Zimbra 7 Web Client Font Problem

[amnesia]

I just upgraded one of my Zimbra servers to 7.0, and everything went cleanly except I'm having an issue with the default font for the web client. I'm not sure what font it is, but it is almost unusable on some clients. Different browsers/platforms offer marginally improved appearance but even on IE8/Win7 it shows up as a non-antialiased font with spacing problems. Oddly enough the admin interface is fine, and the font is clear and properly aliased, so this is only on the client interface.

Is there some place I can change the default font? I have looked through the admin panel but don't see anything. Here is a screenshot of what I'm talking about:

[amnesia]

Ok I figured out how to change it, but I think this should be marked as a bug. If anyone else is unhappy with the font settings, edit this file:

/opt/zimbra/jetty-6.1.22.z6/webapps/zimbra/skins/_base/base2/skin.properties

In the fonts section, look for the line that reads "FontFamily-default = ...." and change the font chain to something normal.

Zimbra, for some reason, has chosen a lot of non-stanard fonts for the default font chain. The default font being "Helvetica Neue", which is not installed by default on most platforms (not even sure where it comes from), the next fallback is the classic Helvetica, which everyone knows looks like crap and is not aliased or anything. After updating the default FontFamily, just run:

zmprov flushCache skin

and reload the page and you should be good to go. My users are much happier now.

[uxbod]

Out of curiosity what font chain did you end up using ? I am on Ubuntu 10.10 and the interface looks very crisp to me.

[amnesia]

I ended up using "tahoma, geneva, verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif", which seems to provide good results across all platforms and browsers. I am personally on Gentoo+Opera, but most of the users are Win7+FF. Everyone seems happy with this setup so far.

[uxbod]

Interestingly I tried out the same fonts; as they are the ones used on this forum. Under Chrome they look lovely and checked IE8 and just as good. If you would be so kind as to file and RFE that would be awesome

[Cringer]

Thank God for this forum.
I upgraded to 7.0 at the weekend, and have had nothing but complaints all day, that peoples screens had become blurred. It too me a while to track the problem down to this strange font list, but didn't know what to do next.
Thanks for the font list, I've just used that and everything looks so much better.
I also see a lack of Themes for 7 and notice a lot of themes have been removed. But I'm sure this will improve over time.
Yes raise a Bugzilla and I'll add my vote, as I don't realy fancy having to hack Zimbra after every upgrade.

-Si-

[d2globalinc]

I just got our 7.0 upgrade done this morning, and this was the first thing I noticed.. :S - I'm going to put this fix in QUICK!

Thanks!

[Cringer]

Originally Posted by d2globalinc

I just got our 7.0 upgrade done this morning, and this was the first thing I noticed.. :S - I'm going to put this fix in QUICK!

Thanks!

The attitude difference in my users was amazing. From why did you bother updating, to this new version is fantastic.

Thanks amnesia.

[d2globalinc]

Yup - same response / change of mood I just got from a few users..

[amnesia]

Originally Posted by Cringer

The attitude difference in my users was amazing. From why did you bother updating, to this new version is fantastic.

Aye, same here. Most of the new features have been welcome though. And I have to admit, the upgrade went very cleanly except for this little annoyance. I give Zimbra kudos for that.

I've been a software developer for over 20 years now, and one thing I can tell you with certainty that I've learned: users hate interface changes!

Originally Posted by uxbod

Interestingly I tried out the same fonts; as they are the ones used on this forum. Under Chrome they look lovely and checked IE8 and just as good. If you would be so kind as to file and RFE that would be awesome

Cast your votes here:

https://bugzilla.zimbra.com/show_bug.cgi?id=56698