set-default-font

set-default-font

[ken]

In my ~/.emacs (version 27.1-1.1.x86_64, I believe) I have a function
containing

set-default-font "-*-*-regular-r-*-*-*-180-*-75-*-*-iso8859-1")

Of course it horked when loading.  So I did

C-h f set-default-font

Magically this gave me help for the function "setup-default-fontset".  I
suppose I'm to assume that "set-default-font" has been eliminated,
substituted by "setup-default-fontset".  True??

Secondly, to fix my ~/.emacs can I just edit "set-default-font" and
change it to
"setup-default-fontset"?

Thirdly, I long ago upgraded from any "Latin" character sets to UTF-8
and, to me, that means I shouldn't be specifying any "*iso8859*" fonts. 
What command output would show me the available font(set)s I could use
in place of the 8859 stuff?

tia

Re: set-default-font

[Stefan Kangas]

ken <gebser@mousecar.com> writes:

> Magically this gave me help for the function "setup-default-fontset".  I
> suppose I'm to assume that "set-default-font" has been eliminated,
> substituted by "setup-default-fontset".  True??

Yes, this has been obsoleted since Emacs 22.1 and has been removed.
See etc/NEWS for more details (`C-h N').

> Secondly, to fix my ~/.emacs can I just edit "set-default-font" and
> change it to
> "setup-default-fontset"?

I use this:

    (add-to-list 'default-frame-alist '(font . "Ubuntu Mono-14"))

> Thirdly, I long ago upgraded from any "Latin" character sets to UTF-8
> and, to me, that means I shouldn't be specifying any "*iso8859*" fonts.
> What command output would show me the available font(set)s I could use
> in place of the 8859 stuff?

AFAIK, I think you should just use something similar to what I have
above, and you should be fine.

I think you can read more in:

(info "(emacs) Frame Parameters")

Best regards,
Stefan Kangas

Re: set-default-font

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: ken <gebser@mousecar.com>
> Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2020 12:54:09 -0400
> 
> In my ~/.emacs (version 27.1-1.1.x86_64, I believe) I have a function
> containing
> 
> set-default-font "-*-*-regular-r-*-*-*-180-*-75-*-*-iso8859-1")

This setting is redundant, because Emacs does that by default.  I
suggest that you simply delete it, you shouldn't see any difference.

> Secondly, to fix my ~/.emacs can I just edit "set-default-font" and
> change it to
> "setup-default-fontset"?

I don't think you should need that.

> Thirdly, I long ago upgraded from any "Latin" character sets to UTF-8
> and, to me, that means I shouldn't be specifying any "*iso8859*" fonts. 
> What command output would show me the available font(set)s I could use
> in place of the 8859 stuff?

Right, deleting that line will also solve this problem.

Re: set-default-font

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2020 21:27:59 +0300
> From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
> 
> > From: ken <gebser@mousecar.com>
> > Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2020 12:54:09 -0400
> > 
> > In my ~/.emacs (version 27.1-1.1.x86_64, I believe) I have a function
> > containing
> > 
> > set-default-font "-*-*-regular-r-*-*-*-180-*-75-*-*-iso8859-1")
> 
> This setting is redundant, because Emacs does that by default.  I
> suggest that you simply delete it, you shouldn't see any difference.

Or, if you did that to get a larger font, use set-face-attribute
instead to request a larger font without specifying it in XLFD format
(which requires too much information you don't want to provide).

Re: set-default-font

[ken]

On 8/25/20 2:32 PM, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>> Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2020 21:27:59 +0300
>> From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>
>>
>>> From: ken <gebser@mousecar.com>
>>> Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2020 12:54:09 -0400
>>>
>>> In my ~/.emacs (version 27.1-1.1.x86_64, I believe) I have a function
>>> containing
>>>
>>> set-default-font "-*-*-regular-r-*-*-*-180-*-75-*-*-iso8859-1")
>> This setting is redundant, because Emacs does that by default.  I
>> suggest that you simply delete it, you shouldn't see any difference.

It's part of a larger function, so that I can change the font size
(small, medium, large) from a menu.


> Or, if you did that to get a larger font, use set-face-attribute
> instead to request a larger font without specifying it in XLFD format
> (which requires too much information you don't want to provide).
>

Changing to:

  (set-face-attribute
"-*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-16-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-standard")

errors out.  This is from *Backtrace*:

Debugger entered--Lisp error: (wrong-number-of-arguments (2 . 2) 1)
 
set-face-attribute("-*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-16-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-st...")

Re: set-default-font

[2QdxY4RzWzUUiLuE]

On 2020-08-25 at 16:38:16 -0400,
ken <gebser@mousecar.com> wrote:

> Changing to:
> 
>   (set-face-attribute
> "-*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-16-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-standard")
> 
> errors out.  This is from *Backtrace*:

Try something like this instead:

    (set-face-attribute 'default nil :font "DejaVu Sans Mono-12")

You can see how to call set-face-attribute in its help page, usually
accessible by C-h f set-face-attribute <RET>.

-- 
“Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a
judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked
by the laughter of the gods.” – Albert Einstein
Dan Sommers, http://www.tombstonezero.net/dan

Re: set-default-font

[ken]

On 8/25/20 4:49 PM, 2QdxY4RzWzUUiLuE@potatochowder.com wrote:
> On 2020-08-25 at 16:38:16 -0400,
> ken <gebser@mousecar.com> wrote:
>
>> Changing to:
>>
>>   (set-face-attribute
>> "-*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-16-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-standard")
>>
>> errors out.  This is from *Backtrace*:
> Try something like this instead:
>
>     (set-face-attribute 'default nil :font "DejaVu Sans Mono-12")
>
> You can see how to call set-face-attribute in its help page, usually
> accessible by C-h f set-face-attribute <RET>.
Thanks.  Good page.  That helped me formulate the coding below.  And in
it the variable value "normal" should be acceptable, but emacs doesn't
like it for some reason (see below).*  Perhaps my syntax is off somewhere?


>
Thanks much, but that gives the same error as in my previous email.

So I tried this instead:

(set-face-attribute 'default nil :family "alegreya" :foundry "misc"
:slant "normal" :weight "normal" :height 258 :width "normal")

It works, but throws an error: Wrong type argument: symbolp, "normal"

Prior to this I tried the same, but without quotes around the three
instances of "normal" -- that didn't work at all.

Another problem is that the resulting font is too small, but changing
"258" to e.g. "358" doesn't change anything.  How can I find out an
appropriate specification?

Thanks again.

* I was going to say more about this, but emacs crashed.

Re: set-default-font

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: ken <gebser@mousecar.com>
> Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2020 18:15:41 -0400
> 
> Another problem is that the resulting font is too small, but changing
> "258" to e.g. "358" doesn't change anything.  How can I find out an
> appropriate specification?

Try different values until you find one that works for you.  In
general, I'd expect any value to work, unless if you use bitmapped
fonts, where maybe only certain discrete values will work.

Re: set-default-font

[David Masterson]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> From: ken <gebser@mousecar.com>
>> Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2020 18:15:41 -0400
>> 
>> Another problem is that the resulting font is too small, but changing
>> "258" to e.g. "358" doesn't change anything.  How can I find out an
>> appropriate specification?
>
> Try different values until you find one that works for you.  In
> general, I'd expect any value to work, unless if you use bitmapped
> fonts, where maybe only certain discrete values will work.

Hunting for proper values is not exactly very friendly.

set-default-font is the only command in the standard "Options" menu for
Emacs and, therefore, the one most likely to be used.  It seems, though,
that set-default-font has different forms depending on how Emacs is
compiled.  I suspect (but would like to know more) that it has one form 
if compiled with the X libraries and another without X.  The form with X
(for me) put an X box for "Font Menu" with only 3 options (Misc,
Courier, and Fontset) which I can't figure how to use.  The form without
X seemed to put up a dialog box that allowed you to pick fonts while
seeing examples of the font which was much easier.

I'm not a fonts person, so it's difficult for me to figure out the best
way of compiling Gnu Emacs 26.3 to make the most of fonts.

Any help?
--
David Masterson

Re: set-default-font

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: David Masterson <dsmasterson92630@outlook.com>
> Cc: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
> Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2020 18:59:35 -0700
> 
> > Try different values until you find one that works for you.  In
> > general, I'd expect any value to work, unless if you use bitmapped
> > fonts, where maybe only certain discrete values will work.
> 
> Hunting for proper values is not exactly very friendly.

You usually don't need to, as I explained.

> set-default-font is the only command in the standard "Options" menu for
> Emacs and, therefore, the one most likely to be used.  It seems, though,
> that set-default-font has different forms depending on how Emacs is
> compiled.  I suspect (but would like to know more) that it has one form 
> if compiled with the X libraries and another without X.  The form with X
> (for me) put an X box for "Font Menu" with only 3 options (Misc,
> Courier, and Fontset) which I can't figure how to use.  The form without
> X seemed to put up a dialog box that allowed you to pick fonts while
> seeing examples of the font which was much easier.
> 
> I'm not a fonts person, so it's difficult for me to figure out the best
> way of compiling Gnu Emacs 26.3 to make the most of fonts.
> 
> Any help?

I don't think I understand what exactly are you asking.  You started
by describing the menu for selecting the default font, but ended by
asking a much more general question regarding building Emacs.  I don't
see the connection, because the default build of Emacs on any platform
always makes the most use of the available fonts on that platform.

I also don't understand what does "without X" mean in this context.

And finally, your description of what menu-set-font (the menu item in
"Options" -> "Set default font") does is AFAIK inaccurate: the "easy"
font selection dialog should pop when the x-select-font function is
available, whereas your description seems to indicate to the contrary.

So I'm confused by the question and the details you described.

Re: set-default-font

[David Masterson]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> From: David Masterson <dsmasterson92630@outlook.com> Cc:
>> help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2020 18:59:35 -0700
>> 
>> set-default-font is the only command in the standard "Options" menu
>> for Emacs and, therefore, the one most likely to be used.  It seems,
>> though, that set-default-font has different forms depending on how
>> Emacs is compiled.  I suspect (but would like to know more) that it
>> has one form if compiled with the X libraries and another without X.
>> The form with X (for me) put an X box for "Font Menu" with only 3
>> options (Misc, Courier, and Fontset) which I can't figure how to use.
>> The form without X seemed to put up a dialog box that allowed you to
>> pick fonts while seeing examples of the font which was much easier.
>> 
>> I'm not a fonts person, so it's difficult for me to figure out the
>> best way of compiling Gnu Emacs 26.3 to make the most of fonts.
>> 
>> Any help?
>
> I don't think I understand what exactly are you asking.  You started
> by describing the menu for selecting the default font, but ended by
> asking a much more general question regarding building Emacs.  I don't
> see the connection, because the default build of Emacs on any platform
> always makes the most use of the available fonts on that platform.
>
> I also don't understand what does "without X" mean in this context.
>
> And finally, your description of what menu-set-font (the menu item in
> "Options" -> "Set default font") does is AFAIK inaccurate: the "easy"
> font selection dialog should pop when the x-select-font function is
> available, whereas your description seems to indicate to the contrary.
>
> So I'm confused by the question and the details you described.

I think I understand your confusion -- forgive me for being imprecise as
I don't understand fonts within Emacs very well.

First, I had been using a prebuilt Emacs v26.3 on Debian
(Chromebook). I'm not sure how that version was built, but
set-default-font did popup an easy font selection that (to me) made
sense.  I could scroll through (lots of) available with an example of
what the font would look like before I chose the font.

Second, I had a problem with the prebuilt and thought I'd try building
Emacs myself.  After getting the needed libraries built, it built and
works fine.  The main difference is that set-default-font seems to have
completely changed to a popup for "Font Menu" with 3 items (Misc,
Courier, and Fontset).  I don't believe have courier fonts loaded, so
I'm not sure why thats there.  All 3 items have submenus with no
examples of the fonts.  I think this is a Lucid style popup.  This is my
configuration for Emacs (no options given to the configure script):

Configured for 'x86_64-pc-linux-gnu'.

  Where should the build process find the source code?    ../emacs-26.3
  What compiler should emacs be built with?               gcc -g3 -O2
  Should Emacs use the GNU version of malloc?             no (only before dumping)
  Should Emacs use a relocating allocator for buffers?    no
  Should Emacs use mmap(2) for buffer allocation?         no
  What window system should Emacs use?                    x11
  What toolkit should Emacs use?                          LUCID
  Where do we find X Windows header files?                Standard dirs
  Where do we find X Windows libraries?                   Standard dirs
  Does Emacs use -lXaw3d?                                 yes
  Does Emacs use -lXpm?                                   yes
  Does Emacs use -ljpeg?                                  yes
  Does Emacs use -ltiff?                                  yes
  Does Emacs use a gif library?                           yes -lgif
  Does Emacs use a png library?                           yes -lpng16
  Does Emacs use -lrsvg-2?                                no
  Does Emacs use cairo?                                   no
  Does Emacs use -llcms2?                                 no
  Does Emacs use imagemagick (version 6)?                 no
  Does Emacs support sound?                               yes
  Does Emacs use -lgpm?                                   yes
  Does Emacs use -ldbus?                                  yes
  Does Emacs use -lgconf?                                 no
  Does Emacs use GSettings?                               yes
  Does Emacs use a file notification library?             yes -lglibc (inotify)
  Does Emacs use access control lists?                    no
  Does Emacs use -lselinux?                               yes
  Does Emacs use -lgnutls?                                yes
  Does Emacs use -lxml2?                                  yes
  Does Emacs use -lfreetype?                              yes
  Does Emacs use -lm17n-flt?                              no
  Does Emacs use -lotf?                                   no
  Does Emacs use -lxft?                                   yes
  Does Emacs use -lsystemd?                               yes
  Does Emacs directly use zlib?                           yes
  Does Emacs have dynamic modules support?                no
  Does Emacs use toolkit scroll bars?                     yes
  Does Emacs support Xwidgets (requires gtk3)?            no
  Does Emacs have threading support in lisp?              yes

Question is -- what happened to the "easy" font menu?
--
David Masterson

Re: set-default-font

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: David Masterson <dsmasterson92630@outlook.com>
> Cc: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
> Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2020 21:47:54 -0700
> 
> First, I had been using a prebuilt Emacs v26.3 on Debian
> (Chromebook). I'm not sure how that version was built, but
> set-default-font did popup an easy font selection that (to me) made
> sense.  I could scroll through (lots of) available with an example of
> what the font would look like before I chose the font.

You can see the details of that version's configuration if you invoke
report-emacs-bug (don't send the bug report, just look at the build
description it produces).

> Second, I had a problem with the prebuilt and thought I'd try building
> Emacs myself.  After getting the needed libraries built, it built and
> works fine.  The main difference is that set-default-font seems to have
> completely changed to a popup for "Font Menu" with 3 items (Misc,
> Courier, and Fontset).  I don't believe have courier fonts loaded, so
> I'm not sure why thats there.  All 3 items have submenus with no
> examples of the fonts.  I think this is a Lucid style popup.  This is my
> configuration for Emacs (no options given to the configure script):

Maybe the original build was with GTK, and this one, with Lucid,
doesn't have the nice font selection dialog?  What you describe is the
Emacs's internal fallback which shows fonts known in advance to exist,
with no relation to the font back-end in use.  This "not nice" menu is
shown if x-select-font function is not available.

Re: set-default-font

[David Masterson]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

> Maybe the original build was with GTK, and this one, with Lucid,
> doesn't have the nice font selection dialog?  What you describe is the
> Emacs's internal fallback which shows fonts known in advance to exist,
> with no relation to the font back-end in use.  This "not nice" menu is
> shown if x-select-font function is not available.

Ah, I'll investigate that.  Sounds like I need to install another
library.  Thanks.
--
David Masterson

Re: set-default-font

[David Masterson]

David Masterson <dsmasterson92630@outlook.com> writes:

> Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
>
>> Maybe the original build was with GTK, and this one, with Lucid,
>> doesn't have the nice font selection dialog?  What you describe is the
>> Emacs's internal fallback which shows fonts known in advance to exist,
>> with no relation to the font back-end in use.  This "not nice" menu is
>> shown if x-select-font function is not available.
>
> Ah, I'll investigate that.  Sounds like I need to install another
> library.  Thanks.

Followup: from the code in xfns.c, it appears that x-select-font is only
defined if you are using GTK and FreeType. With Lucid, you get the
internal fallback.

Maybe I'll try rebuilding with GTK.
--
David Masterson

Re: set-default-font

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: David Masterson <dsmasterson92630@outlook.com>
> Cc: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
> Date: Thu, 27 Aug 2020 19:39:38 -0700
> 
> >> Maybe the original build was with GTK, and this one, with Lucid,
> >> doesn't have the nice font selection dialog?  What you describe is the
> >> Emacs's internal fallback which shows fonts known in advance to exist,
> >> with no relation to the font back-end in use.  This "not nice" menu is
> >> shown if x-select-font function is not available.
> >
> > Ah, I'll investigate that.  Sounds like I need to install another
> > library.  Thanks.
> 
> Followup: from the code in xfns.c, it appears that x-select-font is only
> defined if you are using GTK and FreeType. With Lucid, you get the
> internal fallback.
> 
> Maybe I'll try rebuilding with GTK.

Needless to say, the fonts are available in Emacs regardless.  It's
only the font selection dialog that may be unavailable, but font
settings via, e.g., set-frame-font, set-fontset-font, etc., work
regardless.  IOW, this is just a GUI feature, which depends on the
toolkit's abilities; it doesn't affect what fonts Emacs can use.

Re: set-default-font

[Robert Pluim]

>>>>> On Thu, 27 Aug 2020 19:39:38 -0700, David Masterson <dsmasterson92630@outlook.com> said:

    David> David Masterson <dsmasterson92630@outlook.com> writes:
    >> Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
    >> 
    >>> Maybe the original build was with GTK, and this one, with Lucid,
    >>> doesn't have the nice font selection dialog?  What you describe is the
    >>> Emacs's internal fallback which shows fonts known in advance to exist,
    >>> with no relation to the font back-end in use.  This "not nice" menu is
    >>> shown if x-select-font function is not available.
    >> 
    >> Ah, I'll investigate that.  Sounds like I need to install another
    >> library.  Thanks.

    David> Followup: from the code in xfns.c, it appears that x-select-font is only
    David> defined if you are using GTK and FreeType. With Lucid, you get the
    David> internal fallback.

    David> Maybe I'll try rebuilding with GTK.

If youʼre feeling doubly adventurous, install the cairo-dev packages
as well, and configure --with-cairo (on some more recent Linux
distributions, installing gtk-dev gets you cairo-dev automatically).

Robert

Re: set-default-font

[David Masterson]

Robert Pluim <rpluim@gmail.com> writes:

>>>>>> On Thu, 27 Aug 2020 19:39:38 -0700, David Masterson <dsmasterson92630@outlook.com> said:
>
>     David> Followup: from the code in xfns.c, it appears that x-select-font is only
>     David> defined if you are using GTK and FreeType. With Lucid, you get the
>     David> internal fallback.
>
>     David> Maybe I'll try rebuilding with GTK.
>
> If youʼre feeling doubly adventurous, install the cairo-dev packages
> as well, and configure --with-cairo (on some more recent Linux
> distributions, installing gtk-dev gets you cairo-dev automatically).

I found that the configure script for Gnu Emacs v26.3 is looking for the
package "gtk+-[23].0" and this Linux (Chromebook version of Debian)
doesn't have that package, so I can't 'apt install' it.  It also doesn't
seem to have gtk-dev.  I see that I got cairo-5c installed (along with
dependencies), but I don't see libcairo-dev (but I do see libcairo2-dev
which is installed.  Even so, configure is not finding what it needs
cairo and doesn't build with cairo.
--
David Masterson

Re: set-default-font

[Robert Pluim]

>>>>> On Fri, 28 Aug 2020 16:38:59 -0700, David Masterson <dsmasterson92630@outlook.com> said:

    David> Robert Pluim <rpluim@gmail.com> writes:
    >>>>>>> On Thu, 27 Aug 2020 19:39:38 -0700, David Masterson <dsmasterson92630@outlook.com> said:
    >> 
    David> Followup: from the code in xfns.c, it appears that x-select-font is only
    David> defined if you are using GTK and FreeType. With Lucid, you get the
    David> internal fallback.
    >> 
    David> Maybe I'll try rebuilding with GTK.
    >> 
    >> If youʼre feeling doubly adventurous, install the cairo-dev packages
    >> as well, and configure --with-cairo (on some more recent Linux
    >> distributions, installing gtk-dev gets you cairo-dev automatically).

    David> I found that the configure script for Gnu Emacs v26.3 is looking for the
    David> package "gtk+-[23].0" and this Linux (Chromebook version of Debian)
    David> doesn't have that package, so I can't 'apt install' it.  It also doesn't
    David> seem to have gtk-dev.  I see that I got cairo-5c installed (along with
    David> dependencies), but I don't see libcairo-dev (but I do see libcairo2-dev
    David> which is installed.  Even so, configure is not finding what it needs
    David> cairo and doesn't build with cairo.

Ah, I hadn't realised you were using emacs-26. Cairo support was added
in emacs-27 (but Iʼm not sure it will build without the gtk dev
packages).

Robert

Re: set-default-font

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2020 15:49:07 -0500
> From: 2QdxY4RzWzUUiLuE@potatochowder.com
> 
> Try something like this instead:
> 
>     (set-face-attribute 'default nil :font "DejaVu Sans Mono-12")

If the OP wants only to change the size of the font, then it is wrong
to specify the :font attribute.  He should specify only :height, which
will leave the rest of the font parameters to the default selection.

Re: set-default-font

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: ken <gebser@mousecar.com>
> Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2020 16:38:16 -0400
> 
> >>> set-default-font "-*-*-regular-r-*-*-*-180-*-75-*-*-iso8859-1")
> >> This setting is redundant, because Emacs does that by default.  I
> >> suggest that you simply delete it, you shouldn't see any difference.
> 
> It's part of a larger function, so that I can change the font size
> (small, medium, large) from a menu.

If all you need is to change the font size, then specify only the
size:

  (set-face-attribute 'default nil :height 180)

> > Or, if you did that to get a larger font, use set-face-attribute
> > instead to request a larger font without specifying it in XLFD format
> > (which requires too much information you don't want to provide).
> >
> 
> Changing to:
> 
>   (set-face-attribute
> "-*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-16-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-standard")
> 
> errors out.

Of course, it will: that's not how you call set-face-attribute.
Please consult its doc string for how to use it correctly.