feat: add hidpi article

Author: saveman71

_posts/2025-11-22-make-electron-hidpi-on-sway.md

@@ -0,0 +1,48 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "HiDPI Electron <37 apps on Sway"
+date: 2025-11-22 18:55:00 +0100
+categories: linux wayland sway electron hidpi
+---
+
+Electron 38 ships with Chromium 140 which landed [this change](https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/c/chromium/src/+/6775426) which made the Ozone (Chromium's platform abstraction layer) feature detection "auto" by default (from, like not feature detecting at all, apparently). It bases it's decision on the `XDG_SESSION_TYPE` environment variable.
+
+Previously I always had to add those flags to the command line:
+
+```bash
+/usr/bin/obsidian --enable-features=UseOzonePlatform --ozone-platform=wayland
+```
+
+That works but is annoying: you either need a terminal open and remind yourself to _not_ use [Albert](https://albertlauncher.github.io/) (the launcher I'm using).
+
+I also tried patching the installed `.desktop` files:
+
+```bash
+# copy and patch a desktop entry (one-off)
+desktop-file-install --dir=$HOME/.local/share/applications /usr/share/applications/obsidian.desktop
+# then edit ~/.local/share/applications/obsidian.desktop and add the flags to Exec=
+```
+
+It worked, but I was looking for a more permanent solution.
+
+[This answer on the Unix Stack Exchange](https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/768861/93390) hinted me to use the `ELECTRON_OZONE_PLATFORM_HINT` environment variable, which is supported by electron between version 28 and 38 (at which point it was removed, because unnecessary).
+
+I initially tried to edit my `~/.profile`:
+```bash
+export ELECTRON_OZONE_PLATFORM_HINT=wayland
+```
+
+However, this wasn't working:
+* Albert was still launching apps with low DPI
+* Launching the app from the terminal (without flags) was finally HiDPI, but well, back to square one.
+
+What worked is discovering a embracing systemd and discovering anew way of setting environment variables:
+
+```bash
+cat ~/.config/environment.d/electron-hidpi.conf
+ELECTRON_OZONE_PLATFORM_HINT=wayland
+```
+
+Another reboot later and Albert was finally launching apps with HiDPI.
+
+That will do, until all my apps are not using Electron 38 ;)