Font problems in cygwinx

Font problems in cygwinx

[mcforum]

The legends in the heading for emacs have turned into boxes. the text in buffers is normal.

What interaction is causing this? The X11 emacs is unusable emacs -w32 works.

Re: Font problems in cygwinx

[Ken Brown]

On 7/2/2021 5:21 PM, mcforum wrote:
> The legends in the heading for emacs have turned into boxes. the text in buffers is normal.

I'm not sure what you mean by "legends in the heading".  And when you say "have 
turned into boxes", are you saying that the problem just recently started?  Or 
have you always found X11 emacs unusable?

> What interaction is causing this? The X11 emacs is unusable emacs -w32 works.

My best guess is that the problem is caused by your customizations.  What 
happens if you run 'emacs -Q'?

If you still see the problem with 'emacs -Q', please give a more detailed bug 
report, following the guidelines here:

   https://cygwin.com/problems.html

And please say exactly how you're starting emacs.

Ken

Re: Font problems in cygwinx

[Brian Inglis]

On 2021-07-02 15:21, mcforum wrote:
> The legends in the heading for emacs have turned into boxes. the text in buffers is normal.
> What interaction is causing this? The X11 emacs is unusable emacs -w32 works.

If you were using Windows fonts in Emacs, that could be caused by 
Windows packages that decide it's a good idea to replace your existing 
installed versions of Windows fonts by theirs e.g. LibreOffice updates 
mess up the appearance of all my Windows, X, and Cygwin apps until I 
reboot.

It seems to be caused by their ancient installer approach and aggressive 
font replacement policy.

If something like that could be a cause of your problem, try rebooting 
to see if that clears up the problem.

-- 
Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

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too much technical detail. Reader discretion is advised.
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Re: Font problems in cygwinx

[Robert McBroom]

On 7/2/21 5:46 PM, Ken Brown via Cygwin wrote:
> On 7/2/2021 5:21 PM, mcforum wrote:
>> The legends in the heading for emacs have turned into boxes. the text 
>> in buffers is normal.
>
> I'm not sure what you mean by "legends in the heading".  And when you 
> say "have turned into boxes", are you saying that the problem just 
> recently started?  Or have you always found X11 emacs unusable?
>
The labels on the drop down menus and their contents. Been using emacs 
on cygwin for decades.
>> What interaction is causing this? The X11 emacs is unusable emacs 
>> -w32 works.
>
> My best guess is that the problem is caused by your customizations.  
> What happens if you run 'emacs -Q'?
Don't do customizations. -Q doesn't help
>
> If you still see the problem with 'emacs -Q', please give a more 
> detailed bug report, following the guidelines here:
>
>   https://cygwin.com/problems.html
>
> And please say exactly how you're starting emacs.

cygwin terminal-->startxwin-->cygwin terminal

emacs . -fh -geometry 100-512 &

Re: Font problems in cygwinx

[Robert McBroom]

On 7/2/21 5:58 PM, Brian Inglis wrote:
> On 2021-07-02 15:21, mcforum wrote:
>> The legends in the heading for emacs have turned into boxes. the text 
>> in buffers is normal.
>> What interaction is causing this? The X11 emacs is unusable emacs 
>> -w32 works.
>
> If you were using Windows fonts in Emacs, that could be caused by 
> Windows packages that decide it's a good idea to replace your existing 
> installed versions of Windows fonts by theirs e.g. LibreOffice updates 
> mess up the appearance of all my Windows, X, and Cygwin apps until I 
> reboot.
>
> It seems to be caused by their ancient installer approach and 
> aggressive font replacement policy.
>
> If something like that could be a cause of your problem, try rebooting 
> to see if that clears up the problem.
>
Used "Courier New" for years. Just a monospace font for data entry.

Re: Font problems in cygwinx

[Ken Brown]

On 7/3/2021 12:28 AM, Robert McBroom wrote:
> On 7/2/21 5:46 PM, Ken Brown via Cygwin wrote:
>> On 7/2/2021 5:21 PM, mcforum wrote:
>>> The legends in the heading for emacs have turned into boxes. the text in 
>>> buffers is normal.
>>
>> I'm not sure what you mean by "legends in the heading".  And when you say 
>> "have turned into boxes", are you saying that the problem just recently 
>> started?  Or have you always found X11 emacs unusable?
>>
> The labels on the drop down menus and their contents. Been using emacs on cygwin 
> for decades.

So you're saying this is a recent problem?  Can you think of anything on your 
system that has changed since X11 emacs was last usable for you?

>>> What interaction is causing this? The X11 emacs is unusable emacs -w32 works.
>>
>> My best guess is that the problem is caused by your customizations. What 
>> happens if you run 'emacs -Q'?
> Don't do customizations. -Q doesn't help

You said in a different message that you use Courier New.  How are you selecting 
the font in emacs?  And does the problem still occur if you just let emacs 
choose the font?

>> If you still see the problem with 'emacs -Q', please give a more detailed bug 
>> report, following the guidelines here:
>>
>>   https://cygwin.com/problems.html
>>
>> And please say exactly how you're starting emacs.
> 
> cygwin terminal-->startxwin-->cygwin terminal
> 
> emacs . -fh -geometry 100-512 &

Once again, please follow the problem-reporting guidelines at

   https://cygwin.com/problems.html

Ken

Re: Font problems in cygwinx

[Brian Inglis]

On 2021-07-02 22:33, Robert McBroom wrote:
> On 7/2/21 5:58 PM, Brian Inglis wrote:
>> On 2021-07-02 15:21, mcforum wrote:
>>> The legends in the heading for emacs have turned into boxes. the text 
>>> in buffers is normal.
>>> What interaction is causing this? The X11 emacs is unusable emacs 
>>> -w32 works.
>>
>> If you were using Windows fonts in Emacs, that could be caused by 
>> Windows packages that decide it's a good idea to replace your existing 
>> installed versions of Windows fonts by theirs e.g. LibreOffice updates 
>> mess up the appearance of all my Windows, X, and Cygwin apps until I 
>> reboot.
>>
>> It seems to be caused by their ancient installer approach and 
>> aggressive font replacement policy.
>>
>> If something like that could be a cause of your problem, try rebooting 
>> to see if that clears up the problem.

You could try restarting Windows, then rerunning setup to rerun the 
postinstall scripts, to see if that fixes the font configuration.

> Used "Courier New" for years. Just a monospace font for data entry.

Do you know if that is the Windows Courier New, one of the MS TT Core 
Fonts package, or one of the X aliases Liberation Mono, Cousine, 
Cumberland, Cumberland AMT?

See:

$ cd /usr/share/fonts/
$ ls -glo {truetype/msttcore,win-}fonts/Cour*.ttf | cut -c35-
truetype/msttcorefonts/cour.ttf -> Courier_New.ttf
truetype/msttcorefonts/courb.ttf -> Courier_New_Bold.ttf
truetype/msttcorefonts/courbd.ttf -> Courier_New_Bold.ttf
truetype/msttcorefonts/courbi.ttf -> Courier_New_Bold_Italic.ttf
truetype/msttcorefonts/couri.ttf -> Courier_New_Italic.ttf
truetype/msttcorefonts/courz.ttf -> Courier_New_Bold_Italic.ttf
truetype/msttcorefonts/Courier_New.ttf
truetype/msttcorefonts/Courier_New_Bold.ttf
truetype/msttcorefonts/Courier_New_Bold_Italic.ttf
truetype/msttcorefonts/Courier_New_Italic.ttf
win-fonts/cour.ttf
win-fonts/courbd.ttf
win-fonts/courbi.ttf
win-fonts/couri.ttf

also /usr/share/fontconfig/conf.avail/30-metric-aliases.conf:
<!--
Alias similar/metric-compatible families from various sources:
...
Microsoft...  Liberation fonts:  Google...  StarOff...  AMT fonts:
============  =================  =========  ==========  ==============
...
Courier New   Liberation Mono    Cousine    Cumberland  Cumberland AMT
...
-->
...
         <alias binding="same">
           <family>Cousine</family>
           <default>
             <family>Courier New</family>
           </default>
         </alias>
...
         <alias binding="same">
           <family>Liberation Mono</family>
           <default>
           <family>Courier New</family>
           </default>
         </alias>
...
         <alias binding="same">
           <family>Cumberland</family>
           <default>
           <family>Courier New</family>
           </default>
         </alias>
...
         <alias binding="same">
           <family>Cumberland AMT</family>
           <default>
           <family>Courier New</family>
           </default>
         </alias>
...
         <alias>
           <family>Courier</family>
           <default>
           <family>Courier New</family>
           </default>
         </alias>
...
         <alias>
           <family>Courier New</family>
           <default>
           <family>Courier</family>
           </default>
         </alias>
...
         <alias binding="same">
           <family>Courier New</family>
           <accept>
             <family>Cousine</family>
             <family>Liberation Mono</family>
             <family>Cumberland</family>
             <family>Cumberland AMT</family>
           </accept>
         </alias>
...

-- 
Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

This email may be disturbing to some readers as it contains
too much technical detail. Reader discretion is advised.
[Data in binary units and prefixes, physical quantities in SI.]