X Resources¶

Every X application has an inordinate number of resources that you can tweak. This one is no exception. However I don’t follow standard conventions, so it’s all different. Sorry (a little anyway).

To use an X resource add a series of lines to your .Xdefaults file and then run “$ xrdb ~/.Xdefaults”. For example:

Gdraw.ScreenWidthInches: 14.7
Gdraw.GGadget.Popup.Font: 10pt helvetica
Gdraw.Background: white
fontforge.FontView.FontFamily: Helvetica, GillSans

Some systems (the mac) will not automatically load X resources when starting X, in this case you must explicitly tell fontforge where to find a resource file with the preference item: File->Preference->Generic->ResourceFile.

You may also use fontforge’s resource editor (File->X Resource Editor)

If a resource begins with “Gdraw.” or “fontforge.” then the program will look at it.

fontforge.FontView.ChangedColor: Sets the color used to mark changed glyphs.

fontforge.FontView.GlyphInfoColor: Sets the color used to dislpay information about selected glyph, betwen the FontView menu bar and the glyph array.

fontforge.FontView.SelectedColor: Sets the background color of selected glyphs.

fontforge.FontView.SelectedFgColor: Sets the foreground color of selected glyphs.

fontforge.FontView.EmptySlotFgColor: Sets the color of crosses marking empty code points.

fontforge.FontView.HintingNeededColor: Sets the color of markings for glyphs that need hinting or instructing.

fontforge.FontView.FontSize: Point size of those fonts.

fontforge.CharView.InfoFamily: A list of font family names to be used in the outline and bitmap character views for information messages.

fontforge.CharView.PointColor: Sets the color used to draw curved, corner or tangent points in the outline character view.

fontforge.CharView.FirstPointColor: Sets the color of the first point on a contour.

fontforge.CharView.SelectedPointColor: Sets the color used to draw selected curved, corner or tangent points in the outline character view.

fontforge.CharView.SelectedPointWidth: Sets the width of the line used to outline selected curved, corner or tangent points in the outline character view.

fontforge.CharView.ExtremePointColor: Sets the color of a point which is an extremum.

fontforge.CharView.PointOfInflectionColor: Sets the color of a location which is a point of inflection.

fontforge.CharView.AlmostHVColor: Sets the color used to mark lines and curves which are almost, but not quite horizontal or vertical.

fontforge.CharView.NextCPColor: Sets the color used to draw the “Next” control point.

fontforge.CharView.PrevCPColor: Sets the color used to draw the “Previous” control point.

fontforge.CharView.SelectedCPColor: Sets the color used to draw a control point that has been selected.

fontforge.CharView.CoordinateLineColor: Sets the color used to draw the coordinate axes.

fontforge.CharView.WidthColor: Sets the color used to draw the advance width line.

fontforge.CharView.WidthSelColor: Sets the color used to draw the advance width if it is selected.

fontforge.CharView.GridFitWidthColor: Sets the color used to draw the advance width once it has been grid fit (if View ‣ Show Grid Fit is on)

fontforge.CharView.LigatureCaretColor: Sets the color used to draw ligature caret lines.

fontforge.CharView.RasterColor: Sets the color used to draw the pixels of a rasterized bitmap (if View ‣ Show Grid Fit or Hints ‣ Debug is on)

fontforge.CharView.RasterNewColor: Sets the color used to draw the pixels of a rasterized bitmap if they have recently been turned on (if Hints ‣ Debug is on)

fontforge.CharView.RasterOldColor: Sets the color used to draw the pixels of a rasterized bitmap f they have recently been turned off (if Hints ‣ Debug is on)

fontforge.CharView.RasterGridColor: Sets the color used to draw the pixel grid used by the rasterizer (if View ‣ Show Grid Fit or Hints ‣ Debug is on)

fontforge.CharView.RasterDarkColor: When doing anti-aliased debugging, sets the color used for the darkest pixel. Other pixels will be interpolated between this and the background.

fontforge.CharView.ItalicCoordColor: Sets the color used to draw various horizontal metrics lines when they have been skewed appropriately for an italic font.

fontforge.CharView.MetricsLabelColor: Sets the color used to label metrics lines

fontforge.CharView.HintLabelColor: Sets the color used to label hint lines (and blue value lines)

fontforge.CharView.BlueValuesStippledCol: Sets the color used to draw the BlueValues and OtherBlues zones.

fontforge.CharView.FamilyBlueStippledColor: Sets the color used to draw the FamilyBlueValues and FamilyOtherBlues zones.

fontforge.CharView.MDHintColor: Sets the color used to draw minimum distance hints

fontforge.CharView.DHintColor: Sets the color used to draw diagonal hints

fontforge.CharView.HHintColor: Sets the color used to draw horizontal stem hints

fontforge.CharView.VHintColor: Sets the color used to draw vertical stem hints

fontforge.CharView.ConflictHintColor: Sets the color used to draw hints when they conflict

fontforge.CharView.HHintActiveColor: Sets the color used to draw a horizontal stem hint when it is active in the review hints dlg.

fontforge.CharView.VHintActiveColor: Sets the color used to draw a vertical stem hint when it is active in the review hints dlg.

fontforge.CharView.HFlexHintColor: Sets the color used to draw the halo around horizontal flex hints

fontforge.CharView.VFlexHintColor: Sets the color used to draw the halo around vertical flex hints.

fontforge.CharView.AnchorColor: Sets the color used to draw an anchor point

fontforge.CharView.TemplateOutlineColor: Sets the color used to draw a template outline. (not currently used)

fontforge.CharView.OldOutlineColor: Sets the color used to draw the original outline of a set of splines being transformed with one of the transform tools (flip, rotate, scale, etc.)

fontforge.CharView.TransformOriginColor: Sets the color used to draw the origin of the current transformation.

fontforge.CharView.GuideOutlineColor: Sets the color used to draw outlines in the Guide layer.

fontforge.CharView.GridFitOutlineColor: Sets the color used to draw outlines which have been gridfit (this should probably be the same as BackgroundOutlineColor as both are in the background layer).

fontforge.CharView.BackgroundOutlineColor: Sets the color used to draw background outlines.

fontforge.CharView.ForegroundOutlineColor: Sets the color used to draw foreground outlines.

fontforge.CharView.BackgroundImageColor: Sets the color used to draw background images.

fontforge.CharView.FillColor: Sets the color used to draw a character’s fill

fontforge.CharView.PreviewFillColor: The color to use when performing a preview fill. If this is not set then FontForge will fallback to using fontforge.CharView.FillColor. Neither of these resources are set then black will be used.

fontforge.CharView.TraceColor: Sets the color used to draw the trace of the freehand tool.

fontforge.CharView.Rulers.FontSize: Sets the point size of the font used in the rulers and the info bar. If the font is too big text will be clipped.

fontforge.CharView.Measure.Font: Select the font used to display the information shown in the window associated with the measure tool.

fontforge.CharView.Hotkey.Tool.Zoom: The keyboard shortcut that you desire to switch to the zoom tool. For example: fontforge.CharView.Hotkey.Tool.Zoom: z

fontforge.CharView.Hotkey.Tool.Ruler: The keyboard shortcut to select the ruler tool.

fontforge.CharView.Hotkey.Tool.Pointer: The keyboard shortcut to select the pointer tool.

fontforge.CharView.Hotkey.Tool.Hand: The keyboard shortcut to select the hand tool.

fontforge.CharView.Hotkey.Tool.PointCurve: The keyboard shortcut to select the point curve tool.

fontforge.CharView.Hotkey.Tool.PointHVCurve: The keyboard shortcut to select the point hv curve tool.

fontforge.CharView.Hotkey.Tool.PointCorner: The keyboard shortcut to select the point corner tool.

fontforge.CharView.Hotkey.Tool.PointTangent: The keyboard shortcut to select the point tangent tool.

fontforge.CharView.Hotkey.Tool.Freehand: The keyboard shortcut to select the point Freehand tool.

fontforge.CharView.Hotkey.Tool.PointTangent: The keyboard shortcut to select the point tangent tool.

fontforge.CharView.Hotkey.Tool.Pen: The keyboard shortcut to select the point Pen tool.

fontforge.CharView.Hotkey.Tool.SpiroToggle: Toggle spiro mode on if it is available.

fontforge.CharView.Hotkey.Tool.SpiroG4: SpiroG4 tool.

fontforge.CharView.Hotkey.Tool.SpiroCorner: SpiroCorner tool.

fontforge.CharView.Hotkey.Tool.SpiroLeft: SpiroLeft tool.

fontforge.CharView.Hotkey.Tool.SpiroRight: SpiroRight tool.

fontforge.CharView.Hotkey.Tool.Knife: Knife tool.

fontforge.DebugView.Font: Select the font used to display the truetype instructions being debugged.

fontforge.DVRaster.Background: Sets the background color of the raster window in the debugger.

fontforge.MetricsView.AdvanceWidthColor: Sets the color for the grid lines in the metrics view when nothing special is happening to them.

fontforge.MetricsView.ItalicAdvanceColor: In an italic font, this will be the color used to draw the line at the italicAngle which corresponds to the italic advance width.

fontforge.MetricsView.KernLineColor: Sets the color for the grid line in the metrics view which currently may be moved to change a glyph’s kerning.

fontforge.MetricsView.SideBearingLneColor: Sets the color for the grid line in the metrics view which currently may be moved to change a glyph’s right side bearing (or bottom side bearing).

fontforge.MetricsView.SelectedGlyphColor: Sets the color for the currently selected glyph in the metrics view.

fontforge.MetricsView.Font: Select the font used to display labels in the metrics view.

fontforge.BDFProperties.Font: Sets the font used in the BDF Properties dialog for stand alone text

fontforge.Combinations.Font: Sets the font used in the kern and anchor combinations dialog for labelling the combinations

fontforge.CVT.Font: Sets the font used in the ‘cvt ‘ table dialog

fontforge.GlyphInfo.Font: Sets the font used in the glyph info dialog for stand alone text

fontforge.Groups.Font: Sets the font used in the Groups dialog

fontforge.Histogram.Font: Sets the font used in the Histogram dialog

fontforge.KernClass.Font: Sets the font used in the kern class and pair dialogs

fontforge.LayersPalette.Font: Sets the font used in the layers palettes dialog

fontforge.Math.Font: Sets the font used in the Math dialog

fontforge.Math.BoldFont: Sets the bold font used in the Math dialog

fontforge.OFLib.Font: Sets the font used in the Open Font Library browser dialog

fontforge.SearchView.Font: Sets the font used in the find and replace dialog

fontforge.SearchView.BoldFont: Sets the bold font used in the find and replace dialog

fontforge.SFTextArea.Font: Sets the font used in the Print dialog and its variants dialog – except I don’t think this ever gets used.

fontforge.ShowATT.Font: Sets the font used in the Show ATT dialog

fontforge.ShowATT.MonoFont: Sets the monospaced font used in the Show ATT dialog

fontforge.Splash.Font: Sets the font used in the splash screen and About FontForge dialog.

fontforge.Splash.ItalicFont: Sets the italic font used in the About FontForge dialog

fontforge.StateMachine.Font: Sets the font used in the Apple state machine dialog

fontforge.TilePath.Font: Sets the font used in the Tile Path dialog

fontforge.TilePath.BoldFont: Sets the bold font used in the Tile Path dialog

fontforge.ToolsPalette.Font: Sets the font used in the Tools Palette dialog for labelling tool options

fontforge.TTInstruction.Font: Sets the font used in the various dialogs which edit truetype instructions (‘fpgm’ table, glyph instructions, etc.)

fontforge.Validate.Font: Sets the font used in the Validate dialog

fontforge.View.Background: Sets the background color for the drawing areas of the fontview, glyph view, bitmap view and metrics view.

fontforge.Warnings.Font: Sets the font used in the Warnings dialog

Gdraw.ScreenWidthCentimeters

A double. (centimeters)

X usually does not know the physical width of a screen (it knows the logical, pixel width). Gdraw’s internals are based on points rather than pixels, and it will sometimes pick a font that is too small or too large if it relies on X’s idea of how wide the screen is.

Gdraw.ScreenWidthInches

A double. (inches)

Same as the above, except measured in inches.

Gdraw.ScreenWidthPixels

An integer (pixels)

When X creates a virtual screen it may not be possible for Gdraw to find the actual number of pixels on the screen. This again will throw off point calculations.

Gdraw.ScreenHeightPixels

An integer (pixels)

When X creates a virtual screen it may not be possible for Gdraw to find the actual number of pixels on the screen. This is not used in point calculations.

Gdraw.Depth

An integer (1, 8, 16, 32)

You can use this to request a different depth than the default one. Not all servers will support all depths. If FontForge can’t find a visual with the desired depth it will use the default depth.

Gdraw.VisualClass

A string (“StaticGray”, “GrayScale”, “StaticColor”, “PsuedoColor”, “TrueColor”, “DirectColor”)

FontForge will search for a visual with the given class (and possibly depth if the depth argument is specified too).

Gdraw.Colormap

An string (“Current”, “Copy”, “Private”)

You can use this to control what FontForge does about the colormap on an 8bit screen

Current – FontForge will attempt to allocate its colors in the current colormap.
Copy – FontForge will allocate what colors it can and then copy the current color map into a private copy. This means FontForge has access to a much wider range of colors, and (as long as the shared colormap doesn’t change) FontForge’s colormap will match that of the rest of the screen.
Private – FontForge will allocate a private colormap and set the colors just as it wants them. It will almost certainly not match the shared colormap.

Gdraw.DoDithering

An integer (0 or 1)

You can use this to turn off dithering of images on an 8bit screen.

Gdraw.MultiClickTime

An integer (milliseconds)

The maximum amount of time allowed between two clicks for them to be considered a double (triple, etc.) click.

Gdraw.MultiClickWiggle

An integer (pixels)

The maximum number of pixels the mouse is allowed to move between two clicks and have them still be considered a double click.

Gdraw.TwoButtonFixup

A boolean

On a windows keyboard use the modifier key with the flag on it to simulate mouse button 2 (middle button). If this key is depressed when a mouse button is pressed or released then pretend it was button 2 that was pressed or release.

Gdraw.DontOpenXDevices: a booleanVarious people have complained that when FontForge attempts to open the devices of the wacom graphics tablet, the X server gives a BadDevice error. I can’t duplicate this, the open works fine on my system, but this resource allows them to tell fontforge not to try to use the tablet.

Gdraw.MacOSXCmd

A boolean

On Mac OS X the user will probably expect to use the Command (apple, cloverleaf) key to control the menu (rather than the Control key). If this is set then the command key will be mapped to the control key internally.

Gdraw.MultiClickWiggle

An integer (pixels)

The maximum number of pixels the mouse is allowed to move between two clicks and have them still be considered a double click.

Gdraw.Keyboard

ibm | mac | sun | ppc | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3

Allows you to specify the type of keyboard. Currently this is only relevent when generating menus. The modifier keys are in different locations on different keyboards (under different operating systems) and if FontForge knows what keyboard you are using it can make the hot-keys have better labels.

ibm | 0

Uses the Control and Alt keys
mac | 1

Uses the Command and Option keys (Mac OS/X, Mac keyboard)
ppc | 3

Uses the Control and Command keys (Suse ppc linux, Mac keyboard)
sun | 2

Uses the Control and Meta keys

Gdraw.SelectionNotifyTimeout

An integer (seconds)

Gdraw will wait this many seconds after making a request for a selection (ie. when doing a Paste). If it gets no responce after that period it reports a failure.

Gdraw.Background

A color

Gdraw will use this as the default background color for the windows.

Gdraw.Foreground

A color

Gdraw will use this as the default foreground color for dialogs.

Gdraw.GGadget.Popup.Foreground

A color

Specifies the foreground color of popup (tooltip) messages.

Gdraw.GGadget.Popup.Background

A color

Specifies the background color of popup messages.

Gdraw.GGadget.Popup.Delay

An integer (milliseconds).

Specifies the amount of time the cursor must remain motionless before a popup message pops up.

Gdraw.GGadget.Popup.LifeTime

An integer (milliseconds).

Specifies the length of time the message will display.

Gdraw.GGadget.Popup.Font

A font

Specifies the font to use in a popup message.

Gdraw.GGadget.Progress.FillCol

A color

Specifies the color of the progress bar in the progress window.

Gdraw.GGadget.Progress.Background

A color

Specifies the background color of progress window.

Gdraw.GGadget.Progress.Font

A font

Specifies the font to use in a progress window.

Gdraw.GGadget.ImagePath

A unix style path string, with directories separated by “:”. The sequence “~/” at the start of a directory will be interpreted as the user’s home directory. If a directory is “=” then the installed pixmap directory will be used.

Specifies the search path for images. Specifically those used in the menus, and those used in various gadgets listed below.

Gdraw.GGadget...

Every ggadget in enclosed in a box. No gadget is actually a GGadget, but every other gadget inherits (potentially with modification) from this abstract class. The following information may be supplied for any box:

...Box.BorderType

one of “none”, “box”, “raised”, “lowered”, “engraved”, “embossed”, “double”

For a description of these see the css manual.

...Box.BorderShape

one of “rect”, “roundrect”, “ellipse”, “diamond”

Describes the basic shape of the box. (some ggadgets must be in rectangles).

...Box.BorderWidth

An integer (points)

Specifies the width of the box’s border in points (NOT pixels)

...Box.Padding

An integer (points)

Specifies the padding between the interior of the box and the border

...Box.Radius

An integer (points)

Specifies the radius of a roundrect. Ignored for everything else.

...Box.BorderInner