessons from other developers like those who made for instance "True Phone"?

[vqns]

Hi, I believe there is an actual regression.

On my phone, with small system font and and small scale, small app font now shows one fewer item than medium app font. Small app font also presents (too) much padding and displays much less than it used to, while medium app font is similar (actually looks slightly more compact).

scale / app font	old	new
small / small	14	10
smallest / small	18	14
small / medium	11	11
smallest / medium	15	15

Screenshots here.

Is it really not possible to have an option for a more compact layout? Small app font on the old version was the perfect size for me. Changing the system wide scale is not an option because then everything else is too small.

the minimum row height is 72dp (think pixels) regardless of how small the elements get. As per Material guidelines, this is the expected behavior for two line list items and many other Fossify apps don't yet respect this requirement. Such limits are usually there because high density/compact layouts do not meet accessibility requirements.

Is this really a problem if compact layouts are only an option and not enabled by default?