Re: Help in querying xlsfonts for a particular font from elisp

[Andrew M. Scott]

>>>>> "Peter" == Peter Dyballa <Peter_Dyballa@Web.DE> writes:

    Peter> Am 25.08.2006 um 17:41 schrieb Andrew M. Scott:

    >> I really like the "vera sans mono" font, but it's only
    >> available on some of the platforms I use.

    Peter> The fonts are free. You can easily install them everywhere.
    Peter> If you can't because of missing privileges, you could think
    Peter> of setting up a font server on your local machine (usually
    Peter> port 7100). This is just a piece of software and some
    Peter> configuration. Since the ssh tunnels are open to X11
    Peter> protocol, your remote X clients could use the fonts from
    Peter> your font server. When it's running it does not consume
    Peter> much resources. The fonts are a few 10 kB, and your font
    Peter> server does not need to serve all X11 fonts, just a chosen
    Peter> few.

    Peter> Instead of complicated Elisp code you could also set up
    Peter> ~/.Xdefaults files on your remote computers. Emacs*font and
    Peter> other font resources can also name a fontset
    Peter> (Emacs*fontSet, Emacs.Fontset-0), one of a few you have set
    Peter> up in the .emacs files.

    Peter> When you know exactly what each machine offers, you could
    Peter> use Emacs invocations (from shell scripts for example)
    Peter> where either X resources or fonts or fontsets to use are
    Peter> specified.

Peter,

My work/home laptops are often disconnected from a network, so I was
looking for a self-contained solution, though I like your font-server
suggestion! Thank you!!

As background, my desire is to "take my Emacs customizations" with me;
I have a master gnu/linux .emacs and a personal site-lisp area which I
replicate to other gnu/linux and Windows XP machines. The handy
color-theme.el package allows me to take my color scheme with me, and
I was wondering if a few more lines of .emacs elisp could let me
conditionally use my favorite font per platform (that is already
installed by default.)

There appears to be a whole spectrum of where to put "conditionals"
like this. On one side, in the ~/.Xdefaults or ~/.Xresources, either
supported with ancillary scripts or m4 macros, or in a .emacs or
equivalent elisp file. I was trying the elisp route.

Also, one of my motivations for my question is to better understand
(in general) how to call native commands on my gnu/linux system
from elisp and process its return information. For example, my .emacs
currently has some code to customize the grep-command strings for the
platforms which supported it, based on a "grep --version" query:

--- .emacs snippet (It works, even if not pretty) ----
;; AMS: I prefer M-x grep ignoring case; otherwise default is "grep -n -e "
;; AMS: If grep 2.5 is available, ignore GNUS files prefixed with .newsrc,
;; because it is slow to parse with font-lock mode enabled.

;; Futures:
;; 1. Is there a way to do this that is directory-specific, like the
;;    .cvsignore command. Maybe a combination of skip_directories and
;;    excludes?
;; 2. GREP_OPTIONS breaks older grep's, so probably it's a portability
;;    barrier, e.g. leave it out of my .tcshrc
;; 3. Better: set GREP_OPTIONS conditionally (upon grep >= v2.5) in
;;    .tcshrc, e.g. setenv GREP_OPTIONS "-nH -i --color=always
;;    --exclude='\.newsrc.*'"
;;     setenv GREP_COLOR red (red is the default)

(defvar my-grep-version nil
      "*Version of grep that is foremost in my exec-path.")

;; nth split-string idea courtesy of Thien-Thi Nguyen <ttn@glug.org>
;; AMS: Discern best available grep for WinXP, Unix
(setq my-grep-version
   (nth 3 (split-string (shell-command-to-string
                         (concat
                           (or (executable-find "ggrep")
                               (executable-find "grep"))
                           " --version")
                         ))))

;; Courtesy of Kevin Rodgers <ihs_4664@yahoo.com>
;; (setq my-grep-version
;;    (shell-command-to-string "grep --version | awk '{printf(\"%s\", $NF); 
exit}'"))

  (if (string-lessp "2.5" my-grep-version)
    (progn
      ;; GNU grep 2.5+
      ;; (setq grep-command "grep -nH -i --color=always --exclude='\.newsrc.*' 
")
      (setq grep-command (concat
                           (or (executable-find "ggrep")
                               (executable-find "grep"))
                            " -nH -i --exclude='\.newsrc.*' 
--exclude='.fonts.cache-1' ")))
      ;; GNU grep 2.4 or earlier
      (setq grep-command (concat
                           (or (executable-find "ggrep")
                               (executable-find "grep"))
                             " -nH -i ")))


Andy Scott