Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)

FreeBSD Manual Pages

  
 
  

home | help
XFONTSEL(1)		    General Commands Manual		   XFONTSEL(1)

NAME
       xfontsel	- point	and click selection of X11 font	names

SYNTAX
       xfontsel	[-toolkitoption	...] [-help] [-pattern fontname] [-print]
		[-sample text] [-sample16 text16] [-sampleUCS textUCS]
		[-scaled] [-version]

DESCRIPTION
       The  xfontsel  application  provides  a simple way to display the fonts
       known to	your X server, examine samples of each,	 and  retrieve	the  X
       Logical Font Description	("XLFD") full name for a font.

       If -pattern is not specified, all fonts with XLFD 14-part names will be
       selectable.   To	work with only a subset	of the fonts, specify -pattern
       followed	by a partially or fully	qualified font name; e.g.,  ``-pattern
       *medium*''  will	 select	 that subset of	fonts which contain the	string
       ``medium'' somewhere in their font name.	  Be  careful  about  escaping
       wildcard	characters in your shell.

       If  -print is specified on the command line the selected	font specifier
       will be written to standard output when the quit	button	is  activated.
       Regardless  of  whether or not -print was specified, the	font specifier
       may be made the PRIMARY (text) selection	by activating the select  but-
       ton.

       The  -sample option specifies the sample	text to	be used	to display the
       selected	font if	the font is linearly indexed, overriding the default.

       The -sample16 option specifies the sample text to be  used  to  display
       the  selected  font  if	the font is matrix encoded, overriding the de-
       fault.

       The -sampleUCS option specifies the sample text encoded	in  the	 UTF-8
       form  to	 be  used  to  display	the  selected  font  if	the font has a
       CHARSET_REGISTRY	of ISO10646, overriding	the default.

       The -scaled option enables the ability to select	scaled fonts at	 arbi-
       trary pixel or point sizes.

       The  -help  option specifies that xfontsel should print a usage message
       and exit.

       The -version option specifies that xfontsel should print	 version  info
       and exit.

INTERACTIONS
       Clicking	 any pointer button in one of the XLFD field names will	pop up
       a menu of the currently-known possibilities for that field.  If	previ-
       ous  choices  of	 other	fields	were made, only	values for fonts which
       matched the previously selected fields  will  be	 selectable;  to  make
       other  values  selectable,  you	must  deselect	some other field(s) by
       choosing	the ``*'' entry	in that	field.	 Unselectable  values  may  be
       omitted	from  the  menu	 entirely  as  a configuration option; see the
       ShowUnselectable	resource, below.  Whenever any change  is  made	 to  a
       field  value, xfontsel will assert ownership of the PRIMARY_FONT	selec-
       tion.  Other applications (see, e.g., xterm) may	then retrieve the  se-
       lected font specification.

       Scalable	 fonts come back from the server with zero for the pixel size,
       point size, and average width fields.  Selecting	a  font	 name  with  a
       zero  in	 these	positions results in an	implementation-dependent size.
       Any pixel or point size can be selected to scale	the font to a particu-
       lar size.  Any average width can	be selected  to	 anamorphically	 scale
       the  font (although you may find	this challenging given the size	of the
       average width menu).

       Clicking	the left pointer button	in the select widget  will  cause  the
       currently  selected  font  name to become the PRIMARY text selection as
       well as the PRIMARY_FONT	selection.  This then allows you to paste  the
       string  into other applications.	 The select button remains highlighted
       to remind you of	this fact, and de-highlights when some other  applica-
       tion  takes the PRIMARY selection away.	The select widget is a toggle;
       pressing	it when	it is highlighted will cause xfontsel to  release  the
       selection ownership and de-highlight the	widget.	 Activating the	select
       widget  twice  is  the  only  way to cause xfontsel to release the PRI-
       MARY_FONT selection.

RESOURCES
       The application class is	XFontSel.  Most	of the user-interface is  con-
       figured	in  the	 app-defaults  file; if	this file is missing a warning
       message will be printed to standard output  and	the  resulting	window
       will be nearly incomprehensible.

       Most of the significant parts of	the widget hierarchy are documented in
       /usr/local/share/X11/app-defaults/XFontSel,

       Application specific resources:

       cursor (class Cursor)
	       Specifies the cursor for	the application	window.

       pattern (class Pattern)
	       Specifies  the  font  name  pattern  for	 selecting a subset of
	       available fonts.	 Equivalent to the -pattern option.  Most use-
	       ful patterns will contain at least one  field  delimiter;  e.g.
	       ``*-m-*'' for monospaced	fonts.

       pixelSizeList (class PixelSizeList)
	       Specifies  a list of pixel sizes	to add to the pixel size menu,
	       so that scalable	fonts can be selected at  those	 pixel	sizes.
	       The default pixelSizeList contains 7, 30, 40, 50, and 60.

       pointSizeList (class PointSizeList)
	       Specifies  a list of point sizes	(in units of tenths of points)
	       to add to the point size	menu, so that scalable	fonts  can  be
	       selected	 at those point	sizes.	The default pointSizeList con-
	       tains 250, 300, 350, and	400.

       printOnQuit (class PrintOnQuit)
	       If True the currently selected font name	is printed to standard
	       output when the quit button is activated.   Equivalent  to  the
	       -print option.

       sampleText (class Text)
	       The sample 1-byte text to use for linearly indexed fonts.  Each
	       glyph index is a	single byte, with newline separating lines.

       sampleText16 (class Text16)
	       The  sample  2-byte text	to use for matrix-encoded fonts.  Each
	       glyph index is two bytes,  with	a  1-byte  newline  separating
	       lines.

       scaledFonts (class ScaledFonts)
	       If  True	 then selection	of arbitrary pixel and point sizes for
	       scalable	fonts is enabled.

       Widget specific resources:

       showUnselectable	(class ShowUnselectable)
	       Specifies, for each field menu, whether or not to  show	values
	       that  are  not  currently selectable, based upon	previous field
	       selections.  If shown,  the  unselectable  values  are  clearly
	       identified  as  such  and  do not highlight when	the pointer is
	       moved down the  menu.   The  full  name	of  this  resource  is
	       fieldN.menu.options.showUnselectable,  class MenuButton.Simple-
	       Menu.Options.ShowUnselectable; where N  is  replaced  with  the
	       field  number  (starting	 with the left-most field numbered 0).
	       The default is True for all but	field  11  (average  width  of
	       characters  in font) and	False for field	11.  If	you never want
	       to  see	 unselectable	entries,   '*menu.options.showUnselec-
	       table:False'  is	 a  reasonable	thing to specify in a resource
	       file.

FILES
	$XFILESEARCHPATH/XFontSel

SEE ALSO
       xrdb(1),	xfd(1)

BUGS
       Sufficiently ambiguous patterns can be misinterpreted and  lead	to  an
       initial	selection string which may not correspond to what the user in-
       tended and which	may cause the initial sample text output  to  fail  to
       match the proffered string.  Selecting any new field value will correct
       the sample output, though possibly resulting in no matching font.

       Should  be  able	to return a FONT for the PRIMARY selection, not	just a
       STRING.

       Any change in a field value will	cause xfontsel to assert ownership  of
       the PRIMARY_FONT	selection.  Perhaps this should	be parameterized.

       When  running on	a slow machine,	it is possible for the user to request
       a field menu before the font names have been completely parsed.	An er-
       ror message indicating a	missing	menu is	printed	to stderr  but	other-
       wise nothing bad	(or good) happens.

       The average-width menu is too large to be useful.

AUTHOR
       Ralph R.	Swick, Digital Equipment Corporation/MIT Project Athena

       Mark  Leisher  <mleisher@crl.nmsu.edu>  added the support for the UTF-8
       sample text.

X Version 11			xfontsel 1.1.1			   XFONTSEL(1)

Want to link to this manual page? Use this URL:
<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=xfontsel&sektion=1&manpath=FreeBSD+14.3-RELEASE+and+Ports>

home | help