XEmacs ignores system dpi settings

Mon Nov 17 03:34:02 EST 2008

Hello Stephen and Alexander,

Thank you so much for helping me!

I followed your advice and added "xrandr --fbmm 520x320" at the end of 
/etc/gdm/Init/Default.

The "Xft.dpi: 108" returned by "xrdb -query" is now consistent with 
Gnome's "Preferences".
"xdpyinfo" reports the correct screen size. "xdpyinfo" still shows 
"resolution: 94x95 dots per inch" but may be that's ok .

This change did not affect my current XEmacs installations. I tried to 
build the Xft-enabled XEmacs manually (the current installation was done 
with yum).

The new version indeed has a much larger fonts. For somewhat reason the 
size of the new fonts depends on the installation config options. Here 
is the screen shot of 3 installations
of 21.5.b28 side-by-side:

http://picasaweb.google.com/theothersimonian/XEmacsScreenshot#5269534915985733394

 From left to right:

(1) Manual installation with ./configure 
'--with-xft=emacs,menubars,tabs,gauges' '--with-error-checking=none'
(2) Manual installation with the same config options as in yum 
installation except '--with-xfs' and 
'--with-lispdir=/usr/share/xemacs-21.5-b28/lisp', and with 
'--with-xft=emacs,menubars,tabs,gauges'
(3) Original yum installation (without xft)

Another unexpected change is the font type. It was "Courier" when 
installed with yum, and the manual installations have "DejaVu Sans 
Mono". The "Options->Font" and "Options->Font Size" in both manual 
installations do not respond to the attempts to change the parameters.

The "OK" and "Cancel" buttons in "Find File" window look "flat" in both 
manual installations. A part of the path in the "Save As.." menu window 
cannot be selected by dragging the mouse with the left button pressed. 
The entire path can be selected though.

I had 2 minor problems during the build:

- Linking failed with "font-mgr.c:912 undefined reference to 
`FcConfigGetRescanInverval_REPLACE_BY_FcConfigGetRescanInterval'. 
Replacing FcConfigGetRescanInverval/FcConfigSetRescanInverval in 
"font-mgr.c" with FcConfigGetRescanInterval/FcConfigSetRescanInterval 
fixed the problem.

- I removed "--with-lispdir=/usr/share/xemacs-21.5-b28/lisp' option in 
(2) above because otherwise "make install" failed with the following 
messages
Testing for Lisp shadows ...
./xemacs -no-packages -batch -l check-features.el
xemacs exiting.
Cannot open load file: "check-features.el"make[1]: *** [check-features] 
Error 255
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/xemacs-21.5.28/src'

Apparently something went wrong since the "manual" versions looked so 
different. Is it possible to enable xft while installing with yum? I'm 
attaching the installation files for (1)-(3) in case you need to look at 
them.

Thanks and best regards,

Roni.

This is a screenshot of "yum" and "manual" 21.5.b28 side-by-side

/etc/gdm/Init/Default

> Alexander Taler writes:
>  > >>>>> "Roni" == Roni Simonian <v.simonian at comcast.net> writes:
>  >   Roni> The resolution is correct but the size is not
>  > 
>  > Hi Roni, I had a similar problem with fonts in some apps being
>  > incorrect because the system was reporting an incorrect size for
>  > the screen.  I 'corrected' it by adding a call to xrandr
>  > specifying the correct physical screen size in the gdm config:
>  > 
>  > /etc/gdm/Init/Default
>  > 
>  > xrandr --fbmm 339x212
>
> Short story: Based on the information you sent in another message, I
> second this recommendation.  Get your Xft resolution (whose bright
> idea was that, Mr. Packard?!)  and your X11 resolution in sync, and
> you will get consistent font-sizing behavior across modern and legacy
> apps.
>
> If you're still not 100% satisfied, we'll give you a full refund of
> the price you paid us. :-) Seriously, please do report how you like
> the result.  Since it's an X11-level issue I don't know if there's
> anything we can do about it except document it (the alternative would
> be to dig into the Xft resources and use that to rescale font requests
> on the fly, which is a bad idea).
>
> Geoffrey Chaucer version: What's happening here is that the Xorg guys
> have basically stopped supporting legacy bitmap fonts.  This isn't a
> problem in the West, where repertoires are small and font vendors
> understand the benefits and inevitability of open source.  Both
> factors fail in Asian languages, so bitmap fonts have remained
> prevalent until recently, and there is even a recent thread on
> xemacs-beta where a couple of people (Julian Bradfield and Olivier
> Galibert) complain about this problem while proclaiming the glories of
> their favorite -misc-fixed-* fonts. :-)  In general, I think Emacs
> users probably tend to be happier with highly readable, slightly
> klunky fonts than the average user.
>
> Anyway, if you switch to an Xft-enabled XEmacs for 21.5, the "problem"
> will probably fix itself because XEmacs/Xft will respect the Xft.dpi
> setting.  If it doesn't, that's a bug and I hope you will report it.
>
> For 21.4 which only supports legacy fonts (there is an Xft patch for
> it but you'll have to dig, and it will not be supported by the XEmacs
> Project), you have to fix the information provided by xdpyinfo, which
> is the information that the X library (and/or X font server) uses to
> compute the appropriate font to return for "12 point".
>
> The fact that Xorg.log.0 contains correct monitor dimensions but
> xpyinfo returns something different I don't understand.  Older
> monitors were unable to communicate their dimensions, so I have been
> in the habit of setting resolution by hand with "X -dpi ..."  etc
> ("xrandr -fbmm ..." will work too if you have RANDR enabled in your X
> server).  But I'm surprised that recent X.org still doesn't get that
> right somehow.
>
>
>   

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