This is a quick post for anyone out there wanting to change the font size of the SQLDeveloper 2.1 IDE

I downloaded SQLDeveloper 2.1 (really cool!) for Linux and installed it under /opt/sqldeveloper. All that remained to be done was to make /opt/sqldeveloper/sqldeveloper.sh executable and off I went!

Sun's website is now Oracle-branded so it took me a while to get a Sun JDK 1.6 but java.sun.com still works, albeit it's read!

So back to my initial problem, changing the IDE font size. Sue Harper had the correct idea by changing ide.properties but that file wasn't to be found under /opt/sqldeveloper where I installed it.

It is however, unix conform, in ~/.sqldeveloper - the exact path depends on your build so it's easiest to simply do a find ~/.sqldeveloper -iname "ide.properties" and then edit it.

All I literally did was to to add a line "Ide.FontSize=10", saved the file and restarted SQL Developer. Done! Read the comments in ide.properties, there are many more options available.