Icons in settings sidebar are too small on macOS

[selfishseahorse@…]

The icons in the settings sidebar are way too small - It's impossible to get what they represent.

Please provide any additional information below. Attach a screenshot if possible.

URL:http://josm.openstreetmap.de/svn/trunk
Repository:UUID: 0c6e7542-c601-0410-84e7-c038aed88b3b
Last:Changed Date: 2017-10-29 19:52:48 +0100 (Sun, 29 Oct 2017)
Build-Date:2017-10-29 19:11:19
Revision:13053
Relative:URL: ^/trunk

Identification: JOSM/1.5 (13053 en_GB) Mac OS X 10.12.6
OS Build number: Mac OS X 10.12.6 (16G1036)
Memory Usage: 349 MB / 910 MB (152 MB allocated, but free)
Java version: 1.8.0_151-b12, Oracle Corporation, Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM
Screen: Display 69677504 1280x800
Maximum Screen Size: 1280x800
VM arguments: [-Djava.library.path=/Applications/JOSM.app/Contents/MacOS, -DLibraryDirectory=${HOME}/Library, -DDocumentsDirectory=${HOME}/Documents, -DApplicationSupportDirectory=${HOME}/Library/Application Support, -DCachesDirectory=${HOME}/Library/Caches, -DSandboxEnabled=false, -Dapple.laf.useScreenMenuBar=true, -Dcom.apple.macos.use-file-dialog-packages=true, -Dcom.apple.macos.useScreenMenuBar=true, -Dcom.apple.mrj.application.apple.menu.about.name=JOSM, -Dcom.apple.smallTabs=true]

Plugins:
+ reverter (33572)
+ undelete (33480)

Last errors/warnings:
- W: No configuration settings found.  Using hardcoded default values for all pools.

[Don-vip]

During #10455 I stumbled upon the problem but couldn't find a way to solve it, see my comment:

The icons in preferences dialog are ridiculously small. From ​​documentation it is stated "JTabbedPane objects in OS X [...] have a standard size. If you put an image in a tab, the image is scaled to fit the tab instead of the tab to the image."

Default UI is set ​here.

Implementation is ​here.

Still not sure if we can fix it easily. Note also #7548 which aims at reworking the preferences dialog and replacing icons by text.

Without waiting for #7548 we could maybe simply display text on macOS.

[Alexander-II]

In the case of using any other styles (metal, nimbus, CDE/motif) the size of the icons seems normal. Perhaps it makes sense to take a look what the difference is between them. Should I upload a screenshot to show how it looks in a different style?

[Don-vip]

Not needed, thank you. It is clear what the issue is: Aqua look&feel is not designed to display icons in vertical tabs.

[richlv]

If changing icons to text is much easier than #7548, that would be greatly appreciated. Using settings on MacOS is rather hard currently.

[Don-vip]

Ticket #14399 has been marked as a duplicate of this ticket.

[richlv]

Other looknfeel styles are not good workarounds, unfortunately - the "Fn" and "option" modifiers do not work for text editing (home/end functionality, jumping at word borders etc).

Another problem with MacOS looknfeel is missing/invisible selection highlight at #17865.