Re: Face initialization

[Jason Rumney]

Richard M Stallman wrote:
>     I suggest that the main advertised interface should use Xft/fontconfig
>     notation.
> 
> I do not know this notation, but I won't argue against this.
> Can one function accept both of these forms of font specification?

Currently the -fn command line argument accepts 3 forms of font
specification; GTK, Fontconfig and XLFD, so there is no reason why any
other place where fonts are specified as strings could not do the same.
GTK and Fontconfig formats are much easier for new users to deal with,
as most of the information is optional, and in their simplest forms,
they can just be the family name of a font, though for the default font
you will usually want to specify a size as well.


The following are equivalents in the different formats:

GTK:        Fixed 12
Fontconfig: Fixed-12
XLFD:       -*-Fixed-normal-r-normal-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-*-*

GTK:        Fixed Bold 12
Fontconfig: Fixed-12:bold
XLFD:       -*-Fixed-bold-r-normal-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-*-*

GTK:        unrepresentable (AFAIK)
Fontconfig: Fixed-12:bold:foundry=misc
XLFD:       -misc-Fixed-bold-r-normal-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-*-*


AFAIK GTK format only supports specifying family, point size, weight and
slant, while fontconfig supports those, plus arbitrary named properties,
which can include properties beyond the 14 fields in an XLFD descriptor.