[ANNOUNCE] fslsfonts 1.0.6

[Alan Coopersmith]

On 9/10/22 12:20, Dave Howorth wrote:
> On Sat, 10 Sep 2022 09:55:07 -0700
> Alan Coopersmith <alan.coopersmith at oracle.com> wrote:
> 
>> fslsfonts produces a list of fonts served by an X font server.
> 
> Pardon my ignorance, but my google-foo is weak apparently, and I
> haven't been able to dicover what the difference is between fslsfonts
> and xlsfonts. The man pages provide no clue, apart from fslsfonts is
> more recent. What is the difference? Something political or something
> functional? Where can I read an explanation, and why isn't it referred
> to in the man page?

xlsfonts uses the X11 protocol to list fonts available from an X server
such as Xorg.

fslsfonts uses the Font Server protocol to list fonts available from a
font server such as xfs.

As for why the man pages don't explain the difference, like most things
there is no real reason beyond "because no one has yet added an
explanation" - this is a nearly 30 year old distinction, and many of
those involved back then aren't here to ask now, but they probably knew
the difference themselves and didn't think about explaining it to others.

But since you've pointed it out, we can try to do better now:
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/app/fslsfonts/-/merge_requests/8/diffs
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/app/xlsfonts/-/merge_requests/5/diffs

> and having looked further, I think I now understand. But I still think
> that the man page for fslsfonts should make clear what it is,
> particularly since it is, misleadingly IMHO, called fs-ls-fonts rather
> than xfs-ls-fonts or xft-ls-fonts (I still don't understand which or
> both?).

Traditionally all of the font service files and tools have just been
labeled with "fs" - I believe the intent was that the font server
could someday be used by something other than X11, but that never
happened.  Only fsinfo got renamed to xfsinfo, after a conflict with
a file system tool by the same name.

There is no xft-ls-fonts - the rough equivalent there would be
fc-list, since xft bridges the fontconfig font system into X11, as
somewhat described in:
https://www.x.org/releases/current/doc/xorg-docs/fonts/fonts.html

-- 
         -Alan Coopersmith-                 alan.coopersmith at oracle.com
          Oracle Solaris Engineering - https://blogs.oracle.com/solaris