Re: [RP] Font selection at compile-time

[Eduard Werner]

> > I disagree: It should check and issue a warning if the font doesn't
> > exist so you can ignore the warning if you intend to run RP on a
> > different machine but otherwise you would know sth is wrong.
> 
> And how would you check? The fonts may not be installed locally, so
> you can't check the filesystem (you'd need to parse some configfiles
> on unknown locations anyway), and if no X is running, I doubt you can
> reliably query if a font is available to the system or not.

> If there isn't a reliable check, and it is not really crucial, I'd
> just skip it. Why? Because if you use the default font, RP behaviour
> will not change, if you pass --with-font, I'd expect you already know
> what you are doing.

I usually know what I *intend* to do. But I find I can almost always
mistype almost anything. As for checking, there are a few default
places where you can check (such as /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/*) so the
configure script could issue a warning like "Warning: cannot find font
xxx in path blah blah". You can also check the XConfig file(s).

Furthermore, (if running under X) the output of xlsfonts could be grepped. 
Again, a simple warning could be issued if the font is not found or if
xlsfonts can't be run because there's no X.

Finally, you could have a configure option --with-X11-fontpath,
--with-xfs or something. So it can definitely be done. 

But perhaps the best solution is having the font as a runtime
option with a fallback to fixed if the font can't be found.

Edi