[Fontconfig] confused about <alias> <prefer>

[Keith Packard]

Around 22 o'clock on Feb 26, Alan Chandler wrote:
> KDEs konsole has a mode in which it wants to use a 
> "default" font as the font that is used. It actually translates that as a 
> "fixed" family request through qt and then fontconfig (strongly bound) and 
> "monospace (weakly bound) (using QFont::Typewriter style hint).

If it wants the default monospace font, it shouldn't place the 'fixed' 
family name in the request.  'monospace' is always mapped to a monospaced 
font; 'fixed' is a specific family name used by several legacy bitmap 
fonts.

> I can get round the problem using the match pattern stuff in local.conf but
> I am also interested in the "correct" way of solving this issue.  

The right way is to get KDE to stop using a specific family name when it 
wants a generic monospace font.  I'm afraid this may well be my fault when 
I was originally hacking Qt for Xft support.  I used 'fixed' as the 
generic name before I figured out how font naming in CSS2 works and 
switched to 'monospace'.

> A problem with no obvious way out - except by trying to get "fixed" 
> overwridden when fontconfig does its matching.

You should be able to delete the 'fixed' entry with:

	<match>
	        <test name="family">
	                <string>fixed</string>
	        </test>
	        <edit name="family" mode="assign">
	        </edit>
	</match>

You might want additional tests to avoid eliminating 'fixed' from all 
applications (or maybe not -- there aren't any decent looking fonts in the 
fixed family).

-keith