Question on fonts

Question on fonts

[john]

I am sure this is a naive question but I am getting more confused after
each message....

I am not a visual person, and know nothing about fonts, except the
font I get with current master is thin and spidery and so hard to
read.  If I run emacs 25.3 (from my GNU/Linux distro) I get a font
that is clearer and a little heavier.  What I would like is to have
that 25.3 font on the current system.

I saw messages about .Xresources but I do not have such a file
anywhere.  There are two files /etc/X11/Xresources and
/etc/X11/xdm/Xresources which I suspect are the same but there is
nothing in them relating to which font is used.  As far as I can tell
the current emacs is built with cairo, Freetype, and HarfBuzz but I
have no idea what that means.

==John ffitch

Re: Question on fonts

[Robert Pluim]

>>>>> On Tue, 21 Jan 2020 18:09:28 +0000 (GMT), john <jpff@codemist.co.uk> said:

    john> I am sure this is a naive question but I am getting more confused after
    john> each message....

No worries, weʼre here to help.

    john> I am not a visual person, and know nothing about fonts, except the
    john> font I get with current master is thin and spidery and so hard to
    john> read.  If I run emacs 25.3 (from my GNU/Linux distro) I get a font
    john> that is clearer and a little heavier.  What I would like is to have
    john> that 25.3 font on the current system.

Run 'C-u C-x =' on 25.3, that will pop up a buffer with a description
at the bottom of what font is being used.

    john> I saw messages about .Xresources but I do not have such a file
    john> anywhere.  There are two files /etc/X11/Xresources and
    john> /etc/X11/xdm/Xresources which I suspect are the same but there is
    john> nothing in them relating to which font is used.  As far as I can tell
    john> the current emacs is built with cairo, Freetype, and HarfBuzz but I
    john> have no idea what that means.

Donʼt worry about Xresources files, they just get in the way. Since
youʼre using cairo and freetype, the set of fonts available will
probably be different from 25.3, so either

1. Use M-x menu-set-font and see if you can find a font with the same
name as on 25.3.

2. Use M-x menu-set-font and try out the available choices and sizes
until you find one that suits you.

Donʼt forget to do 'Option->Save Options' afterwards.

If you *really* want to use the same font and step 1 doesnʼt find it
for you, then you'll have to find a scalable version of it somewhere
and install it. How to do that will vary based on your distribution
and desktop environment.

Robert

Re: Question on fonts

[john]

Thank you for your despription.  I fund an acceptable font to use, an di 
learnt new tings about emacs on thecway.
==John ffitch

Re: Question on fonts

[T.V Raman]

I think given the vast treasure trove of choices, it's time someone
wrote up a recommended  set of fonts/font-sets that work, look good
aesthetically good etc. For etc credit, it might be valuable to do some
research on what works well for various situations, eg, laptop vs
desktop, low-vision user vs color-blind user etc -- and provide some
default configs out of the box, basically users who have those needs
today will have a hard time finding those out for themselves. Note: I'm
not volunteering because I'd be a poor choice to do this.
-- 

Re: Question on fonts

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: "T.V Raman" <raman@google.com>
> Cc: Robert Pluim <rpluim@gmail.com>,  emacs-devel@gnu.org
> Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2020 17:19:18 -0800
> 
> I think given the vast treasure trove of choices, it's time someone
> wrote up a recommended  set of fonts/font-sets that work, look good
> aesthetically good etc.

What's wrong with what we already have in fontset.el?

Re: Question on fonts

[T.V Raman]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:


I didn't say anything was wrong, I said it's hard for a user to figure
out what to use given a set of requirements. >> From: "T.V Raman" <raman@google.com>
>> Cc: Robert Pluim <rpluim@gmail.com>,  emacs-devel@gnu.org
>> Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2020 17:19:18 -0800
>> 
>> I think given the vast treasure trove of choices, it's time someone
>> wrote up a recommended  set of fonts/font-sets that work, look good
>> aesthetically good etc.
>
> What's wrong with what we already have in fontset.el?

-- 

Re: Question on fonts

[VanL]

> I didn't say anything was wrong, I said it's hard for a user to figure
> out what to use given a set of requirements.

May I suggest 'Computer Modern'?					 [1]

On occasions the default font color is difficult for me to make out
having set the Basic Faces's Default Background color to gainsboro.

The default's background white is too bright on my screen despite it
having been set to use hw paperwhite for optimal reading experience.

-- VL

Footnotes: 
[1]  https://www.checkmyworking.com/cm-web-fonts/

Re: Question on fonts

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: "T.V Raman" <raman@google.com>
> Cc: jpff@codemist.co.uk,  rpluim@gmail.com,  emacs-devel@gnu.org
> Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2020 19:47:41 -0800
> 
> I didn't say anything was wrong, I said it's hard for a user to figure
> out what to use given a set of requirements.

Sorry, I didn't realize your question was in the context of the font
backends, I thought it was a more general question about font setup.
Our best knowledge about the latter is already in fontest.el.  OTOH,
the issue with fonts vs font backends is unrelated to fontsets.

Re: Question on fonts

[T.V Raman]

More precisely, my question was in the context of helping users choose
a font that is best suited to their needs --- the task is likely
something that can be achieved by someone with  the
interest/motivation creating an appropriate theme.
Eli Zaretskii writes:
 > > From: "T.V Raman" <raman@google.com>
 > > Cc: jpff@codemist.co.uk,  rpluim@gmail.com,  emacs-devel@gnu.org
 > > Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2020 19:47:41 -0800
 > > 
 > > I didn't say anything was wrong, I said it's hard for a user to figure
 > > out what to use given a set of requirements.
 > 
 > Sorry, I didn't realize your question was in the context of the font
 > backends, I thought it was a more general question about font setup.
 > Our best knowledge about the latter is already in fontest.el.  OTOH,
 > the issue with fonts vs font backends is unrelated to fontsets.

-- 
Id: kg:/m/0285kf1 

-- 
Id: kg:/m/0285kf1 

Re: Question on fonts

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: "T.V Raman" <raman@google.com>
> Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2020 08:47:44 -0800
> Cc: raman@google.com,
>     jpff@codemist.co.uk,
>     rpluim@gmail.com,
>     emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> More precisely, my question was in the context of helping users choose
> a font that is best suited to their needs --- the task is likely
> something that can be achieved by someone with  the
> interest/motivation creating an appropriate theme.

So you did mean a more general question.

In that case, I don't see how we could do a better job than we already
have in fontest.el.  The problem here is that (a) we cannot know which
fonts are installed on the end-user's machine, and (b) many fonts that
people so like to use and advertise aren't free, so we don't want to
promote them by including them in our fontest.  And on top of all
that, there's the personal preferences of each user, which IME are
quite different.

Re: Question on fonts

[T.V Raman]

we're talking across one another.

I did not suggest a change in core emacs, I suggested that someone
interested in helping users ease into emacs could write up a set of
font choices that work in a given situation. Let's close this thread.
Eli Zaretskii writes:
 > > From: "T.V Raman" <raman@google.com>
 > > Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2020 08:47:44 -0800
 > > Cc: raman@google.com,
 > >     jpff@codemist.co.uk,
 > >     rpluim@gmail.com,
 > >     emacs-devel@gnu.org
 > > 
 > > More precisely, my question was in the context of helping users choose
 > > a font that is best suited to their needs --- the task is likely
 > > something that can be achieved by someone with  the
 > > interest/motivation creating an appropriate theme.
 > 
 > So you did mean a more general question.
 > 
 > In that case, I don't see how we could do a better job than we already
 > have in fontest.el.  The problem here is that (a) we cannot know which
 > fonts are installed on the end-user's machine, and (b) many fonts that
 > people so like to use and advertise aren't free, so we don't want to
 > promote them by including them in our fontest.  And on top of all
 > that, there's the personal preferences of each user, which IME are
 > quite different.

-- 
Id: kg:/m/0285kf1 

-- 
Id: kg:/m/0285kf1