this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2026
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A modern and simple font (pre)viewing application seems to be an impossible thing … (lemmy.ml)
submitted 6 days ago by Dirk@lemmy.ml to c/linux@lemmy.ml
29 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

So, yeah, basically the title …

I am in search for a good and simple and modern font viewing application. But there seems to be nothing that matches my criteria.

  • The software needs to be independent from any desktop environment, because I don’;t use one and i am not willing to install what feels like hundreds of specific dependencies

  • The software also should not be a font manager, I can manage my fonts absolutely fine by my own.

  • The software also does not need any features to view “installed and uninstalled” fonts (a term I come across – whatever that means), just give it a file name as parameter and view that font in the GUI.

  • The software should not be dead (i.e. last upstream change over a decade ago, using a dead graphics toolkit, not working on Wayland, etc.).

But either I forgot how to search the web or there seems to be no such application. All I wound was either decades old, dead software, or overly complicated and complex font managers or modules for the two common desktop environments.

Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks in advance :)

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[–] just_another_person@lemmy.world 20 points 6 days ago (2 children)

These types of apps became fairly irrelevant with the advent of Web Fonts and sites that already do all of this.

There's Fontbase, Gnome's Font Manager, KDE's Font Viewer and FontForge that are still maintained.

The fact that you're asking for whatever tool to not use something like QT or GTK is asking for the moon here. These types of applications you describe are generally packaged with a DE for this very use. I don't think there's a real use-case for someone to develop this independent of any DE, honestly. That's what they're most useful for.

[–] Dirk@lemmy.ml 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

These types of apps became fairly irrelevant with the advent of Web Fonts and sites that already do all of this.

That’s my point. All of those stupid modern things do not solve my issue of just double-clicking a local ttf file in my file manager to see some text rendered in that font. That is literally all I want to do.

The fact that you’re asking for whatever tool to not use something like QT or GTK

I don’t really care what graphics toolkit is used. I just don’t want something that is heavily interconnected with any type of desktop environment due to not wanting to install a metric shit-ton of dependencies 😉

[–] Holytimes@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 days ago

doesn't care if it uses it or gtk

Doesn't want to install "a shit ton of dependencies"

You appear to have a case of terminal unreasonable standards for what qualities as a "shit ton"

[–] FishFace@piefed.social 6 points 6 days ago (1 children)

those stupid modern things

As far as I know, GNOME and KDE have had font viewers since time immemorial.

If the requirement is "few dependencies that I don't already have" then we need to know something about what dependencies you already have and what constitutes too many. As far as I can see, gnome-font-viewer's one GNOME-specific dependency is libadwaita.

[–] Dirk@lemmy.ml 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

As far as I know, GNOME and KDE have had font viewers since time immemorial.

I was talking specifically about web fonts and web font websites which help me not the slightest with my use case.

[–] FishFace@piefed.social 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Oh, ok.

So, what dependencies do the DE font viewers actually pull in? How much space does that take up? What are the limits?

[–] Dirk@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

So, what dependencies do the DE font viewers actually pull in?

The ones specific to that DE, which I do not want.

[–] FishFace@piefed.social 1 points 5 days ago

So, given you won't give any more detail on your requirements, I take it you just don't like 'em.

If you just don't like stuff for no objective reason then there's no reason for anyone else to build something satisfying your caprices. No-one can really help you because you're not letting anyone inside your head.

I'm sure you can knock something together in your GUI toolkit of choice that satisfies your whims. Zenity makes it easy to write styled text in a dialog box; maybe start there.