There is quite a bit of difference in how traditional X11 bitmap fonts and freetype fonts are selected and rendered (https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/unix/XFontTypes gives a reasonable summation) but the main thing is that from the API level they are not interchangeable. XTerm has specific code to handle rendering of fonts selected via -fn (server bitmap) vs -fa (client rendered scalable). I don't believe that xvile has handling for the latter, so is limited to traditional server provided bitmap fonts.
On Thu, 7 May 2020 at 00:48, Chris Green <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Wed, May 06, 2020 at 07:32:21AM -0400, Paul Fox wrote: > > chris wrote: > > > On Tue, May 05, 2020 at 06:54:48PM -0400, Thomas Dickey wrote: > > > > On Tue, May 05, 2020 at 10:43:47PM +0100, Chris Green wrote: > > > > > I am always hitting this issue, the current fonts available by > > default > > > > > in standard Linux repositories for xvile are generally horrible. > > Does > > > > > anyone here have any nice ones, or can anyone point me at some nice > > > > > ones. > > > > > > > > There's two sets of fonts in the default menu for xvile. > > > > The first looks like the bitmap fonts used for xterm, > > > > while the other is b&h lucidatypewriter -- > > > > > > > > you might find this as > > > > bitmap-lucida-typewriter-fonts > > > > or > > > > xfonts-100dpi > > > > xfonts-75dpi > > > > > > > Yes, I have all of those, I was just hoping/wondering if anyone has > > > created different/better bitmap fonts. They're OK[ish] on my desktop > > > machine but I can't find anything that is really comfortable to use on > > > my laptop. > > > > I haven't thought about fonts in a long time. Is it the case that > > xvile can't use the same fonts that xterm uses? I don't use xvile, > > but I'm pretty happy with my fixed xterm fonts. > > > xvile is stuck with the old and rarely renewed/maintained fixed bitmap > fonts in /etc/X11/fonts whereas vile can use all of the standard > terminal fonts to be found in /usr/share/fonts. I'm not sure if xterm > can use the 'ordinary' system fonts in the same way that other > terminal emulators can, I use the default xfce4-terminal that comes > with the xubuntu distribution that I use and that shows me dozens (if > not hundreds) of different fonts to choose from. > > -- > Chris Green >
