Increase text size of echo area / mode line?

Increase text size of echo area / mode line?

[Johnny]

Hi list members,

I have been looking around for a way to resize the text displayed in the
echo area. I found that for the buffer, C-x + and C-x - does the sizing
for the buffer alright, but I haven't found how to do this for the echo
area / mode line? 

Ideally, if there is a clever way to automatically increase the default
text size in the echo area and buffer when changing input mode (to
chinese-tonpy)?

Thanks!
-- 
Johnny

Re: Increase text size of echo area / mode line?

[Filippo A. Salustri]

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For the mode line, you can diddle the font size etc by customizing the
variables mode-line and mode-line-inactive.  Dunno about the echo area.
Hope this helps.
Cheers.
Fil

On 5 April 2011 15:10, Johnny <yggdrasil@gmx.co.uk> wrote:

> Hi list members,
>
> I have been looking around for a way to resize the text displayed in the
> echo area. I found that for the buffer, C-x + and C-x - does the sizing
> for the buffer alright, but I haven't found how to do this for the echo
> area / mode line?
>
> Ideally, if there is a clever way to automatically increase the default
> text size in the echo area and buffer when changing input mode (to
> chinese-tonpy)?
>
> Thanks!
> --
> Johnny
>
>


-- 
Filippo A. Salustri, Ph.D., P.Eng.
Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Ryerson University
350 Victoria St, Toronto, ON
M5B 2K3, Canada
Tel: 416/979-5000 ext 7749
Fax: 416/979-5265
Email: salustri@ryerson.ca
http://deseng.ryerson.ca/~fil/

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Re: Increase text size of echo area / mode line?

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 05.04.2011 um 21:10 schrieb Johnny:

> Ideally, if there is a clever way to automatically increase the  
> default
> text size in the echo area and buffer when changing input mode (to
> chinese-tonpy)?

Besides mode-line and mode-line-inactive you can also customise  
minibuffer-prompt. Presumingly minibuffer-frame-alist can have the  
biggest effect.

--
Greetings

   Pete

Every instructor assumes that you have nothing else to do except study  
for that instructor's course.
				– Fourth Law of Applied Terror

Re: Increase text size of echo area / mode line?

[Stefan Monnier]

> Ideally, if there is a clever way to automatically increase the default
> text size in the echo area and buffer when changing input mode (to
> chinese-tonpy)?

Good point.  That's another reason Emacs should provide a way to
customize the echo&mini buffers.  I think this deserves a feature request
via M-x report-emacs-bug.


        Stefan

Re: Increase text size of echo area / mode line?

[Johnny]

Peter Dyballa <Peter_Dyballa@Web.DE> writes:

> Am 05.04.2011 um 21:10 schrieb Johnny:
>
>> Ideally, if there is a clever way to automatically increase the
>> default
>> text size in the echo area and buffer when changing input mode (to
>> chinese-tonpy)?
>
> Besides mode-line and mode-line-inactive you can also customise
> minibuffer-prompt. Presumingly minibuffer-frame-alist can have the
> biggest effect.
>
I finally got around to fiddle with this again, unfortunately no
(greater) luck. The mode-line customisation do not affect the input
suggestion. 

What I do is C-\ and type e.g. 'hao' and the completion are
tiny. The closest I got was to customise the default face by
M-x customize-face RET default
and setting the height to a larger value. This increaseas /all/ the font
sizes though. Probably there is a way to increase only the chinese font
sizes, but I have not found a way to do this yet. Any suggestions welcome!
-- 
Johnny

Re: Increase text size of echo area / mode line?

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 21.05.2011 um 14:01 schrieb Johnny:

> Any suggestions welcome!


Did you launch GNU Emacs with the -Q option? This means: without any  
customisation. Now enter: C-h H! After some a buffer HELLO will open.  
How is the size of the Chinese characters in this buffer? How is the  
size of the characters when you perform your usual completion test in  
mini-buffer?

If all looks pretty well you can try: M-x describe-fontset RET. You  
can also position the cursor on one of the Chinese characters in the  
HELLO buffer and type: C-u C-x =. In the just opened *Help* buffer you  
can see the XLFD (X11 Logical Font Descriptor) name of the font used  
by GNU Emacs. You can now try to create a new or modify an existing  
fontset to use the font you just determined:

	(defvar my-fontset-spec)
	(setq my-fontset-spec
	      "-*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-15-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-normal,
		chinese-big5-1:*-kai-*-*-15-*,
		chinese-big5-2:*-kai-*-*-15-*"
	)
	
	(create-fontset-from-fontset-spec my-fontset-spec)

It seems that font names from the fontconfig service also work:

	(set-fontset-font "fontset-default" 'gb18030 '("STFangsong". "unicode- 
bmp")

or, with a particular size:

	(set-fontset-font "fontset-default" 'gb18030 '("STFangsong-16".  
"unicode-bmp")

Fontsets are documented in GNU Emacs' info system (C-h i).

--
Greetings

   Pete

Isn't vi that text editor with two modes... one that beeps and one  
that corrupts your file?
				– Dan Jacobson, on comp.os.linux.advocacy

Re: Increase text size of echo area / mode line?

[Johnny]

Peter Dyballa <Peter_Dyballa@Web.DE> writes:

> Am 21.05.2011 um 14:01 schrieb Johnny:
>
>> Any suggestions welcome!
>
>
> Did you launch GNU Emacs with the -Q option? This means: without any
> customisation. Now enter: C-h H! After some a buffer HELLO will
> open. How is the size of the Chinese characters in this buffer? How is
> the size of the characters when you perform your usual completion test
> in mini-buffer?

Yes, this all looks nice and tidy.

> 	(defvar my-fontset-spec)
> 	(setq my-fontset-spec
> 	      "-*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-15-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-normal,
> 		chinese-big5-1:*-kai-*-*-15-*,
> 		chinese-big5-2:*-kai-*-*-15-*"
> 	)
> 	
> 	(create-fontset-from-fontset-spec my-fontset-spec)
>
Ok, so I am struggling here. The info says: 

|- C-h f create-fontset-from-fontset-spec
|When a frame uses the fontset as the `font' parameter, the frame's
|default font name is derived from FONTSET-NAME by substituting
|"iso8859-1" for the tail part "fontset-XXX"
|-------

I don't catch the drift at all. What is fontset-XXX? I guess we are
specifying a fontset based on (or containing?) normal, big5-1 and big5-2
and then applying it?

> It seems that font names from the fontconfig service also work:
>
> 	(set-fontset-font "fontset-default" 'gb18030
> ("STFangsong". "unicode- 
> bmp")
>
> or, with a particular size:
>
> 	(set-fontset-font "fontset-default" 'gb18030
> ("STFangsong-16". "unicode-bmp")

This is alternate methods, I assume? But where does STFangsong come from
and what happened to big5?

> Fontsets are documented in GNU Emacs' info system (C-h i).

Yes, I am reading that on and off, as well as Emacs wiki,
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/FontSets, but I still don't get it. Fonts
and faces seem to be one of the Emacs peculiarities, however I am sure
it is a great system once getting the hang of it! But for now...

My understanding so far is that I have only three fontsets installed
(default, standard and startup). Typing Chinese seems to use one of the
Charsets in the fontset (WenQuanYi) with a default size of 13, which can
be increased by C-x +. I guess, what I would like to do is to by default
use a larger size for the Chinese fonts, in particular the ones emacs
itselfs puts in the minibuffer when offering completions. Maybe one has
to set the same default size for all fonts in a buffer? If this is the
case, I guess what I am trying to do is changing the default font size
for the minibuffer?

Thanks for your effort in explaining, I'll keep fiddling with this and
see if I can make any progress!

Regards,

-- 
Johnny

Re: Increase text size of echo area / mode line?

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 24.05.2011 um 23:13 schrieb Johnny:

>> It seems that font names from the fontconfig service also work:
>>
>> 	(set-fontset-font "fontset-default" 'gb18030
>> ("STFangsong". "unicode-
>> bmp")
>>
>> or, with a particular size:
>>
>> 	(set-fontset-font "fontset-default" 'gb18030
>> ("STFangsong-16". "unicode-bmp")
>
> This is alternate methods, I assume?

It's more of a direct method of constructing a fontset.

> But where does STFangsong come from and what happened to big5?


"STFangsong" is the name of a TrueType font as reported by the  
fontconfig service (fc-list for example). "STFangsong-16" is the  
fontconfig specification of the STFangsong (normal, regular) font at  
16 pt size.

Once you've set up your own fontset, you can make it active by  
specifying it in default-frame-alist (there's also initial-frame- 
alist) in your init file:

     (setq default-frame-alist
       (append (list
	'(font . "fontset-10pt_lucida_sans_typewriter")
     ) default-frame-alist)))


--
Greetings

   Pete

Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for a night, but set a man on  
fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.