How to use xft fonts with Lucid linked Emacs

How to use xft fonts with Lucid linked Emacs

[Ian Zimmerman]

Hi everyone, it has been a long time.

I use Debian 23.3 packages, and I want to switch to the Lucid flavor because the gtk flavor pulls in my nemesis gconf.  It works, but I seem to be unable to use xft fonts.  After reading the manpage and info manual, I put this in my .Xresources:

Emacs.pane.menubar*.font: Sans-12

But instead Emacs renders the menu with the "fixed" bitmap font, and I get this in my .xsession-errors:

Warning: Cannot convert string "Sans-12" to type FontStruct

I also tried adding this to .Xresources:

Emacs.FontBackend: xft,x

but that didn't change anything.

I am pretty sure Xft support is compiled in this version, at least the binary is linked with the xft and freetype libraries.  (How do I check that Xft support is present from within Emacs, by the way?)

Many thanks for any insights.
Ian.


-- 
Ian Zimmerman
gpg public key: 1024D/C6FF61AD
fingerprint: 66DC D68F 5C1B 4D71 2EE5  BD03 8A00 786C C6FF 61AD
Rule 420: All persons more than eight miles high to leave the court.

Re: How to use xft fonts with Lucid linked Emacs

[Jason Rumney]

On Saturday, July 9, 2011 12:31:40 AM UTC+8, Ian Zimmerman wrote:

> I use Debian 23.3 packages, and I want to switch to the Lucid flavor because the gtk flavor pulls in my nemesis gconf.  It works, but I seem to be unable to use xft fonts.  After reading the manpage and info manual, I put this in my .Xresources:
> 
> Emacs.pane.menubar*.font: Sans-12

The Lucid menubar probably cannot use xft fonts.  This is not the same as what your subject says.

Re: How to use xft fonts with Lucid linked Emacs

[Ian Zimmerman]

On Sun, 10 Jul 2011 19:05:13 -0700 (PDT)
Jason Rumney <jasonrumney@gmail.com> wrote:

Ian> I use Debian 23.3 packages, and I want to switch to the Lucid
Ian> flavor because the gtk flavor pulls in my nemesis gconf.  It works,
Ian> but I seem to be unable to use xft fonts.  After reading the
Ian> manpage and info manual, I put this in my .Xresources:

Ian> Emacs.pane.menubar*.font: Sans-12

Jason> The Lucid menubar probably cannot use xft fonts.  This is not the
Jason> same as what your subject says.

You are right; setting one of the buffer contents faces to Sans-12 works
as expected.  Now, why?  The error message looks like something
determined solely by the font name and not the context where it is to be
used.

-- 
Ian Zimmerman
gpg public key: 1024D/C6FF61AD
fingerprint: 66DC D68F 5C1B 4D71 2EE5  BD03 8A00 786C C6FF 61AD
Rule 420: All persons more than eight miles high to leave the court.