Feature Request - Fix HiDPI scaling in linux

[jackdpeterson]

Scaling works great in Windows and MacOS. It's time to bring that same great feel in spotify over to the linux world! Right now, if one has a high-density display (read, high PPI) then the text becomes unreadable in the spotify application.

I happen to be using ubuntu 16.04 Desktop; however, I'm sure other *nix display manager environments are also impacted by this.

Please +1 / upvote this if you view this as a priority for improving your spotify experience (and include some system specs to help those friendly spotify devs with sampling data)!

[pms1969]

I'm running Antergos, and have the same problem.  It's workable: barely, but it would be nice to be able to not have to get the magnifying glass out to use the app.  Impressed that there is one tho, so thank you.

[hanspeteriv]

Please. It almost takes a magnifying glass to read anything. Just look at the size of the mouse pointer and window title bar in relation to the window content in the attached screenshot.

I'm using a macBook Pro 14,1 (13", 2560x1600px) with Arch Linux, Gnome Desktop 3.24.2 and Spotify version 1.0.57.474.gca9c9538.

[hanspeteriv · Accepted solution]

The issue is only that Spotify doesn't auto-detect the correct scaling factor.

If you pass a scaling factor on the command line it will scale just fine:

$ spotify --force-device-scale-factor=1.5

If you start Spotify using a .desktop file, you can modify it to pass the scaling factor every time like this:

/usr/share/applications/spotify.desktop

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Spotify
GenericName=Music Player
Comment=Spotify streaming music client
Icon=spotify-client
Exec=spotify --force-device-scale-factor=1.5
TryExec=spotify
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Audio;Music;Player;AudioVideo;
MimeType=x-scheme-handler/spotify;

This solution is not as nice as auto-detecting the scaling factor but unless you often change displays this should solve your problem.

It would be helpful if

$ spotify --help

would tell people that the --force-device-scale-factor option exists.

[pms1969]

Champion effort.  Works a treat.

[richtl]

Yeah, same thing with Ubuntu 17.04 on my HiDPI display.

[michel-slm]

Dell XPS 13 running Fedora, Spotify installed via Flatpak from Flathub. I don't really want to modify the desktop launcher, so I created a shell alias instead:

alias spotify='flatpak run com.spotify.Client --force-device-scale-factor=2'

[punkrockdude]

I am having the same problem using the Spotify flatpak from Flathub in KDE Plasma 5.12.

[user-removed]

Hello,
The Spotify app does not have this function, but you can suggest your idea in this community.
https://community.spotify.com/t5/Ideas/ct-p/newideas

Please mark as solved, thank you!