xterm vs gnome-terminal and all-the-icons.el

xterm vs gnome-terminal and all-the-icons.el

[joakim]

Hello,

I noticed that the emacs all-the-icons.el works in gnome-terminal, but
not in xterm. I'm curious if its possible to get the same effect in
xterm. Does anyone have this working?


-- 
Joakim Verona
joakim@verona.se
+46705459454

Re: xterm vs gnome-terminal and all-the-icons.el

[Emanuel Berg]

joakim wrote:

> I noticed that the emacs all-the-icons.el
> works in gnome-terminal, but not in xterm.

Interesting - for it to be a difference between
gnome-terminal and xterm, you run a terminal
Emacs, right? As in -nw ?

Only if you do, how can there be an
*icon* issue?

Answer:

    In order for the icons to work it is very
    important that you install the Resource
    Fonts included in this package, they are
    available in the fonts directory. [1]

BTW gnome-terminal is actually supposed to
emulate xterm [2], only it is slower and not
as good :)

[1] https://github.com/domtronn/all-the-icons.el
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME_Terminal

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Re: xterm vs gnome-terminal and all-the-icons.el

[Emanuel Berg]

joakim wrote:

> I noticed that the emacs all-the-icons.el
> works in gnome-terminal, but not in xterm.
> I'm curious if its possible to get the same
> effect in xterm. Does anyone have
> this working?

I found a SX Q&A page that is helpful [1].
I modernized some of the commands I found there
tho. The ones I don't mention, I didn't get
to work.

You can find out what resources are hooked to
xterm with this command:

    $ DISPLAY=":0" appres xterm

(In X, the DISPLAY part can probably
be omitted.)

You get a lot of stuff from appres(1) (which
means "application resources" for you
Sherlocks) - the line which is important here
tho is probably one which looks like this:

    xterm*faceName:	xft:bitstream vera sans mono bold:size=12:antialias=true

This is BTW the same way it is setup in the
.Xresources file, which can then be read every
time X starts with this line in ~/.xinitrc

    xrdb ~/.Xresources

Also, they mention "xrdb -q | grep -i font"
which doesn't give anything sensible in my case
as at least I have that face, not "font" - but
yes,

    $ DISPLAY=":0" xrdb -q | grep face

works. If in doubt, grep for xterm and get
it all :)

You can also do:

    $ sudo lsof -p $(pidof xterm) | grep fonts

for where xterm then finds the fonts:

    xterm [...] /usr/share/fonts/truetype/inconsolata/Inconsolata.otf

Somewhat of a surprise, lsof(8) 8? I don't have
by default, so I had to get that, and possibly
even you as well, but the pack is also named
that so it is easy to find. Assuming Debian
forks as always...

[1] https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/96962/how-can-i-find-the-default-font-resource-xterm-is-using

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underground experts united
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Re: xterm vs gnome-terminal and all-the-icons.el

[Yuri Khan]

On Wed, Jan 24, 2018 at 5:16 AM,  <joakim@verona.se> wrote:

> I noticed that the emacs all-the-icons.el works in gnome-terminal, but
> not in xterm. I'm curious if its possible to get the same effect in
> xterm. Does anyone have this working?

I am not familiar with all-the-icons, but if it involves a custom
font, it will require a terminal emulator that supports font fallback.
Xterm does not.

Re: xterm vs gnome-terminal and all-the-icons.el

[Emanuel Berg]

Yuri Khan wrote:

>> I noticed that the emacs all-the-icons.el
>> works in gnome-terminal, but not in xterm.
>> I'm curious if its possible to get the same
>> effect in xterm. Does anyone have
>> this working?
>
> I am not familiar with all-the-icons, but if
> it involves a custom font, it will require
> a terminal emulator that supports font
> fallback. Xterm does not.

Shame on you if you don't know what
"font fallback" is:

    A fallback font is a reserve typeface
    containing symbols for as many Unicode
    characters as possible. When a display
    system encounters a character that is not
    part of the repertoire of any of the other
    available fonts, a symbol from a fallback
    font is used instead.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallback_font

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Re: xterm vs gnome-terminal and all-the-icons.el

[Emanuel Berg]

Here [1] is some crazy talk how to merge fonts
into a megafont superfile containing everything
including those mysterious icons so desired by
the OP. Go nuts :)

If you succeed, please tell us about it because
it is praise to the "diversity is a strength"
FOSS community :))

[1] https://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/questions/13380/command-line-tool-for-merging-fonts-files

-- 
underground experts united
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Re: xterm vs gnome-terminal and all-the-icons.el

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Emanuel Berg <moasen@zoho.com>
> Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2018 09:11:47 +0100
> 
> Shame on you if you don't know what
> "font fallback" is:

There's no "shame" in not knowing something.  I'm sure I can find
quite a few subjects of which you know nothing, and you can do the
same for me.

Re: xterm vs gnome-terminal and all-the-icons.el

[Emanuel Berg]

Eli Zaretskii wrote:

>> Shame on you if you don't know what "font
>> fallback" is:
>
> There's no "shame" in not knowing something.
> I'm sure I can find quite a few subjects of
> which you know nothing, and you can do the
> same for me.

Well, there is no shame misinterpreting
expressions literally, either - it happens
every day (literally).

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: xterm vs gnome-terminal and all-the-icons.el

[Yuri Khan]

On Thu, Jan 25, 2018 at 3:11 PM, Emanuel Berg <moasen@zoho.com> wrote:

>> I am not familiar with all-the-icons, but if
>> it involves a custom font, it will require
>> a terminal emulator that supports font
>> fallback. Xterm does not.
>
> Shame on you if you don't know what
> "font fallback" is:
>
>    A fallback font is a reserve typeface
>    containing symbols for as many Unicode
>    characters as possible.

I do not understand your comment. I made a conjecture about how
all-the-icons works (namely, that it expects characters to be
displayed using certain fonts; I now know this to be true). From that
conjecture, I drew the implication that it requires that the rendering
engine support font fallback, in other words, it must be able to try
several fonts in case the default one does not have a glyph for the
character being displayed. Further, I noted that xterm does not
support this mechanism, implying that all-the-icons cannot work under
xterm.

In reply, you are implying that my use of the expression “font
fallback” is wrong, and you are citing the Wikipedia article about
“fallback font” (which is a related but distinct concept; a fallback
font is a font that can be used for font fallback with some effect).

You should try not being so quick to shame people. Somebody might get offended.

Re: xterm vs gnome-terminal and all-the-icons.el

[Emanuel Berg]

Yuri Khan wrote:

> In reply, you are implying that my use of the
> expression “font fallback” is wrong

??????

If anything, I thought you used it very
casually, a term which probably is new or
uncommon even to computer people, so I Googled
and yanked the first definition that made
sense, for the benefit of others reading
this thread.

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: xterm vs gnome-terminal and all-the-icons.el

[tomas]

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On Thu, Jan 25, 2018 at 08:24:54PM +0100, Emanuel Berg wrote:
> Yuri Khan wrote:
> 
> > In reply, you are implying that my use of the
> > expression “font fallback” is wrong
> 
> ??????
> 
> If anything, I thought you used it very
> casually, a term which probably is new or
> uncommon even to computer people, so I Googled
> and yanked the first definition that made
> sense, for the benefit of others reading
> this thread.

I still don't get the "shame" thing, though...

Cheers
- -- t
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Re: xterm vs gnome-terminal and all-the-icons.el

[Emanuel Berg]

tomas wrote:

> I still don't get the "shame" thing,
> though...

OK, FTR there is *no shame whatsoever* not
knowing what "font fallback" is.

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: xterm vs gnome-terminal and all-the-icons.el

[tomas]

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On Fri, Jan 26, 2018 at 05:49:32PM +0100, Emanuel Berg wrote:
> tomas wrote:
> 
> > I still don't get the "shame" thing,
> > though...
> 
> OK, FTR there is *no shame whatsoever* not
> knowing what "font fallback" is.

OK

Cheers
- -- t
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Re: xterm vs gnome-terminal and all-the-icons.el

[Emanuel Berg]

tomas wrote:

>>> I still don't get the "shame" thing, >
>>> though...
>> 
>> OK, FTR there is *no shame whatsoever* not
>> knowing what "font fallback" is.
>
> OK

The OP has been awfully silent since his OP.
Next time, perhaps we should keep in mind that
we have guests?

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: xterm vs gnome-terminal and all-the-icons.el

[Emanuel Berg]

This reminds me of a story from Edgar Snow - he
was an American writer, and there is no shame
not having read his books on the
Chinese Revolution, and more, even tho they are
excellent no doubt.

Anyway Snow once heard from Nehru that he,
Snow, wasn't ever going to understand either
China or India unless he learned how to stand
on his head.

Snow contemplated this metaphor until he met
Nehru face to face and they got themselves into
some tricky political matter. Suddenly Nehru
excused himself and walked to a nearby wall.
There, he flipped himself feet up, and blood
started to fill his head.

Only then did Snow understand it wasn't
a metaphor at all.

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: xterm vs gnome-terminal and all-the-icons.el

[joakim]

Life happened and stuff.

I'm going to test a number of things that came up in this thread, and
also during discussions with the xterm author, and the all-the-icons
guys. Then I will document my findings and communicate them here.

Basically I'm trying permutations of xterm, gnome-terminal, terminal
keyboard rebindings, mosh, fonts, etc. 


/Joakim

Emanuel Berg <moasen@zoho.com> writes:

> tomas wrote:
>
>>>> I still don't get the "shame" thing, >
>>>> though...
>>> 
>>> OK, FTR there is *no shame whatsoever* not
>>> knowing what "font fallback" is.
>>
>> OK
>
> The OP has been awfully silent since his OP.
> Next time, perhaps we should keep in mind that
> we have guests?
-- 
Joakim Verona
joakim@verona.se
+46705459454

Re: xterm vs gnome-terminal and all-the-icons.el

[Emanuel Berg]

joakim wrote:

> Basically I'm trying permutations of xterm,
> gnome-terminal, terminal keyboard rebindings,
> mosh, fonts, etc.

When I installed my first Debian I got
gnome-terminal by default, but I soon realized
that xterm is much faster. Or at least that was
the case back then, perhaps it has changed.

I also remember trying rxvt and urxvt for
a short period: "r" as in "reduced", "u" as in
"unicode" - but despite xterm not being
reduced, it wasn't/isn't slower than rxvt what
I could tell, nor does it have any char
limitation for my purposes.

BTW urxvt seems to be in rxvt-unicode. There is
also a reduced urxvt, in rxvt-unicode-lite :)

BTW 2 I once read a FAQ and there was
a question how to start a terminal. The answer
said in a terminal, type the name of the
terminal and hit RET! In essence, an
"interminal" problem...

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: xterm vs gnome-terminal and all-the-icons.el

[joakim]

joakim@verona.se writes:

> Life happened and stuff.
>
> I'm going to test a number of things that came up in this thread, and
> also during discussions with the xterm author, and the all-the-icons
> guys. Then I will document my findings and communicate them here.
>
> Basically I'm trying permutations of xterm, gnome-terminal, terminal
> keyboard rebindings, mosh, fonts, etc. 

Now I tried merging fonts using fontforge. i used DejaVuSansMono as the
base font, then I merged the various all-the-icons fonts to a new
DejaVuSansMonoIcons font, and installed the font. I then tried using the
new font in xterm, and it works to a degree. Since the different fonts
probably have different widths, there are some quirks with the icons
being wider than the base font at times. But anyway, it is possible to
get all-the-icons in an xterm emacs, but if one wants it to look nice,
one needs to spend a bit of time.

>
>
> /Joakim
>
> Emanuel Berg <moasen@zoho.com> writes:
>
>> tomas wrote:
>>
>>>>> I still don't get the "shame" thing, >
>>>>> though...
>>>> 
>>>> OK, FTR there is *no shame whatsoever* not
>>>> knowing what "font fallback" is.
>>>
>>> OK
>>
>> The OP has been awfully silent since his OP.
>> Next time, perhaps we should keep in mind that
>> we have guests?
-- 
Joakim Verona
joakim@verona.se
+46705459454