bug#2504: 23.0.90; new-frame => "no font backend available."

bug#2504: 23.0.90; new-frame => "no font backend available."

[David Abrahams]

Please write in English if possible, because the Emacs maintainers
usually do not have translators to read other languages for them.

Your bug report will be posted to the emacs-pretest-bug@gnu.org mailing list.

Please describe exactly what actions triggered the bug
and the precise symptoms of the bug:

I think MacOS Emacs isn't very resilient to customizations for other
platforms that should be ignored.  For example, my

  default-frame-alist

is 

  ((menu-bar-lines . 1) (font-backend . "xft") (font . "Bitstream Vera Sans Mono-10.5") (tool-bar-lines . 0))

But `M-x new-frame' causes emacs to report "no font backend available"
without opening a new window.

BTW, reporting steps to reproduce bugs with emacs -Q seems to be
counterproductive on MacOS, because if I invoke the underlying
executable instead of the .app bundle, several things don't work
properly... and AFAIK there's no way to pass -Q to the .app bundle.

If Emacs crashed, and you have the Emacs process in the gdb debugger,
please include the output from the following gdb commands:
    `bt full' and `xbacktrace'.
If you would like to further debug the crash, please read the file
/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/Resources/etc/DEBUG for instructions.


In GNU Emacs 23.0.90.1 (i386-apple-darwin9.6.0, NS apple-appkit-949.43)
 of 2009-02-18 on black.local
Windowing system distributor `Apple', version 10.3.949
configured using `configure  '--with-ns''

Important settings:
  value of $LC_ALL: nil
  value of $LC_COLLATE: nil
  value of $LC_CTYPE: nil
  value of $LC_MESSAGES: nil
  value of $LC_MONETARY: nil
  value of $LC_NUMERIC: nil
  value of $LC_TIME: nil
  value of $LANG: nil
  value of $XMODIFIERS: nil
  locale-coding-system: nil
  default-enable-multibyte-characters: t

Major mode: Summary

Minor modes in effect:
  show-paren-mode: t
  server-mode: t
  global-auto-revert-mode: t
  delete-selection-mode: t
  tooltip-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  menu-bar-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  global-auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t
  line-number-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t

Recent input:
<help-echo> <down-mouse-1> <mouse-1> M-x g n u s <backspace> 
<backspace> <backspace> <backspace> <backspace> s e 
t - d e f a <tab> <return> M o n a c o - 1 3 <return> 
M-x g n u s <return> <down-mouse-1> <mouse-1> y <down-mouse-1> 
<mouse-1> <down-mouse-1> <mouse-1> <down-mouse-1> <mouse-1> 
M-x s h e <backspace> <backspace> <backspace> C-g <down-mouse-1> 
<mouse-1> L l L l C-p C-p C-p C-n C-n <return> <return> 
M-x n e w - f r a <tab> <return> M-x M-p <return> C-p 
C-p C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p M-x 
s e t - v a r <tab> <return> d e b u g - o n - e r 
<tab> <return> t <return> <return> C-n C-n C-n C-n 
C-n C-n M-x M-p M-p <return> C-n C-n C-n C-n C-n C-p 
C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-p C-n C-n C-n C-n M-x M-p 
M-p <return> M-p <return> n i l <return> M-x e <backspace> 
r e p o r t - e m a <tab> C-g C-g M-x M-p C-g M-x r 
e p o r t - e m a <tab> <return>

Recent messages:
nnimap: Updating info for INBOX...done
nnimap: Setting marks in INBOX...done
Fetching headers for INBOX...
nnimap: Retrieving headers...done
Fetching headers for INBOX...done
Generating summary...done
x-create-frame-with-faces: No font backend available [2 times]
Fill column set to 86 (was 70)
x-create-frame-with-faces: No font backend available
Auto-saving...done
Quit [3 times]
-- 
Dave Abrahams
BoostPro Computing
http://www.boostpro.com

bug#2504: 23.0.90; new-frame => "no font backend available."

[Jason Rumney]

David Abrahams wrote:
> I think MacOS Emacs isn't very resilient to customizations for other
> platforms that should be ignored.  For example, my
>
>   default-frame-alist
>
> is 
>
>   ((menu-bar-lines . 1) (font-backend . "xft") (font . "Bitstream Vera Sans Mono-10.5") (tool-bar-lines . 0))
>
> But `M-x new-frame' causes emacs to report "no font backend available"
> without opening a new window.
>   

This is no different than setting (font-backend . "garbage") on any 
platform. If you have platform specific settings in your .emacs which 
you want to share between platforms, then you need to make them conditional.

bug#2504: 23.0.90; new-frame => "no font backend available."

[Stefan Monnier]

>> I think MacOS Emacs isn't very resilient to customizations for other
>> platforms that should be ignored.  For example, my
>> 
>> default-frame-alist
>> 
>> is 
>> 
>> ((menu-bar-lines . 1) (font-backend . "xft") (font . "Bitstream Vera Sans Mono-10.5") (tool-bar-lines . 0))
>> 
>> But `M-x new-frame' causes emacs to report "no font backend available"
>> without opening a new window.
>> 

> This is no different than setting (font-backend . "garbage") on any
> platform. If you have platform specific settings in your .emacs which you
> want to share between platforms, then you need to make them conditional.

We could make it easier for the users by ignoring invalid font-backends,
so a single setting can work on all platforms.


        Stefan

bug#2504: 23.0.90; new-frame => "no font backend available."

[David Abrahams]

On Feb 28, 2009, at 5:12 PM, Stefan Monnier wrote:

>>> I think MacOS Emacs isn't very resilient to customizations for other
>>> platforms that should be ignored.  For example, my
>>>
>>> default-frame-alist
>>>
>>> is
>>>
>>> ((menu-bar-lines . 1) (font-backend . "xft") (font . "Bitstream  
>>> Vera Sans Mono-10.5") (tool-bar-lines . 0))
>>>
>>> But `M-x new-frame' causes emacs to report "no font backend  
>>> available"
>>> without opening a new window.
>>>
>
>> This is no different than setting (font-backend . "garbage") on any
>> platform. If you have platform specific settings in your .emacs  
>> which you
>> want to share between platforms, then you need to make them  
>> conditional.
>
> We could make it easier for the users by ignoring invalid font- 
> backends,
> so a single setting can work on all platforms.


Yes, that would be a start, and it's what I had in mind.  Conditional  
things don't mesh too well with using the customization interface.  If  
you are going to let people set up platform-specific things in  
customize, the first step would be to ignore them if they don't apply,  
and the next step would be to support platform-specific customizations  
directly, so I could use one font-backend on Linux and another on,  
say, MacOS.

Regards,

--
David Abrahams
BoostPro Computing
http://boostpro.com

bug#2504: 23.0.90; new-frame => "no font backend available."

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Jason Rumney <jasonr@gnu.org> writes:

> David Abrahams wrote:
>> I think MacOS Emacs isn't very resilient to customizations for other
>> platforms that should be ignored.  For example, my
>>
>>   default-frame-alist
>>
>> is 
>>   ((menu-bar-lines . 1) (font-backend . "xft") (font . "Bitstream
>> Vera Sans Mono-10.5") (tool-bar-lines . 0))
>>
>> But `M-x new-frame' causes emacs to report "no font backend available"
>> without opening a new window.
>>   
>
> This is no different than setting (font-backend . "garbage") on any
> platform. If you have platform specific settings in your .emacs which 
> you want to share between platforms, then you need to make them conditional.

I tried the following in Emacs 27 (on GNU/Linux):

(progn
  (setq default-frame-alist
	'((menu-bar-lines . 1) (font-backend . "garbage") (tool-bar-lines . 0)))
  (make-frame))

It did not error out, so I'm guessing that this has been fixed in the
ten years since it was reported, and I'm closing this bug report.  If
this is still an issue, please reopen.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no