Re: GUI fonts

[Rik]

On 11/23/2013 09:39 AM, address@hidden wrote:
> Message: 6
> Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2013 18:11:04 +0100
> From: Torsten <address@hidden>
> To: Lukas Reichlin <address@hidden>
> Cc: octave maintainers mailing list <address@hidden>
> Subject: Re: Default editor fonts
> Message-ID: <address@hidden>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> On 23.11.2013 16:08, Lukas Reichlin wrote:
>> > On 23.11.2013, at 15:40, Torsten <address@hidden> wrote:
>> > 
>>> >> I remember a thread where we discussed if the editor default fonts which
>>> >> are provided by the qsci-lexers (among them proportional fonts) should
>>> >> be replaced by our own defaults. I submitted a patch at
>>> >> https://savannah.gnu.org/patch/index.php?8246
>>> >> with a new version of the default-qt-settings.in where the editor-lexer
>>> >> settings are included. The font name and size for the lexers are set to
>>> >> the already available  macros %DEFAULT_TERMINAL_FONT% and
>>> >> %DEFAULT_TERMINAL_FONT_SIZE%.
>>> >>
>>> >> AFAIK the following fonts can be regarded as standard on the different
>>> >> platforms
>>> >>
>>> >> Windows:     Lucida Console
>>> >> Unix-Like:   Courier (Monospace?)
>>> >> Mac:         Monaco
>>> >>
>>> >> and are chosen in configure.ac depending on $host_os.
>>> >>
>>> >> Torsten
>>> >>
>>> >>
>> > 
>> > 
>> > Short form:
>> > 
>> > Windows:     Consolas (standard on Vista and later)
>> > Unix-Like:   DejaVu Mono (?)
>> > Mac:         Menlo (standard on 10.6 Snow Leopard and later)
>> > 
>> > Long form:
>> > There are good fixed-width/monospace fonts installed by default on 
>> > non-free operating systems. Windows (Vista and later) has the font 
>> > "Consolas", Mac OS X (10.6 and later) comes with "Menlo". Menlo is based 
>> > on DejaVu Mono. The DejaVu font family is freely (as in freedom) available 
>> > and included in many Linux flavours [1]. IMHO Consolas and Menlo are more 
>> > suitable for programming than the typewriter classics Courier and Monaco. 
>> > They were designed with programmers in mind, e.g. I/l/1 are easily 
>> > distinguishable from each other. I think we should set 
>> > Consolas/Menlo/DejaVu as defaults on Windows/Mac/Linux for the console and 
>> > the editor.
>> > 
>> > Lukas
> Thanks Lukas for the hints.
>
> AFAIK many Window XPs are still in use where Consolas is not installed
> by default. Or is it?

Consolas isn't installed by default on Windows XP, although you might be
able to downloads a Vista font pack.  I happen to use XP, but it is rather
old and will be officially unsupported as of 8/04/2014.  So it may not be
worth tailoring things too much towards an ancient OS.

--Rik