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* Re: Emacs 28: bitmap fonts, vector font character spacing
@ 2023-07-24 15:28 Christoph Groth
  2023-07-24 15:37 ` Robert Pluim
                   ` (2 more replies)
  0 siblings, 3 replies; 14+ messages in thread
From: Christoph Groth @ 2023-07-24 15:28 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: help-gnu-emacs

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Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > From: Christoph Groth <christoph@grothesque.org>
> > Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2023 15:15:24 +0200
> > 
> > I noticed the following entry in NEWS:
> > 
> > > ** The Cairo graphics library is now used by default if present.
> > > '--with-cairo' is now the default, if the appropriate development
> > > files are found by 'configure'.  Building with Cairo is known to
> > > cause some problems with bitmap fonts.  This may require you to
> > > adjust your font settings, or to build with Xft support instead.
> > 
> > Unfortunately, this is not very specific.  Do “some problems” mean
> > that fonts like Terminus no longer work and that I have to recompile
> > Emacs if I want to use them, or is there some workaround?  I tried
> > to find one, but so far without success.
> 
> Basically, Cairo dropped support for bitmap fonts.  So I'd expect them
> not to work at all in an Emacs built with Cairo.

Thanks for the quick clarification!  Perhaps that NEWS entry could be
reformulated to be more categorical?  “Some problems” sounded to me like
there could be ways to work around the problem, and I wasted too much
time trying to find one.  (As strange as it sounds, after staring at
Terminus for a couple of hours on most days for many years I grew
attached to it...)

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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread
* Re: Emacs 28: bitmap fonts, vector font character spacing
@ 2023-07-25 11:12 Christoph Groth
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 14+ messages in thread
From: Christoph Groth @ 2023-07-25 11:12 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: help-gnu-emacs; +Cc: manuel

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Manuel Giraud wrote:
> Christoph Groth <christoph@grothesque.org> writes:
> 
> > With Emacs 28.2 the default font is now much too small (I’m not even
> > sure whether it’s still Terminus).  It is possible to choose
> > Terminus with M-x menu-set-font, but this shows the same tiny font
> > independently of the chosen size.
> 
> FWIW, I'm still on "LoDPi" displays and I'm too using a bitmap font
> (uw-ttyp0 for me).  I' running current (bleeding edge) Emacs with
> cairo and my font are correct.  I do not use 'default-frame-alist but
> I'm setting font with: (set-frame-font "Terminus-16") for instance.
> Could you try it?
> 
> To see (among other things) the font used font a character, you could
> type 'C-u C-x =' on said character.

Hi,

Thanks for the suggestion.  As said, I’m running Emacs 28.2 from Debian
stable.  When I execute (set-frame-font "Terminus-16") the effect is the
same as choosing Terminus through M-x menu-set-font: the default face
changes into a small monospace font, independently of the actually
requested size.

Using C-u C-x = provides:

ftcrhb:-PfEd-Terminus-normal-normal-normal-*-12-*-*-*-c-*-iso10646-1 (#x33)

I find this strange, because it seems that a bitmap font can be
displayed after all, but only in one fixed size.

Still, as far as I am concerned I have made peace with the switch to
DejaVu Sans... (Which, I hear, is now superseded by the Noto family of
fonts, but hey, one step at a time.)

Cheers
Christoph

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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread
* Re: Emacs 28: bitmap fonts, vector font character spacing
@ 2023-07-24 16:10 Christoph Groth
  2023-07-24 16:29 ` PierGianLuca
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 14+ messages in thread
From: Christoph Groth @ 2023-07-24 16:10 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: help-gnu-emacs

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PierGianLuca wrote:

> I've happily used the DejaVu Sans Mono for many years, with
> 
> (set-face-attribute 'default nil :font "DejaVu Sans Mono")
> (set-face-attribute 'default nil :height 94)

Curiously, DejaVu Sans is rendered in the same width both by Emacs 28.2
and xfce4-terminal.  Would be interesting to know what’s the issue with
Fira Code...

Actually, DejaVu might be a better alternative to Terminus after all.
It exists in a proportional variant as well and as such buffers that mix
proporional and monospaced fonts look more harmonical.

Thanks
Christoph

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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread
* Emacs 28: bitmap fonts, vector font character spacing
@ 2023-07-24 13:15 Christoph Groth
  2023-07-24 13:45 ` Eli Zaretskii
                   ` (3 more replies)
  0 siblings, 4 replies; 14+ messages in thread
From: Christoph Groth @ 2023-07-24 13:15 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: help-gnu-emacs

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Hello,

I’m having some trouble trying to set up a pleasant font after upgrading
to Emacs 28.  Would someone be so kind to help?

For many years I was happily using the “Terminus” bitmap font in Emacs
and terminal windows on “regular density” displays.  On “HiDPI” displays
I switched to vector fonts, but for low density displays I preferred the
crisp Terminus.

I recently upgraded Emacs from 27.1 to 28.2 as part of upgrading to the
new Debian stable and this broke my font setup.  I have something like
the following in my emacs config.

(add-to-list 'default-frame-alist '(font . "Terminus-12"))

With Emacs 28.2 the default font is now much too small (I’m not even
sure whether it’s still Terminus).  It is possible to choose Terminus
with M-x menu-set-font, but this shows the same tiny font independently
of the chosen size.

I noticed the following entry in NEWS:

> ** The Cairo graphics library is now used by default if present.
> '--with-cairo' is now the default, if the appropriate development
> files are found by 'configure'.  Building with Cairo is known to cause
> some problems with bitmap fonts.  This may require you to adjust your
> font settings, or to build with Xft support instead.

Unfortunately, this is not very specific.  Do “some problems” mean that
fonts like Terminus no longer work and that I have to recompile Emacs if
I want to use them, or is there some workaround?  I tried to find one,
but so far without success.

----------------------------------------------------------------

So, OK, I thought I’d go with the time and switch to a vector font on
low-density displays as well.  I like how Fira Code Light looks in
xfce4-terminal.

I managed to set it to the size I like through

(add-to-list
 'default-frame-alist
 '(font . "-CTDB-Fira Code-light-normal-normal-*-14-*-*-*-m-0-iso10646-1"))

(Interestingly, I am not able to obtain this size by simply using “Fira
Code-N”.  The font is either too small or too large!)

Anyway, while with the above the vertical line spacing matches the one in
xfce4-terminal, the horizontal inter-character distance is somewhat
wider.  Is there a way to render the font like in xfce4-terminal?

(I believe that this issue could be related to kerning being handled
differently by Emacs/Cairo, but I did not manage to find any information
on how to adjust it.)

For reference:

----------------------------------------------------------------
(frame-parameter nil 'font-backend)
(ftcrhb x)
system-configuration-features
"ACL CAIRO DBUS FREETYPE GIF GLIB GMP GNUTLS GPM GSETTINGS HARFBUZZ JPEG JSON LCMS2 LIBOTF LIBSELINUX LIBSYSTEMD LIBXML2 M17N_FLT MODULES NATIVE_COMP NOTIFY INOTIFY PDUMPER PNG RSVG SECCOMP SOUND THREADS TIFF TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS X11 XDBE XIM XPM GTK3 ZLIB"
----------------------------------------------------------------

My ~/.Xresources contains

----------------------------------------------------------------
Xft.antialias: 0
Xft.hinting: 0
Xft.hintstyle: hintfull
Xft.lcdfilter: lcddefault
Xft.rgba: rgb
----------------------------------------------------------------

Cheers
Christoph

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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread

end of thread, other threads:[~2023-08-10 14:53 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 14+ messages (download: mbox.gz follow: Atom feed
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2023-07-24 15:28 Emacs 28: bitmap fonts, vector font character spacing Christoph Groth
2023-07-24 15:37 ` Robert Pluim
2023-07-24 16:14 ` Eli Zaretskii
2023-08-10 11:28 ` Gregory Heytings
2023-08-10 14:53   ` Emanuel Berg
  -- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2023-07-25 11:12 Christoph Groth
2023-07-24 16:10 Christoph Groth
2023-07-24 16:29 ` PierGianLuca
2023-07-24 13:15 Christoph Groth
2023-07-24 13:45 ` Eli Zaretskii
2023-07-24 13:56 ` PierGianLuca
2023-07-24 14:41   ` Hongyi Zhao
2023-07-25  9:49 ` Manuel Giraud via Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor
2023-07-27  8:37 ` PierGianLuca

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