sweethome3d: Poor font rendering and weird menus

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Name

sweethome3d

Version

7.5

Summary of the problem

The default Swing UI style is really, really poorly rendered on modern Linux systems, making SH3D pretty hard to use (in my opinion). Normally this wouldn't be a packaging issue (and it still might not be), but I discovered with some internet research that setting the following environment variable in the .desktop file makes the fonts far better, and makes the program much more usable: _JAVA_OPTIONS='-Dawt.useSystemAAFontSettings=gasp -Dswing.defaultlaf=com.sun.java.swing.plaf.gtk.GTKLookAndFeel'. This forces Swing to use a GTK style which (while I'm a KDE user) at least has working fonts, a little more padding around buttons, and an overall easier-on-the-eyes look and feel.

I'm opening this issue as a discussion point around possible unwanted side-effects of making this change. I have not, for example, tested this on other DEs to check for bad behavior. I am also open to the conclusion that this is a simple matter of personal taste and should be left out of the package. The font readability problem is really what prompts me to make this issue.

More information

Here's a screenshot of the default Swing style on my system:

While this is the GTK-ified version produced by the environment variable I've posted:

Start by reviewing the sweethome3d .desktop entry and the proposed _JAVA_OPTIONS values for Swing. Compare the default and GTK look-and-feel behavior on Linux desktop environments, including KDE, and check for side effects. Done means reaching a clear decision on whether the package should apply the settings, with any desktop-entry change validated.