[ nedit-Bugs-1553446 ] Cannot change menubar font

Sun Mar 4 23:39:13 CET 2007

Bugs item #1553446, was opened at 2006-09-06 16:28
Message generated for change (Comment added) made by yooden
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Category: Program
Group: release
Status: Closed
Resolution: Invalid
Priority: 5
Private: No
Submitted By: Timothy Miller (theosib)
Assigned to: Nobody/Anonymous (nobody)
Summary: Cannot change menubar font

Initial Comment:
I would like to change the menubar font for nedit. 
(Version 5.5). 

The docs from nedit about this are on this page:

http://fresh.t-systems-sfr.com/linux/src/nedit-5.5-src.tar.gz:a/nedit-5.5/doc/html/resources.html

The suggestion is to put this line:

nedit*fontList: helvetica medium 12 points

Into .nedit/nedit.rc, .Xdefaults, or .Xresources.

This line seems to have no effect, no matter where I 
put it. I've also tried a number of other variations, 
including providing specific font names, etc. Nothing 
works.

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>Comment By: Thorsten Haude (yooden)
Date: 2007-03-04 23:39

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Just a detail: -noask is default now.

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Comment By: Timothy Miller (theosib)
Date: 2007-03-04 22:20

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Well, I'm thinking that there isn't really a bug in Nedit, although
perhaps something could be done to make it more sensitive to KDE and GNOME
environments.  The problem is a total lack of communication of environment
settings between different toolkits.  The fact that Ubuntu builds Nedit
with lesstif is, in itself, fraught with problems.  I've reported various
bugs to the lesstif people, but it's hard to tell if anyone's home over
there.

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Comment By: Scott Tringali (tringali)
Date: 2007-03-04 20:31

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No bug here.

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Comment By: Timothy Miller (theosib)
Date: 2007-03-04 16:16

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This is the solution I use, and I'm satisfied with the results:

nedit-nc -noask -xrm 'nedit*fontList:
-*-helvetica-medium-r-*-*-12-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1' -- "$@" > /dev/null 2>&1
&

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Comment By: Tony Balinski (ajbj)
Date: 2007-03-02 01:32

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Timothy, did you manage to fix this? Given that the command line resource
setting works, we know the problem is not nedit per se, but the resources
supplied to it. Were you able to stop KDE from overriding font settings for
non-KDE apps as Scott Tringali suggested?

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Comment By: Scott Tringali (tringali)
Date: 2006-09-06 17:27

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For KDE, there's a checkbox to determine whether it tries to
push resources into Motif apps.  It sometimes works.  

Qt and GTK are abandoning the old font model, so I expect
this only to break more over time as they grow even more
disinterested with Motif apps.

For example, if your "default font" is a true-type font,
then there is no way Motif can use that.

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Comment By: Tony Balinski (ajbj)
Date: 2006-09-06 17:26

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Then try the custom kde Nedit.ad file, as described on Niki,
with something like:

  nedit*fontList: FONTLIST
  nedit*XmText.fontList: FIXED_FONT
  nedit*XmTextField.fontList: FIXED_FONT

The first should be set to the FONT keyword that corresponds
to other apps' menu fonts; the other two are for the
non-document text entry fields used in NEdit (dialog boxes).

If these give satisfaction, tell Ubuntu to fix their
system-level version.

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Comment By: Timothy Miller (theosib)
Date: 2006-09-06 17:14

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Just to repeat, not only did I try the "place holder", but 
I also tried specifying specific font names.  I tried 
several legal X11 font names.  None worked.  

Now, for the command-line options, I tried both 
suggestions, and they both worked.

I'm using KDE, and lesstif does not seem to be picking up 
the window manager's settings.  I'm getting some really 
huge courier font instead of the one that all Qt and GTK 
applications are using.

I have reported this on Ubuntu's bug repository in case 
it's their fault:

https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+source/nedit/+bug/59188

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Comment By: Tony Balinski (ajbj)
Date: 2006-09-06 17:13

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PS. if you need font names, check the output of the
'xlsfonts' command; the xfontsel program lets you see fonts
using standard names.
PPS if you are using KDE and set up a
~/.kde/share/apps/kdisplay/app-defaults/Nedit.ad file, a
line in that file such as
  nedit*fontList:
-*-helvetica-medium-r-normal--10-*-*-*-p-*-iso8859-1
(that should be entered as a single line) should set up a
pretty small menu font.

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Comment By: Tony Balinski (ajbj)
Date: 2006-09-06 17:02

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Are you running on KDE or some other window manager that
tinkers with resources? I do on my Linux machine.

Start by reading
http://www.nedit.org/niki/index.php/Customizing%20NEdit
(especially near the end) and
http://www.nedit.org/niki/index.php/X-Resources (also
towards the end).

The first gives you a way to try new values. Try the command
line:
  nedit -xrm '*fontList: 7x13'
which should give you horrible fixed-pitch menu fonts. If it
doesn't, you've probably got some app-default override going
on. Now try:
  nedit -xrm 'nedit*fontList: 7x13'
If this succeeds in giving the nasty font, you can always
use an alias/script to get what you want.

Generally, you do NOT want system-level app-defaults for
NEdit unless you want it to fit in with the window manager's
scheme. The trouble is that the resources there take
precedence over yours. This is probably what's going on here.

Let us know if this helps.

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Comment By: Scott Tringali (tringali)
Date: 2006-09-06 17:01

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"helevtic medium 12 points" is placeholder text.  You have
to put in a legal X font name - guessing will not work.

Try something like this:

-*-helvetica-medium-r-*-*-14-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1

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