Re: Fixed-pitch and variable-pitch faces

[James Cloos <cloos@jhcloos.com>]

>>>>> "Stefan" == Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

Stefan> I would actually expect fontconfig to be able to provide such
Stefan> mappings as well (tho it appears not to do it), so maybe there's
Stefan> a way to let fontconfig solve this problem.

Fontconfig allows that to be configured.  I'd expect mosts current dists
to activate those substitutions by default.

I know that info mode uses Arial Bold here for the headers, where it
used to use the Helvetica bitmaps before the font backend.

The Liberation fonts from RedHat, Bitstream Vera, DejaVu and the various
clones of Helvetica/Arial, Times/TimesNewRoman and Courier are also all
considered when the names Helvetica, Times or Courier are requested.

If you have a current fontconfig (at least 2.5.??) look in /etc/fonts
under the conf.d and conf.available dirs.  Look for things like:

30-metric-aliases.conf 30-urw-aliases.conf and ??-latin.conf.

Older versions of fontconfig put those same configs into fonts.conf
itself, rather than easily-configurable includes.

There may be some differences between versions, but unless the
aliases.conf files are missing from conf.d it should just work on the
fontconfig side of things.

The complication, of course, is when multiple font backends are in use.
I run with just xft.  If you have x,xft then it is probably right for
the Helvetica bitmap to win out.  If xft,x then that might be debatable:
whether 'tis better to give primary weight to the name or to the technology?

-JimC
-- 
James Cloos <cloos@jhcloos.com>         OpenPGP: 1024D/ED7DAEA6