Custom fonts [LWN.net]

Custom fonts

Posted Jun 5, 2004 2:03 UTC (Sat) by neilbrown (subscriber, #359)
In reply to: Custom fonts by rfunk
Parent article: The Grumpy Editor's guide to terminal emulators

Strange that you complain about limited choices for fonts on Konsole, when it's xterm that gives the limited choices once it starts. (Of course you can select any font before starting it.)

There is a facility in xterm that maybe you are unaware of. One of the options in the font menu (control-rightbutton) is "Selection".

You simply select a font name with the mouse and select "Selection", and there you have it.

xfontsel can put your choice of font into the selection, so it is simple to choose a font with one program, and use it in another. I seem to recall that this is a good match for the "Unix way" of doing things. It is a pity that it is as "way" that is followed less and less. :-(

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Custom fonts

Posted Jun 5, 2004 7:21 UTC (Sat) by rfunk (subscriber, #4054) [Link] (1 responses)

Hmm, I wasn't aware of that "Selection" method of changing the xterm
font, and I've been using xterms for about 12 years. Pretty cool.

It seems to require a full specification though; a short alias like
"6x13" or "fixed" doesn't seem to work.

I see what you mean about the "Unix way", but on the other hand I can't
think of any other Unix programs that use the selection for configuration
like that.

Custom fonts

Posted Jun 11, 2004 3:01 UTC (Fri) by pimlott (guest, #1535) [Link]

It seems to require a full specification though; a short alias like "6x13" or "fixed" doesn't seem to work.

Works for me. I just selected 6x13 and fixed from your message.

Custom fonts

Posted Jun 11, 2004 2:17 UTC (Fri) by pimlott (guest, #1535) [Link] (1 responses)

Life changing. However, it strikes me as more the Plan 9 way than the Unix way, as it's similar to the method of executing commands in acme. Is there another Unix program that makes use of the selection for anything other than paste?

Custom fonts

Posted Jun 11, 2004 9:35 UTC (Fri) by neilbrown (subscriber, #359) [Link]

By "The Unix Way", I mean the "one task, one tool" paradym (sp?).
Most commonly in Unix they communicate over pipes, but I don't see that
as essential to idea. Communicating via X selections is just as valid.

It is quite likely that Plan 9 follows this "unix way" more than other derivatives.

I think it would make a lot of sense to have just one font picker, just one
colour picker, just one file picker (... are there any others), that each
app communicates with via the X server. After all, each app doesn't do it's
own window management (with some annoying exceptions like xmms). Why should
they each have their own pickers?

I don't know of any other apps that us the selection in interesting ways,
which is a shame.