Re: font for dired mode?

[Kevin Rodgers <ihs_4664@yahoo.com>]

David Reitter wrote:
 > I'm trying to set a different font for the dired mode. I would like to
 > make everything appear in "fontset-monaco12". I've tried setting the
 > faces (like dired-header), but that didn't work at all.
 >
 > Then I've tried this:
 >
 > (add-hook 'dired-mode-hook
 >           (lambda () (set-frame-font "fontset-monaco12")))
 >
 > but the result was only that the buffer from which i called dired was
 > displayed in monaco, but not the newly opened frame for dired. It's like
 > the hook is called from the wrong context, with a different frame being
 > the selected frame.

Why is the Dired buffer opened in a new frame?  Is it because you're
using `C-x 5 d', or is some other customization coming into play
(e.g. special-display-buffer-names)?

Your problem is probably that the Dired buffer is created and the mode
hook is run, before the buffer is displayed -- in particular, before the
new frame is created.  I wonder whether this approach will work:

(defvar dired-other-frame-alist nil)

(defadvice dired-other-frame (around frame-alist activate)
   (let ((default-frame-alist (append dired-other-frame-alist
                                      default-frame-alist)))
     ad-do-it))

(setq dired-other-frame-alist
       '((font . "fontset-monaco12")))

Or maybe just:

(add-hook 'after-make-frame-functions
           (lambda (frame)
             ;; do we need to first select the FRAME?
             (when (eq major-mode 'dired)
               (set-frame-font "fontset-monaco12"))))

-- 
Kevin Rodgers