[martinced]

I'm using IntelliJ IDEA on Linux since version 4 or so (we're now at version 12).

And I agree with you but...

The trick is to use a pixel perfect font with no anti-aliasing at all and to set the correct vertical spacing between lines and then IntelliJ is just going to look fine (for a Java app).

So first you go download a real font (a font made especially for programming, like the Proggy fonts which you can get at proggyfonts) (I take the .ttf version)

You relaunch IntelliJ and then go to:

Settings / IDE Settings / Appearance / Editor / Colors & Fonts / Font and then you set your pixel perfect font, say :

ProggySquareTT (Size: 16, Line spacing: 1.3)

(oh and btw IntelliJ is so stupid that if you have "Show only monospaced fonts" checked it won't understand that Proggy is monospaced and hence not show it into your fonts choice list)

I'm 40 years old and still have 10/10 eye vision, which I attribute to two things: avoid dark characters on light background scheme anytime it's possible and never ever using anti-aliased fonts (which are blurry)

"Pixel perfect" is the way to go here. And anyway anti-aliased fonts under Linux are so fugly compared to OS X / Windows that you're really not missing much by going pixel perfect.

Regarding the other IntelliJ IDEA fonts (the ones which are not the editor / console), I'm stealing a Tahoma.ttf from Windows and settings everything to be Tahoma.

Same for my Emacs but for whatever reason under Emacs I'm using Terminus and not Proggy at the moment ; )

Now of course it's really sad that the only "ok" desktop UI ever made with Swing is the one made by JetBrains: it took people who wrote the fscking most advanced Java IDE to come up with a reasonably looking Java Swing app : (

The Eclipse guys didn't even bother and created their own UI (SWT) which kinda speaks volume about the nameless mediocrity that Swing is : (