FontsWithXFT

Font Rendering with XFT

Since Motif 2.3 it has been possible to use the XFT font renderer for Motif widgets, allowing anti-aliasing and greatly improving the visual display of fonts.

Whilst CDE doesn't yet use this, it is definitely an interesting option. If you want to experiment with using the XFT renderer here is an example section of .Xresources that can be used to enable it.

*.renderTable: variable
*.renderTable.variable.fontName: Sans
*.renderTable.variable.fontSize: 8
*.renderTable.variable.fontType: FONT_IS_XFT

Result:

For more information check the Anti-Aliased Fonts and UTF-8 Support in OpenMotif 2.3 White Paper.

Note: This has not been well tested in CDE and is likely to have "issues". Patches welcome.

Experiments 20190227

*.renderTable: variable
*.renderTable.variable.fontName: Sans
*.renderTable.variable.fontSize: 8
*.renderTable.variable.fontType: FONT_IS_XFT

Add the 4 lines above into you .Xresources file for enabling XFT fonts in every motif app ever ...

Now we need to disable the default cde font selectors to let the XFT ones get used.

Assuming you're using the 'C' locale

move or delete /usr/dt/config/Xfonts/C/fonts.alias
move or delete /usr/dt/config/C/sys.font
move or delete /usr/dt/config/C/sys.resources

Blow away any existing dt sessions that have remembered these previous font settings

rm -rf ~/.dt/sessions/*

Issues

• Need a way to optionally support modern fonts (possibly compile time)
• Xresource directives are completely generic not CDE specific
• Font 'size' dialog in dtstyle and changing font size in general is not supported
• font selectors that -dt-interface lines use don't use multu line resource tweaks like the motif Xresources line, but only one line
• Is it even possible to specify a motif XFT font to use with a font selector?
• No XFT fonts in dtwm title bars (not plotted via motif but xlib?)
• No XFT fonts in dtwm front panel desktop selectors
• Font in terminal is complety messed up, possibly due to multibyte issues
• Selecting 'Help'->something on many apps causes them to instant seg fault
• opening pages in dtinfo causes crash

[Silent-Hunter]

I don't like antialiased fonts, so I hope if it is merged in, the option to use fonts as they are now remains. The pixelated ones are easier on my eyes.