1XFONTSEL(1)                 General Commands Manual                XFONTSEL(1)
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NAME

6       xfontsel - point and click selection of X11 font names
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SYNTAX

9       xfontsel  [-toolkitoption  ...]   [-pattern fontname] [-print] [-sample
10       text] [-sample16 text16] [-sampleUCS textUCS] [-scaled]
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DESCRIPTION

13       The xfontsel application provides a simple way  to  display  the  fonts
14       known  to  your  X  server, examine samples of each, and retrieve the X
15       Logical Font Description ("XLFD") full name for a font.
16
17       If -pattern is not specified, all fonts with XLFD 14-part names will be
18       selectable.   To work with only a subset of the fonts, specify -pattern
19       followed by a partially or fully qualified font name; e.g.,  ``-pattern
20       *medium*''  will  select  that subset of fonts which contain the string
21       ``medium'' somewhere in their font name.   Be  careful  about  escaping
22       wildcard characters in your shell.
23
24       If  -print is specified on the command line the selected font specifier
25       will be written to standard output when the quit button  is  activated.
26       Regardless  of  whether or not -print was specified, the font specifier
27       may be made the PRIMARY (text) selection by activating the select  but‐
28       ton.
29
30       The  -sample option specifies the sample text to be used to display the
31       selected font if the font is linearly indexed, overriding the default.
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33       The -sample16 option specifies the sample text to be  used  to  display
34       the  selected  font  if  the  font  is  matrix  encoded, overriding the
35       default.
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37       The -sampleUCS option specifies the sample text encoded  in  the  UTF-8
38       form  to  be  used  to  display  the  selected  font  if the font has a
39       CHARSET_REGISTRY of ISO10646, overriding the default.
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41       The -scaled option enables the ability to select scaled fonts at  arbi‐
42       trary pixel or point sizes.
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INTERACTIONS

45       Clicking  any pointer button in one of the XLFD field names will pop up
46       a menu of the currently-known possibilities for that field.  If  previ‐
47       ous  choices  of  other  fields  were made, only values for fonts which
48       matched the previously selected fields  will  be  selectable;  to  make
49       other  values  selectable,  you  must  deselect  some other field(s) by
50       choosing the ``*'' entry in that field.   Unselectable  values  may  be
51       omitted  from  the  menu  entirely  as  a configuration option; see the
52       ShowUnselectable resource, below.  Whenever any change  is  made  to  a
53       field  value, xfontsel will assert ownership of the PRIMARY_FONT selec‐
54       tion.  Other applications (see, e.g.,  xterm)  may  then  retrieve  the
55       selected font specification.
56
57       Scalable  fonts come back from the server with zero for the pixel size,
58       point size, and average width fields.  Selecting a  font  name  with  a
59       zero  in  these  positions results in an implementation-dependent size.
60       Any pixel or point size can be selected to scale the font to a particu‐
61       lar  size.   Any  average width can be selected to anamorphically scale
62       the font (although you may find this challenging given the size of  the
63       average width menu).
64
65       Clicking  the  left  pointer button in the select widget will cause the
66       currently selected font name to become the PRIMARY  text  selection  as
67       well  as the PRIMARY_FONT selection.  This then allows you to paste the
68       string into other applications.  The select button remains  highlighted
69       to  remind you of this fact, and de-highlights when some other applica‐
70       tion takes the PRIMARY selection away.  The select widget is a  toggle;
71       pressing  it  when it is highlighted will cause xfontsel to release the
72       selection ownership and de-highlight the widget.  Activating the select
73       widget  twice  is  the  only  way to cause xfontsel to release the PRI‐
74       MARY_FONT selection.
75

RESOURCES

77       The application class is XFontSel.  Most of the user-interface is  con‐
78       figured  in  the  app-defaults  file; if this file is missing a warning
79       message will be printed to standard output  and  the  resulting  window
80       will be nearly incomprehensible.
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82       Most of the significant parts of the widget hierarchy are documented in
83       /usr/share/X11/app-defaults/XFontSel,
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85       Application specific resources:
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87       cursor (class Cursor)
88               Specifies the cursor for the application window.
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90       pattern (class Pattern)
91               Specifies the font name  pattern  for  selecting  a  subset  of
92               available fonts.  Equivalent to the -pattern option.  Most use‐
93               ful patterns will contain at least one  field  delimiter;  e.g.
94               ``*-m-*'' for monospaced fonts.
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96       pixelSizeList (class PixelSizeList)
97               Specifies  a list of pixel sizes to add to the pixel size menu,
98               so that scalable fonts can be selected at  those  pixel  sizes.
99               The default pixelSizeList contains 7, 30, 40, 50, and 60.
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101       pointSizeList (class PointSizeList)
102               Specifies  a list of point sizes (in units of tenths of points)
103               to add to the point size menu, so that scalable  fonts  can  be
104               selected  at those point sizes.  The default pointSizeList con‐
105               tains 250, 300, 350, and 400.
106
107       printOnQuit (class PrintOnQuit)
108               If True the currently selected font name is printed to standard
109               output  when  the  quit button is activated.  Equivalent to the
110               -print option.
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112       sampleText (class Text)
113               The sample 1-byte text to use for linearly indexed fonts.  Each
114               glyph index is a single byte, with newline separating lines.
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116       sampleText16 (class Text16)
117               The  sample  2-byte text to use for matrix-encoded fonts.  Each
118               glyph index is two bytes,  with  a  1-byte  newline  separating
119               lines.
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121       scaledFonts (class ScaledFonts)
122               If  True  then selection of arbitrary pixel and point sizes for
123               scalable fonts is enabled.
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125       Widget specific resources:
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127       showUnselectable (class ShowUnselectable)
128               Specifies, for each field menu, whether or not to  show  values
129               that  are  not  currently selectable, based upon previous field
130               selections.  If shown,  the  unselectable  values  are  clearly
131               identified  as  such  and  do not highlight when the pointer is
132               moved down the  menu.   The  full  name  of  this  resource  is
133               fieldN.menu.options.showUnselectable,  class MenuButton.Simple‐
134               Menu.Options.ShowUnselectable; where N  is  replaced  with  the
135               field  number  (starting  with the left-most field numbered 0).
136               The default is True for all but  field  11  (average  width  of
137               characters  in font) and False for field 11.  If you never want
138               to   see   unselectable    entries,    '*menu.options.showUnse‐
139               lectable:False'  is a reasonable thing to specify in a resource
140               file.
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FILES

143        $XFILESEARCHPATH/XFontSel
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SEE ALSO

146       xrdb(1), xfd(1)
147

BUGS

149       Sufficiently ambiguous patterns can be misinterpreted and  lead  to  an
150       initial  selection  string  which  may  not correspond to what the user
151       intended and which may cause the initial sample text output to fail  to
152       match the proffered string.  Selecting any new field value will correct
153       the sample output, though possibly resulting in no matching font.
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155       Should be able to return a FONT for the PRIMARY selection, not  just  a
156       STRING.
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158       Any  change in a field value will cause xfontsel to assert ownership of
159       the PRIMARY_FONT selection.  Perhaps this should be parameterized.
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161       When running on a slow machine, it is possible for the user to  request
162       a  field  menu  before  the font names have been completely parsed.  An
163       error message indicating a missing menu is printed to stderr but other‐
164       wise nothing bad (or good) happens.
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166       The average-width menu is too large to be useful.
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169       Copyright 1989, 1991,  X Consortium
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171       See X(7) for a full statement of rights and permissions.
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AUTHOR

174       Ralph R. Swick, Digital Equipment Corporation/MIT Project Athena
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176       Mark  Leisher  <mleisher@crl.nmsu.edu>  added the support for the UTF-8
177       sample text.
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181X Version 11                    xfontsel 1.0.4                     XFONTSEL(1)
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