fonts on master

fonts on master

[John]

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today I pulled source and built emacs from master.  But it failed to
run properly as it obeyed the first line on my init sequence which is
(set-frame-font "-ETL-ETL Fixed-normal-normal-normal-*-16-*-72-72-c-80-iso10646-1")

Message is
Warning (initialization): An error occurred while loading ‘/home/jpff/.emacs’:

error: Font not available, #<font-spec nil ETL ETL Fixed nil iso10646-1 normal normal normal 16 72 110 80 ((:name . -ETL-ETL Fixed-normal-normal-normal-*-16-*-72-72-c-80-iso10646-1) (:user-spec . -ETL-ETL Fixed-normal-normal-normal-*-16-*-72-72-c-80-iso10646-1))>

It worked yesterday (the emacs I am using to send this message).  I
tried sending a bug report but that failed attempting to send mail I
think.

How can I get the latest to work?

==John ffitch

Re: fonts on master

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2020 15:46:38 +0000
> From: John <jpff@codemist.co.uk>
> 
> today I pulled source and built emacs from master.  But it failed to
> run properly as it obeyed the first line on my init sequence which is
> (set-frame-font "-ETL-ETL Fixed-normal-normal-normal-*-16-*-72-72-c-80-iso10646-1")
> 
> Message is
> Warning (initialization): An error occurred while loading ‘/home/jpff/.emacs’:
> 
> error: Font not available, #<font-spec nil ETL ETL Fixed nil iso10646-1 normal normal normal 16 72 110 80 ((:name . -ETL-ETL Fixed-normal-normal-normal-*-16-*-72-72-c-80-iso10646-1) (:user-spec . -ETL-ETL Fixed-normal-normal-normal-*-16-*-72-72-c-80-iso10646-1))>

What kind of font is that, i.e. where can one find it and download it?

Also, if you start Emacs without that line, can you then select that
font via the Options->Select Default Font menu?

Re: fonts on master

[john]

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I do not know where this font came from; it was in the openSuSE 
distribution many moons ago in some package but I do not know which.  I 
selected this font a long time back.  I tried running with -q and then 
Optipns->Set Default Font but the interface defeated me.  The only 
font family that a recognised was Adobe Courier which looks way to 
spidery to use.

Looking around at what has changed I saw that --with-cairo was the 
default, so I built with --without-cairo and that works as before.
Sorry not to be able to answer the quetsions; visual stuff is not by 
forte and I am largely ignorant of what cairo is.

Is thete a way of finding out wat fonr I am actually using?


On Tue, 14 Jan 2020, Eli Zaretskii wrote:

>> Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2020 15:46:38 +0000
>> From: John <jpff@codemist.co.uk>
>>
>> today I pulled source and built emacs from master.  But it failed to
>> run properly as it obeyed the first line on my init sequence which is
>> (set-frame-font "-ETL-ETL Fixed-normal-normal-normal-*-16-*-72-72-c-80-iso10646-1")
>>
>> Message is
>> Warning (initialization): An error occurred while loading ‘/home/jpff/.emacs’:
>>
>> error: Font not available, #<font-spec nil ETL ETL Fixed nil iso10646-1 normal normal normal 16 72 110 80 ((:name . -ETL-ETL Fixed-normal-normal-normal-*-16-*-72-72-c-80-iso10646-1) (:user-spec . -ETL-ETL Fixed-normal-normal-normal-*-16-*-72-72-c-80-iso10646-1))>
>
> What kind of font is that, i.e. where can one find it and download it?
>
> Also, if you start Emacs without that line, can you then select that
> font via the Options->Select Default Font menu?
 	>
>

Re: fonts on master

[john]

PS  I fought my way through the menu scheme and eventully found the ETL 
family and elected a 16point version.  It then said it did 
not exist with a similar message.  However for some sizes it loaded a font 
(which did not look like the one I was using pre cairo).

Re: fonts on master

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2020 16:57:13 +0000 (GMT)
> From: john <jpff@codemist.co.uk>
> cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> Looking around at what has changed I saw that --with-cairo was the 
> default, so I built with --without-cairo and that works as before.
> Sorry not to be able to answer the quetsions; visual stuff is not by 
> forte and I am largely ignorant of what cairo is.

We want to migrate towards Cairo, so disabling it is not the best
solution.  By disabling it, you get an Xft build, which has known
problems with some modern fonts, and no good solutions (since Xft
doesn't seem to be actively maintained anymore).

Let me turn the table and ask you why you need that font? is something
wrong with the default font selected by the Cairo build?

> Is thete a way of finding out wat fonr I am actually using?

Yes:

  M-: (face-font 'default) RET

Re: fonts on master

[Iñigo Serna]

Hi,

On 14 January 2020 at 18:34 +01, john <jpff@codemist.co.uk> wrote:

> PS  I fought my way through the menu scheme and eventully found the
> ETL family and elected a 16point version.  It then said it did 
> not exist with a similar message.  However for some sizes it loaded a
> font (which did not look like the one I was using pre cairo).


Could it be posible that this is a bitmap font?
If I remember correctly Pango discontinued support for bitmap fonts some
time ago.

Iñigo

Re: fonts on master

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Iñigo Serna <inigoserna@gmail.com>
> Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2020 20:50:43 +0100
> 
> Could it be posible that this is a bitmap font?
> If I remember correctly Pango discontinued support for bitmap fonts some
> time ago.

I suspect it's a BDF font, yes.

Re: fonts on master

[Robert Pluim]

>>>>> On Tue, 14 Jan 2020 21:50:06 +0200, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> said:

    >> Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2020 16:57:13 +0000 (GMT)
    >> From: john <jpff@codemist.co.uk>
    >> cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
    >> 
    >> Looking around at what has changed I saw that --with-cairo was the 
    >> default, so I built with --without-cairo and that works as before.
    >> Sorry not to be able to answer the quetsions; visual stuff is not by 
    >> forte and I am largely ignorant of what cairo is.

    Eli> We want to migrate towards Cairo, so disabling it is not the best
    Eli> solution.  By disabling it, you get an Xft build, which has known
    Eli> problems with some modern fonts, and no good solutions (since Xft
    Eli> doesn't seem to be actively maintained anymore).

    Eli> Let me turn the table and ask you why you need that font? is something
    Eli> wrong with the default font selected by the Cairo build?

Based on the Suse website, ETL is a packaging of bitmapped versions of
the Gnu intlfonts, for which TrueType versions definitely exist, so if
you really want to continue to use it you can install those.

Robert

Re: fonts on master

[john]

I have tried removing all mention of that font and use whatever the defaut 
is.  It looks slightly more faint and tin but that might be an illusion.

Thank you for all your help and comments.  I willl experiment a little to 
see if i can find a fixed font that looks OK.

==John ff

On Tue, 14 Jan 2020, Eli Zaretskii wrote:

>> Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2020 16:57:13 +0000 (GMT)
>> From: john <jpff@codemist.co.uk>
>> cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
>>
>> Looking around at what has changed I saw that --with-cairo was the
>> default, so I built with --without-cairo and that works as before.
>> Sorry not to be able to answer the quetsions; visual stuff is not by
>> forte and I am largely ignorant of what cairo is.
>
> We want to migrate towards Cairo, so disabling it is not the best
> solution.  By disabling it, you get an Xft build, which has known
> problems with some modern fonts, and no good solutions (since Xft
> doesn't seem to be actively maintained anymore).
>
> Let me turn the table and ask you why you need that font? is something
> wrong with the default font selected by the Cairo build?
>
>> Is thete a way of finding out wat fonr I am actually using?
>
> Yes:
>
>  M-: (face-font 'default) RET
>
>

Re: fonts on master

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Robert Pluim <rpluim@gmail.com>
> Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2020 21:04:22 +0100
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org, john <jpff@codemist.co.uk>
> 
> Based on the Suse website, ETL is a packaging of bitmapped versions of
> the Gnu intlfonts, for which TrueType versions definitely exist, so if
> you really want to continue to use it you can install those.

I wonder if we could say something about this in NEWS, where we
announce that Xft is being phased out.  Like provide some pointers
where to find the TTF versions of popular bitmapped fonts, including
the ETL ones, or at least the names of such replacement fonts?
Because I'd expect this to be an issue for other users as well, and we
don't want them to disable Cairo just to be able to use those
bitmapped fonts.