Changing font style in PyGTK ComboBox

I am using the [[Glade Interface Designer]] to produce (very) small (and simple) graphical apps for my [[Neo FreeRunner]]. I produce the graphical layout in the form of an [[XML]] file (using Glade), then load this XML from a [[PyGTK]] program.

The thing is some defaults are not really usable for a device such as the NFR. For example, default fonts are in general too small for the tiny screen of the Neo, which favors apps with only a few, big and shinny buttons. In the case of Label widgets, you can use Pango markup format with the set_markup method, as follows:

mylabel  = self.glade.get_widget('label1')
txt  = '<span font_size="80000" color="red">%s</span>' % (text_string)
mylabel.set_markup(txt)

However, for other widgets it is not so evident. For example, in ComboBoxes (buttons with a drop-down list), you can’t put in the item list anything other than strings, which are displayed literally (markup is not interpreted). Moreover, CBs do not have a “set_font_style” method, or anything similar.

Searching the web did not provide immediate results, but I managed to find this FAQ item at eccentric.cx. I quote:

4.1.581 How do I change font properties on gtk.Labels and other widgets?
Easy:

 label = gtk.Label("MyLabel")
 label.modify_font(pango.FontDescription("sans 48"))

This method applies to all widgets that use text, so you can change the text of gtk.Entry and other widgets in the same manner.

Note that, some widgets are only containers for others, like gtk.Button. For those you’d have to get the child widget. For a gtk.Button do this:

  if button.get_use_stock():
     label = button.child.get_children()[1]
  elif isinstance(button.child, gtk.Label):
     label = button.child
  else:
     raise ValueError("button does not have a label")

Last changed on Thu Sep 1 14:46:30 2005 by Johan Dahlin (johan-at-gnome-org)

In the case of a CB, we have to pick its child (which is the list itself), and modify it thusly:

cbox = self.glade.get_widget("CBlist")
cblist  = cbox.child
cblist.modify_font(pango.FontDescription("sans 32"))

In my examples above, a class has been created in the script beforehand, and it binds to the Glade XML:

class whatever:

  def __init__(self):

    #Set the Glade file
    self.glade    = gtk.glade.XML(gladefile)
    self.glade.signal_autoconnect(self)

Of course, the CBlist and MyLabel mentioned in my code are the appropriate widget names defined in that XML.

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