From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Adrian Robert Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: macos.texi updated Date: Mon, 24 Oct 2005 08:24:44 -0400 Message-ID: <68bec734715667dad7b9fb9f810fc10e@cogsci.ucsd.edu> References: <8C0A68AE-EF12-4D6C-9879-D0FF3B04DE1B@mac.com> <87r7bhw2o8.fsf-monnier+emacs@gnu.org> <991DC775-381E-4B96-BBC6-B3701CCD6EAD@cogsci.ucsd.edu> <3158D814-131C-469F-9DCF-3E678AC27957@cogsci.ucsd.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v623) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1130160226 13815 80.91.229.2 (24 Oct 2005 13:23:46 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 24 Oct 2005 13:23:46 +0000 (UTC) Cc: mituharu@math.s.chiba-u.ac.jp, emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Oct 24 15:23:45 2005 Return-path: Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by ciao.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1EU2I1-0007qV-DM for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 24 Oct 2005 15:23:01 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1EU2I0-0002Vd-RS for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 24 Oct 2005 09:23:00 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1EU1Qi-0003h5-91 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 24 Oct 2005 08:27:57 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1EU1Qf-0003gZ-0O for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 24 Oct 2005 08:27:53 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1EU1Qe-0003gT-Du for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 24 Oct 2005 08:27:52 -0400 Original-Received: from [69.93.48.194] (helo=borg.phpwebhosting.com) by monty-python.gnu.org with smtp (Exim 4.34) id 1EU1Qe-0000P6-96 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 24 Oct 2005 08:27:52 -0400 Original-Received: (qmail 30035 invoked from network); 24 Oct 2005 12:27:52 -0000 Original-Received: from unknown (HELO [192.168.10.101]) (24.215.238.11) by 194.69-93-48.reverse.theplanet.com with SMTP; Mon, 24 Oct 2005 08:27:52 -0400 In-Reply-To: Original-To: rms@gnu.org X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.623) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:44710 Archived-At: On Oct 20, 2005, at 12:55 AM, Richard M. Stallman wrote: > At the elisp- > wielding-user-visible level this manifests in what you pass to and > get back from x-list-fonts, as well as any font-setting functions, > > Could you explain what "font-setting functions" means? > Could you name some "font-setting functions"? User-visible, that I know of: set-frame-font create-fontset-from-fontset-spec > setting font as a frame parameter, etc... > > That parameter basically exists for the sake of those who might > want to specify an XLFD font name. It's not the normal way to > do things. As far as I understand the code, and I could easily be wrong here, a default font specification in an X resource (or, on the GNUstep port, a user 'defaults database' value) makes it into the first emacs frame via a frame parameter. (Faces then get defined off of this.) In emacs-20, you could get away with just a font family and bold/italic spec here, since there was also a font size frame parameter, but this was removed in 22/23. (Maybe in this case the answer is that emacs is trying to get away from other preferences persistence mechanisms besides .emacs? But is .emacs read before the first frame is made?) > As for x-list-fonts, that uses XLFD because on X that was the > normal interface to use. Is there a better way to do this now? Right, but unfortunately x-list-fonts is not just used on X. Ideally, there would be a "w-list-fonts" function that returns a list of lists specifying all the information in structured lisp form. No lisp code calling this would need to muck about with window-system-specific string representations. In practice, X was first and alone, so each port tended to just redefine its own version of x-list-fonts which translates its own font names into XLFD. This is evil, but understandable given how things evolved.