[Fontconfig] gnome-terminal and font selection -- again

[John A. Boyd Jr.]

Hi Brian,

If you're ambitious enough to try the attached patches, you'll have a
more complete solution, but unfortunately, the maintainers of the
various packages involved don't seem all that interested (except for
the FreeType folks).

These patches may be a bit out of date at the moment; I'm sure I'll
update them next time I feel the urge to update one of the packages
involved.  Until then, this is the best I can do, not being a maintainer
of any of these packages myself.

I've commented on the problem a few times to this list, by the way.
The problem is that the XLFD 'setwidth' attribute was not carried
forward in any of the font-related packages culminating at
'gnome-terminal'.  The attached patches collectively resolve the
issue.

Keith Packard commented to this list recently that a new 'width'
attribute has been added to fontconfig.  I defer to his knowledge
of the issue and the packages involved, but with all due respect to
him, I'm sure that's not enough by itself.  I invite Keith to look
at my patches, to comment further, and/or to assist me in getting the
rest of the maintainers of these packages to do something, whether that
be considering and adopting my patches, or whatever else.

Or, is there some reason someone doesn't want 'fixed' and other common
bitmap fonts to be used in the first place?  All things considered, it's
a fair question, I would humbly suggest...

-John

Brian J. Murrell wrote:
> My appologies if you see this more than once.  I tried a couple of times
> to post via Gmane but that does not seem to be making for some reason.
> 
> I know this topic seems to get covered in various places with various
> different hacks (i.e. deleting "fixed" fonts until the one you want is
> the
> only left with enough priority that it gets used), but I want to try to
> solve it properly on my system without hacking up my fonts.conf file
> like
> I have to everytime I install a new fontconfig package.
> 
> With the help of xfd, I have determined that the font(config
> specfication)
> I want to use in gnome-terminal is:
> 
> Fixed:style=Regular:slant=0:weight=100:width=87:pixelsize=13:spacing=100
> 
> but this is a bitmap font and not scalable, so trying to get a more
> simple
> specification like "Fixed" to select it is impossible.
> 
> So what configuration changes can I make to get access to this
> specific font (such that it will be selectable in gnome-terminal) in
> preference to what is in normal circumstances "better" Fixed fonts?
> 
> I have tried something like:
> 
> <fontconfig>
>     <match target="pattern">
> 	<test qual="any" name="family">
> 	    <string>Fixed</string>
> 	</test>
> 	<edit name="family" mode="assign">
> 	    <string>Fixed:style=Regular:slant=0:weight=100:width=87:pixelsize=13:spacing=100:foundry=Misc</string>
> 	</edit>
>     </match>
> </fontconfig>
> 
> in my ~/.fonts.conf but it does not seem to do what I want.  I don't
> really want to override fontconfig's idea of the best "Fixed" font
> anyhow.
> I would prefer to create a new specification with something like:
> 
> <fontconfig>
>     <match target="pattern">
> 	<test qual="any" name="family">
> 	    <string>MyFixedFont</string>
> 	</test>
> 	<edit name="family" mode="assign">
> 	    <string>Fixed:style=Regular:slant=0:weight=100:width=87:pixelsize=13:spacing=100:foundry=Misc</string>
> 	</edit>
>     </match>
> </fontconfig>
> 
> So that gnome-terminal would show an additional font in its list named
> "MyFixedFont".  But the above syntax does not seem to do that either.
> 
> How can I achieve the results I am looking for?
> 
> Thanx,
> b.
> 
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