iLiad Bigger Font for mrxvt?

grayfox · 10-19-2007, 10:50 AM

Hi,

Is there a magic key sequence to get a larger font for mrxvt?

Failing that, is there any way to get a larger font...My old eyes
are having difficulty with the tiny font size

While I am talking mrxvt, is there a way to "flush" the key buffer?

When I do command line editing I never seem to know the exact
position of the cursor

Thanks,

Jerry

nekokami · 10-19-2007, 11:12 AM

A bigger font sure would be nice... I can see the one that's there, but not easily. Should there be an rc file to edit or something?

wallcraft · 10-19-2007, 01:06 PM

The full mrxvt seems to be a very capable "xterm", but at least some of its features are disabled (or unavailable) on the iLiad. It seems possible that all that is needed is the right .mrxvtrc settings, but the iLiad-specific source code might still give some clues. Where is the source code?

wallcraft · 10-20-2007, 01:09 AM

Fonts in X11 really suck. Modern applications generally get round this by allowing font selection via menus, which automatically fill with available fonts. FBReader works that way for example, as do all "heavy weight" terminal programs. Really old X11 apps require you to use the XLFD, e.g. -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1 for the standard X11 "fixed" font. A typical terminal program these days will still accept an XLFD (probably with "*" for some fields), but have alternative simpler ways of specifying fonts too. Unfortunately, the alternative mrxvt has chosen is "freetype fonts" which are not linked into the iLiad mrxvt.

This is all a long-winded way of saying that in order to specify a font to mrxvt its XLFD is needed. The program xlsfonts will list all available fonts with their XLFDs, but I can't find it on the iLiad. So far every XLFD I have tried has returned "mrxvt: can't load font". The fc-list program reports that Bitstream Vera Sans Mono and Nimbus Mono L fonts are available, but I have yet to construct a XLFD for these fonts that works in mrxvt. The XLFD stuff is so picky that I can't tell if I am screwing up the XLFD's of if mrxvt is buggy and only works with the default font.

Any suggestions? If I was a C/C++ programmer I think I might try porting Xfce-Terminal. This depends on Xfce libraries (among others), but was the basis of osso-xterm for the Nokia 770/N800 which are comparable in some ways to the iLiad. However, mrxvt is probably "good enough" if the font issue can be fixed.

With the default font, the following (e.g. in run.sh) gives a much better setup than the default:

Code:

./mrxvt -geometry 112x44-40-340 -sr

This is 112 characters wide and 44 rows high (filling most of the screen above the keyboard), and -sr puts the scrollbar on the right (vs on the left by default).

Antartica · 10-20-2007, 06:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wallcraft

Any suggestions?

The problem is that "default" (that's the name of that tiny font) is the only non-truetype font that the iliad has installed. And mrxvt only supports that type of fonts. As a side note, I suppose that "default" is there because is required for X to launch; all iRex apps use the truetype fonts.

Dillo had the same problem. I resolved the problem including more fonts in the dillo package along with the utils to register them. The dillo launch script calls those programs to register the additional fonts and then dillo looks sane.

With mrxvt something similar has to be done.

I recommend the following font (it's included in the dillo package):
-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--20-200-75-75-c-100-iso8859-1

it's filename is 10x20*.

If you prune the fonts directory, remember to only delete the fonts not needed, not the files _not_ended_ in gz (fonts.alias fonts.dir).

wallcraft · 10-20-2007, 09:07 AM

Thanks - I have posted version 0.3 with fonts from Dillo in mrxvt ported to iLiad. These are a huge improvement.

grayfox · 10-20-2007, 06:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wallcraft

Thanks - I have posted version 0.3 with fonts from Dillo in mrxvt ported to iLiad. These are a huge improvement.

Yes, indeed !

Thanks for the port

Jerry

10-19-2007, 10:50 AM	#1
grayfox Connoisseur Posts: 68 Karma: 203 Join Date: Oct 2007 Device: Razr/iLiad	Bigger Font for mrxvt? Hi, Is there a magic key sequence to get a larger font for mrxvt? Failing that, is there any way to get a larger font...My old eyes are having difficulty with the tiny font size While I am talking mrxvt, is there a way to "flush" the key buffer? When I do command line editing I never seem to know the exact position of the cursor Thanks, Jerry

10-20-2007, 01:09 AM	#4
wallcraft reader Posts: 6,975 Karma: 5183568 Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Mississippi, USA Device: Kindle 3, Kobo Glo HD	Fonts in X11 really suck. Modern applications generally get round this by allowing font selection via menus, which automatically fill with available fonts. FBReader works that way for example, as do all "heavy weight" terminal programs. Really old X11 apps require you to use the XLFD, e.g. -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1 for the standard X11 "fixed" font. A typical terminal program these days will still accept an XLFD (probably with "*" for some fields), but have alternative simpler ways of specifying fonts too. Unfortunately, the alternative mrxvt has chosen is "freetype fonts" which are not linked into the iLiad mrxvt. This is all a long-winded way of saying that in order to specify a font to mrxvt its XLFD is needed. The program xlsfonts will list all available fonts with their XLFDs, but I can't find it on the iLiad. So far every XLFD I have tried has returned "mrxvt: can't load font". The fc-list program reports that Bitstream Vera Sans Mono and Nimbus Mono L fonts are available, but I have yet to construct a XLFD for these fonts that works in mrxvt. The XLFD stuff is so picky that I can't tell if I am screwing up the XLFD's of if mrxvt is buggy and only works with the default font. Any suggestions? If I was a C/C++ programmer I think I might try porting Xfce-Terminal. This depends on Xfce libraries (among others), but was the basis of osso-xterm for the Nokia 770/N800 which are comparable in some ways to the iLiad. However, mrxvt is probably "good enough" if the font issue can be fixed. With the default font, the following (e.g. in run.sh) gives a much better setup than the default: Code: ./mrxvt -geometry 112x44-40-340 -sr This is 112 characters wide and 44 rows high (filling most of the screen above the keyboard), and -sr puts the scrollbar on the right (vs on the left by default).

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10-19-2007, 11:12 AM	#2
nekokami fruminous edugeek Posts: 6,745 Karma: 551260 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Northeast US Device: iPad, eBw 1150	A bigger font sure would be nice... I can see the one that's there, but not easily. Should there be an rc file to edit or something?

10-19-2007, 01:06 PM	#3
wallcraft reader Posts: 6,975 Karma: 5183568 Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Mississippi, USA Device: Kindle 3, Kobo Glo HD	The full mrxvt seems to be a very capable "xterm", but at least some of its features are disabled (or unavailable) on the iLiad. It seems possible that all that is needed is the right .mrxvtrc settings, but the iLiad-specific source code might still give some clues. Where is the source code?

10-20-2007, 09:07 AM	#6
wallcraft reader Posts: 6,975 Karma: 5183568 Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Mississippi, USA Device: Kindle 3, Kobo Glo HD	Thanks - I have posted version 0.3 with fonts from Dillo in mrxvt ported to iLiad. These are a huge improvement.