fonts in emacs : how are they chosen? - emacs

When I run M-x describe-font on any font I choose on my macmini I get
name (opened by): -apple-Verdana-medium-normal-normal-*-12-*-*-*-p-0-iso10646-1
full name: Verdana
or
name (opened by): -apple-Monaco-medium-normal-normal-*-13-*-*-*-m-0-iso10646-1
full name: Monaco
Every font has "-apple-" has prefix, and it does NOT display correctly unicode subscripts like $project_1$
whereas on my macbook I get :
name (opened by): -*-Monaco-normal-normal-normal-*-12-*-*-*-m-0-iso10646-1
full name: Monaco:pixelsize=12:weight=normal:slant=normal:width=normal:spacing=100:scalable=true
Every font I might change has "-*-" for prefix, and I can see normally unicode subscripts :
Does anyone know how to force emacs to pick the font maker "*" instead of "apple" ??
I suspect Monaco font is requested, but it does not identify the precise font used.

I upgraded from 24.3.1 to 24.4.1 and the fonts are now "-*- ..." which display correctly unicode. I did not change configuration files
the mystery is still open, but at least it works.

Related

Configuring the font-style of VS Code's inlay-hints

How can I change the font's style for VS Code's "Inlay Hints" feature?
I attempted to search for an answer, but could only find how to change the color, not the style.
Here's an example:
I would like the word target in the image below to render italic.
I tried the following, however, it did not work...
{
scope: "inlayHint",
settings: {
fontStyle: "italic",
},
},
I also tried adding editor.inlayHint to the scope, but the attempt was without success.
Setting the Font-style to italic isn't Possible.
Not all is lost though, there's a workaround that actually works pretty well.
As I stated above, setting the font-style to italic is not possible. There is, however, a workaround, and it works pretty darn well. Before I explain the workaround, I think its important to note that the first solution I tried to use, was to set the font to an italic variant, unfortunately setting "editor.inlayHints.fontFamily" to an italic variant of a font was something that VS Code didn't seem to allow. I have seen this in many other situations. The idea is, since you can't do this "fontStyle": "italic", you just change the font to an italic version.
For example:
If I use Cascadia Code as my font, then — in theory — I can just us the following configuration:
// #file "settings.json"
{
"editor.inlayHints.fontFamily": "'Cascadia Code Italic'"
}
...however, it unfortunately doesn't work that way — or at-least not in this situation. Not only do italic varients not work, but neither do bold variants and/or expanded variants (i.e. 'Inconsolata SemiExpanded', 'Inconsolata Bold', etc...).
While moving forward, I will state the obvious:
There is no "editor.inlayHints.fontStyle" setting.
So what do we do?
Well we can set the font-family using "editor.inlayHints.fontFamily".
Its a bit suprising that we can set the font, but not the font's style. I am not sure why they designed it this way, but it's obvious that they built the feature with specific constraints for reasons that are beyond me (reading the feature's development feed on GitHub would probably help anyone who wanted to know more about why the feature works how it does). Nevertheless, we have a highly customizable setting, that actually gives us far more control than the setting that we established, does not exist, editor.inlayHints.font.
What I do, personally, which has a cool tricked-out look, is I find a
non-monospaced hand-written style of font — usually from Google Fonts — and I assign that to the font-family. It took me a while to find some fonts that work. Anyone who has ever played with fonts, trying to find which font works best for them to write code with, will know: Picking fonts that are used anywhere inside the editor (or inside your code) is going to require great scrutiny, and the longer you code, the more set in your ways you get, so this can actually be a time consuming setting to configure. It took me an hour to settle on a font, and I settled on using the "Sriracha" font-family. Siracha is oblique in appearance (looks italic), its readable in the editor, it renders well in the editor (which not all fonts are going to do), and its slightly bolder than the standard weight of the font I use wich is Cascadia Code.
My Configuration results in the following appearance:
When changing the font family, there are a couple other settings that help to configure this feature.
So, in other words, just do the following:
Download the italic &/or bold style font you wont from Google Fonts, Font Squirrel, or some other font source you perfer.
Set the font family using "editor.inlayHints.fontFamily".
Critique the fonts configuration using the other settings available below.
// #file "settings.json"
{
// Font Family
"editor.inlayHints.fontFamily": "/*NAME OF FONT FAMILY*/",
// Font Size
"editor.inlayHints.fontSize": 14, // <-- Set the font-size you want
// Theme Colors Override
"workbench.colorCustomizations": {
// Overrides Theme Default Colors for InlayHints feature
"editorInlayHint.background": "#00001CCC",
"editorInlayHint.foreground": "#99FFBBCC",
// Overrides Theme Parameter hints fg for InlayHints feature
"editorInlayHint.parameterBackground": "#00001CCC",
"editorInlayHint.parameterForeground": "#99FFBBCC",
// Overrides Theme Type hints fg for InlayHints feature
"editorInlayHint.typeBackground": "#08000088",
"editorInlayHint.typeForeground": "#DDEEFF88"
},
}
Really its quite simple.
By being able to set the inlayHints font family to anything we want, we can achieve any sort of font style we want.
In settings.json you need a line like
"editor.inlayHints.fontFamily": "'Myfontitalic'",
Now, it seems vscode has some trouble reading a font name with non alphanumeric characters, if for instance the italic version is "Myfont-Italic" or "Myfont Italic".
A solution is to copy and rename the font to a new name, like "Myfontitalic", without spaces or other characters.
What I did was for Ubuntu but the same idea should work on any Linux, and probably Windows, using other tools (fontforge?)
apt install fonttools font-manager to get ttx a utility to change font info (font-manager is also useful)
use a search, font-manager, font-viewer, ... to find the location of the font (usually /usr/share/fonts/... or ~/.local/share/fonts)
copy a fresh version somewhere (home), cp ~/.local/share/fonts/Myfont-Italic.otf ~/temp.otf and cd to go home
translate to an XML copy ttx temp.otf as temp.ttx
edit temp.ttx (vi, ...), and change all "Myfont-Italic", "Myfont Italic" ... (relevant names) to a unique "Myfontitalic" name, save.
translate back to otf (...) with ttx temp.ttx (creates Myfontitalic.otf if it was an otf file)
To install the new font (locally), either double-click on it in the file explorer ( ~/Myfontitalic.otf ) or use a tool. Restart font-manager, the new font should be visible.
Restart vscode and add the line above in settings.json.
on a Mac find the font variant name like this:
Open "Font Book" App
Expand the desired font and select a variant.
Click the (i) icon on the Font Book toolbar.
Use the PostScript Name name in VS Code - for example "editor.inlayHints.fontFamily": "DankMono-Italic"
No one tells you where to edit this and that makes it a pain in the butt.
File>Preferences>Settings, search for color customizations, click "Edit in settings.json"
{
"workbench.colorCustomizations": {
"editorInlayHint.background": "#00000000",
"editorInlayHint.foreground": "#666666FF",
},
}

How VSCode choose the font from the given font list in editor.fontfamily?

When I open the VSCode editor.fontfamily setting, I found there is a list of font family in the input field. So I want to know that how VSCode choose the font from the given font list in editor.fontfamily?
Does it choose font following descended priority, and what is the stategy? Or the font in different locations have different effects?
Thanks.
The "list" is more of a set of fonts, where the first one is the preferred font, the next one being a fallback, and so on. It's not an actual list as far as a JSON object goes, it's just a string that's comma delimited.
{
"editor.fontFamily": "Consolas, 'Courier New', monospace",
// first second third
}
You can test this out by simply switching around the fonts and saving the file to see how Visual Studio Code reacts. If you put in a bogus font name as the first item in the set, when Visual Studio Code can't find the font, it will fallback to the next one. On Windows, if you supply nothing but invalid fonts, it looks like the ultimate fallback is Times New Roman (or an extremely similar looking font):

How to set a monopaced font in code-blocks?

My standard font is a proportional one. When I edit markdown files I would like to have all sections that are indented by 4 or more spaces be shown in a monospaced font.
I do not use any special markdown mode. Therefore I would be ok if I had to to switch that behavior manually on for the current buffer. Although, my own mode for *.md-files would be need of course, but I have no idea how to do that (and is beyond the scope if this question).
The modes that are active for me are:
Enabled minor modes: Abbrev Auto-Composition
Auto-Compression Auto-Encryption Blink-Cursor
Column-Highlight Column-Number Desktop-Save File-Name-Shadow
Flyspell Font-Lock Global-Font-Lock Icomplete Line-Number
Menu-Bar Mouse-Wheel Shell-Dirtrack Show-Paren
Tooltip Transient-Mark
Yes, you do need a mode that highlights markdown code. (Try M-x package-install RET markdown-mode+ RET) If you have font-locking enabled (I suspect you have), the mode that you end up probably gives syntax highlighting for markdown.
Now, syntax highlighting is just alterations to font and color used. Once you have it on, you can customize the font face used for code by navigating over a code block and issuing M-x customize-face. My markdown mode has code blocks under markdown-pre-face; the face under cursor will be selected by default for you.
I prepared some screenshots to show the workflow. Determining what emacs allows for font family or foundry is bit of a dark magic, and I leave it to google to find out more about it. On linux systems there used to be an ugly little helper called xfontsel where you can preview different font families and foundries.
You can experiment without saving anything first by applying the changes without saving; when things look fine, you can "apply and save" in the customize mode.
I'm going to partially disagree with the argument that you can do what you are after. You can only partially do what you are after and it is a bit of a hack.
Basically, you can set different fonts for different faces. So, provided the text you want to display in a fixed width font has a different face definition, then you can change the font from a proportional font to a fixed width font. At least, that is the theory.
Unfortunately, the results tend to be less than you would hope.
The problem is that most modes do not define faces for all possible characters. Faces tend to only be used to make something stand out and that tends to mean something which is special in the mode - a heading, a bit of syntax etc.
The problem will be witht he 'default face - the face used when no other face is specified. The default face is not mode specific. If you set default face to a monospace font, that font will be used in all modes, not just in 'plain' characters within markdown mode. If any of your fonts in markdown mode are proportional, you will find that alignment in indentation will not look consistent. Depending on how you structure your buffer contents, this may or may not be an issue.
Personally, I gave up on using a proportioanl font as the default font under emacs a long time ago and have settled instead on using a fixed width font as the default and then defining proportional fonts for some speial purposes, such as org-mode headers.
some things you could try which might work, would be
File local variables for setting fonts just in markdown filtes. I've not tried this, but you may be able to use file local variables. You would probably want to create a markdown template which sets this up in new markdown filtes.
Make the face variables buffer local. You might be able to define a markdown-mode hook function which makes the face variables buffer local and sets them to a fixed width font.
Face definitions can use inheritance, so theoretically, if all the faces used inherit from default face and you do a file local variable or buffer local variable to set the default face, then all other faces should inherit that definition, so you shouldn't have to do it for every font in the buffer.

Alignment of characters in Notepad++

I just wondered why my m-files from MATLAB look so different when I open them with Notepad++ instead of the built-in MATLAB Editor.
It seems that in the MATLAB Editor each character has the same width. Not so in Notepad++ (even I change the language to "M").
Here's a screenshot from a file opened in Notepad++ (left) and in the MATLAB Editor (right).
In the MATLAB Editor all the characters in column X are exactly one below the other. They aren't in Notepad++.
I just played a bit with the tab preferences, without any success.
Is there a way to get the alignment of columns in Notepad++ the same as in the MATLAB Editor ...at least for m-files?
It's because your MATLAB Editor is set to use a monospaced font such as Courier (i.e. a font where all the characters are designed to have exactly the same width), but your Notepad++ is not.
In Notepad++, you can set the font with the menu Settings -> Style Configurator. Select "MATLAB" from the language list (or in fact you may like to select "Global Styles", to do this for all languages), and set the font to a monospaced font such as Courier.
Alternatively, you may like to download a more modern programming font such as Consolas, ProFont, Monofur, Proggy, or Inconsolata. These are all monospaced, and nicer than Courier. You can use the in both Notepad++ and the MATLAB Editor.
It's possible that another issue might be that you have tab characters in your code, which are displaying with a variable width in Notepad++. You can make sure that MATLAB replaces tab characters with spaces in the MATLAB preferences (MATLAB->Editor/Debugger/Tab). To check whether you have tab characters, open the file in Notepad++ and select View->Show Symbol->Show All Characters. Tab characters will display as a short arrow, and space characters will display as a little dot. If you need to change all the tabs to spaces in an existing file, Notepad++ can do this with Edit->Blank Operations->Tab to Space.
Hope that helps!
To add to Sam's answer, choosing a monospaced font specific to your environment's language is recommended. For instance, Courier New on Japanese language may not have the desired result. Choose MS Gothic (for Windows) or Osaka (for Mac) instead.

How do I change the font size in NCSIM gui?

We are using specman with NCSIM (IUS 12.2) in GUI mode.
I saw the answer on how to change the specview gui font settings, it works with Specview but not with the NCSIM gui.
How can we make the same thing for the simulator?
Currently there is no Simvision command or menu selection that will change the font size.
However, there is an alternate approach that you can use. Look for a file called
'Xdefaults' under your .simvision directory in your home directory ($HOME).
i.e. ~/.simvision/Xdefaults
If not, do the following:
There is a file called SimVision under
/share/cdssetup/simvision/app-defaults/
Copy the file 'SimVision' to ~/.simvision and name it 'Xdefaults'.
Now edit this Xdefaults file. It will have a section which looks like this,
! global settings
Simvision*foreground: black
Simvision*background: #dfdfdf
Simvision*Font: -adobe-helvetica-medium-r-normal--12-------*
Change the last line above to:
Simvision*Font: -adobe-helvetica-medium-r-normal--18-------*
or any other suitable number besides the default 12 to suit your needs.
Save this file and now invoke SimVision - you should see the font sizes increased.
In general, you can review and edit the Xdefaults file above to change the fonts of various windows.
For example - to change the font of the Source Browser - you can locate the following line in the Xdefaults file and edit it :
Simvision*SrcBrowser.fixedFont: --courier-medium-r-normal--12-
Simvision*SrcBrowser.valueFont: --courier-medium-r-normal--10-
Change Fonts of 'Cursor' & 'Cursor - Baseline'on Waveform Browser by adding following in /.simvision/Xdefaults
Simvision*WaveSet.deltaFont:
Change Fonts of 'Current time in the simulator'on Waveform Browser by adding following in ~/.simvision/Xdefaults