Mysteries of X font path and fontconfig

Cath O'Deray

Cath O'Deray

 
Amongst the mysteries, this message from urwfonts-1.0_8:

You'll have to add /usr/local/share/fonts/urwfonts to your X font path by either:

$ xset fp+ /usr/local/share/fonts/urwfonts
$ xset fp rehash

or by adding it to your X-server configuration file (usually /etc/X11/xorg.conf) and restarting the X-server.
Click to expand...

With neither of the required actions taken, /usr/local/share/fonts/urwfonts is recognised by fc-cache --verbose (with /usr/local/bin/fc-cache provided by x11-fonts/fontconfig and x11-fonts/linux-c7-fontconfig).

If it's true that I'll have to manually add the path to something: why is it true?

I can not find an answer under <https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/x11/#x-fonts>.

Code: 
% man fc-cache
No manual entry for fc-cache
% fc-cache --help
usage: fc-cache [-EfrsvVh] [-y SYSROOT] [--error-on-no-fonts] [--force|--really-force] [--sysroot=SYSROOT] [--system-only] [--verbose] [--version] [--help] [dirs]
Build font information caches in [dirs]
(all directories in font configuration by default).

  -E, --error-on-no-fonts  raise an error if no fonts in a directory
  -f, --force              scan directories with apparently valid caches
  -r, --really-force       erase all existing caches, then rescan
  -s, --system-only        scan system-wide directories only
  -y, --sysroot=SYSROOT    prepend SYSROOT to all paths for scanning
  -v, --verbose            display status information while busy
  -V, --version            display font config version and exit
  -h, --help               display this help and exit
%
 
Afaik that's historic; Since many years the default font paths are searched recursively, and /usr/local/share/fonts is a default font path.

The message is not a message defined in the port itself - without testing I assume that just telling that it is a font inside the Makefile rises that message. And that's not a complete bad idea, as a path shouldn't, but might be out of the automatic scanned directories. But the wording could be improved…
 
Thanks,

jmos said:
Afaik that's historic; …
Click to expand...

I did wonder.

jmos said:
… wording could be improved…
Click to expand...

A few weeks ago I compiled a list of ports of fonts where package messages were questionable or (at a glance) almost certainly wrong. I don't have it handy, I might revisit the list in a few weeks.

<https://www.freshports.org/x11-fonts/google-fonts/#message> google-fonts is amongst the packages that present a message.

fontconfig

I see google-fonts-related <https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=252360#c8> "… provide a little help to fontconfig, e.g.: …" but I don't get the big picture:

Code: 
% man fontconfig | more
No manual entry for fontconfig
% apropos fontconfig
apropos: nothing appropriate
% fontconfig --help
fontconfig: Command not found.
% pkg provides fontconfig | grep bin
Desc    : GD bindings for the Lua programming language
%

Honestly, I'm in no rush to get it.

(Off-topic: I refrain from installing google-fonts because it can trigger a freaky bug in Firefox. The type of bug that might become easier to troubleshoot without umpteen misleading messages from fonts.)
 
I install fonts for use with graphics/gimp by summoning x11-fm/xfe as root, move them directly into the /usr/local/share/gimp/fonts directory, run rehash and they are immediately available for use with Gimp.

I also used a couple downloaded from fonts.google.com and used them with Gimp without any problems.

None of them show up when I run fc-cache --verbose.
 
Setting the fontpath like that is generally only for bitmap fonts. Most UI toolkits use FreeType now which is a little more dynamic (we also don't need font servers anymore when X11 forwarding!). The main ones that don't are Motif and Xaw.

Do you have xfontsel installed? If you run that you can see the (fairly bizarre) way that X11 fonts work.

Some random knowledge you might already know:

FreeType fonts are also sourced from your $HOME/.fonts firectory. So you can just add some .ttf fonts in there and run:

Code: 
$ fc-cache -rv

It will then show up in LibreOffice, Gimp, etc.
 
kpedersen said:
Do you have xfontsel installed?
Click to expand...

I didn't, after installing I recognise the application from long ago. Bizarre.

1626125930128.png


grahamperrin said:
Code: 
% man fontconfig | more
No manual entry for fontconfig
% apropos fontconfig
apropos: nothing appropriate
% fontconfig --help
fontconfig: Command not found.
% pkg provides fontconfig | grep bin
Desc    : GD bindings for the Lua programming language
%
Click to expand...

I forgot, the binaries for fontconfig don't use the word fontconfig:

Code: 
% pkg info --list fontconfig | grep bin
        /usr/local/bin/fc-cache
        /usr/local/bin/fc-cat
        /usr/local/bin/fc-conflist
        /usr/local/bin/fc-list
        /usr/local/bin/fc-match
        /usr/local/bin/fc-pattern
        /usr/local/bin/fc-query
        /usr/local/bin/fc-scan
        /usr/local/bin/fc-validate
%

Also, today I discovered the upstream: <https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/fontconfig>
 
kpedersen said:
FreeType fonts are also sourced from your $HOME/.fonts firectory
Click to expand...
I cannot find my source again, but: That's deprecated, the users directory for own fonts now is $HOME/.local/share/fonts/. Both work, but it makes sense to move it to the new place.
 
grahamperrin said:
So, that's as expected. True?
Click to expand...
It only parses these directories which is an accurate account of the fonts contained therein.

Code: 
root@bakemono:/ # fc-cache -f
root@bakemono:/ # fc-cache --verbose
Font directories:
    /usr/local/share/fonts
    /usr/local/lib/X11/fonts
    /root/.local/share/fonts
    /root/.fonts
    /usr/local/share/fonts/100dpi
    /usr/local/share/fonts/75dpi
    /usr/local/share/fonts/OTF
    /usr/local/share/fonts/TTF
    /usr/local/share/fonts/Type1
    /usr/local/share/fonts/cyrillic
    /usr/local/share/fonts/dejavu
    /usr/local/share/fonts/encodings
    /usr/local/share/fonts/misc
    /usr/local/share/fonts/util
    /usr/local/share/fonts/encodings/large

There is no /root/.fonts in my root directory. There are the fonts Gimp uses:

fonts.jpg
 
I don't know where it puts them, but installing Libreoffice seems to provide most of the fonts I need. I'm lazy like that.
 
jmos said:
I cannot find my source again, but: That's deprecated, the users directory for own fonts now is $HOME/.local/share/fonts/. Both work, but it makes sense to move it to the new place.
Click to expand...
You are correct. I didn't realise and I had been using this for years ;)

https://github.com/13rac1/emojione-color-font/issues/14
(The issue also links to the spec).

Edit:
However upon further thought, it is a worthless XDG freedesktop "spec" and has Poettering's name on it. I am happy to disregard it completely. The ~/.fonts folder will almost certainly have a longer lifespan.

Also, the ~/.local folder becomes a cluttered mess. I suppose I actually prefer to keep defined configs and files separate from this chaos and keep things a cleaner. I could set up a symlink but then it will source the directory twice ;)
 
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