xfontsel(XC)

xfontsel -- point and click interface for selecting X11 font names

Syntax

xfontsel [-toolkitoption...] [-pattern fontname] [-print] [-sample text]

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; for example, -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 button.

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

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 previous 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 selection. Other applications (see, for example, xterm) may then retrieve the selected font specification.

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 application 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 PRIMARY_FONT selection.

Resources

The application class is XFontSel. Most of the user interface is configured 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 the app-defaults file (normally /usr/lib/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 useful patterns will contain at least one field delimiter; for example, ``*-m-*'' for monospaced fonts.
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.

Widget hierarchy

In order to specify resources, it is useful to know the hierarchy of the widgets which compose xfontsel. In the notation below, indentation indicates hierarchical structure. The widget class name is given first, followed by the widget instance name.

XFontSel  xfontsel
      XmPanedWindow  pane
            XmpTable  commandBox
                  XmPushButton  resetButton
                  XmPushButton  quitButton
                  XmToggleButton  ownButton
                  XmLabel  countLabel
            XmRowColumn  fieldBox
                  XmPushButton  field0
                        XmMenuShell  popup_menu
                              XmRowColumn  menu
                                    XmPushButton  any
                                    XmPushButton  adobe
                                    XmPushButton  bigelow & holmes
                                    XmPushButton  bitstream
                                    XmPushButton  dec
                                    XmPushButton  misc
                                    XmPushButton  schumacher
                                    XmPushButton  sony
                                    XmPushButton  sun
                  XmPushButton  field1
                        XmMenuShell  popup_menu
                              XmRowColumn  menu
                                    XmPushButton  any
                                    XmPushButton  clean
                                    XmPushButton  courier
                                    XmPushButton  fixed
                                    XmPushButton  helvetica
                                    XmPushButton  itc avant garde gothic
                                    XmPushButton  itc lubalin graph
                                    XmPushButton  itc souvenir
                                    XmPushButton  menu
                                    XmPushButton  new century schoolbook
                                    XmPushButton  open look glyph
                                    XmPushButton  symbol
                                    XmPushButton  terminal
                                    XmPushButton  times
                  XmPushButton  field2
                        XmMenuShell  popup_menu
                              XmRowColumn  menu
                                    XmPushButton  any
                                    XmPushButton  nil
                                    XmPushButton  bold
                                    XmPushButton  book
                                    XmPushButton  demi
                                    XmPushButton  light
                                    XmPushButton  medium
                  XmPushButton  field3
                        XmMenuShell  popup_menu
                              XmRowColumn  menu
                                    XmPushButton  any
                                    XmPushButton  nil
                                    XmPushButton  i
                                    XmPushButton  o
                                    XmPushButton  r
                  XmPushButton  field4
                        XmMenuShell  popup_menu
                              XmRowColumn  menu
                                    XmPushButton  any
                                    XmPushButton  nil
                                    XmPushButton  double wide
                                    XmPushButton  narrow
                                    XmPushButton  normal
                                    XmPushButton  semicondensed
                                    XmPushButton  wide
                  XmPushButton  field5
                        XmMenuShell  popup_menu
                              XmRowColumn  menu
                                    XmPushButton  any
                                    XmPushButton  nil
                                    XmPushButton  gs
                  XmPushButton  field6
                        XmMenuShell  popup_menu
                              XmRowColumn  menu
                                    XmPushButton  any
                                    XmPushButton  [ pixel-size ]
                  XmPushButton  field7
                        XmMenuShell  popup_menu
                              XmRowColumn  menu
                                    XmPushButton  any
                                    XmPushButton  [ point-size ]
                  XmPushButton  field8
                        XmMenuShell  popup_menu
                              XmRowColumn  menu
                                    XmPushButton  any
                                    XmPushButton  75
                                    XmPushButton  100
                  XmPushButton  field9
                        XmMenuShell  popup_menu
                              XmRowColumn  menu
                                    XmPushButton  any
                                    XmPushButton  75
                                    XmPushButton  100
                  XmPushButton  field10
                        XmMenuShell  popup_menu
                              XmRowColumn  menu
                                    XmPushButton  any
                                    XmPushButton  c
                                    XmPushButton  m
                                    XmPushButton  p
                  XmPushButton  field11
                        XmMenuShell  popup_menu
                              XmRowColumn  menu
                                    XmPushButton  any
                                    XmPushButton  [ width's ]
                  XmPushButton  field12
                        XmMenuShell  popup_menu
                              XmRowColumn  menu
                                    XmPushButton  any
                                    XmPushButton  adobe
                                    XmPushButton  dec
                                    XmPushButton  iso8859
                                    XmPushButton  jisx0201.1976
                                    XmPushButton  jisx0208.1983
                                    XmPushButton  sunolglyph
                  XmPushButton  field13
                        XmMenuShell  popup_menu
                              XmRowColumn  menu
                                    XmPushButton  any
                                    XmPushButton  0
                                    XmPushButton  1
                                    XmPushButton  dectech
                                    XmPushButton  fontspecific
            XmLabel  fontName
            XmLabel  sampleText
            XmSash  sash
            XmSeparatorGadget  separator
            XmSash  sash
            XmSeparatorGadget  separator
            XmSash  sash
            XmSeparatorGadget  separator
            XmSash  sash
            XmSeparatorGadget  separator

Files

$XFILESEARCHPATH /XFontSel

Known limitations

Sufficiently ambiguous patterns can be misinterpreted and lead to an initial selection string which may not correspond to what the user intended and which may cause the initial sample text output to fail to match the proffered string. Selecting any new field value will update 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 error message indicating a missing menu is printed to stderr but otherwise nothing bad (or good) happens.