On 08.10.19 08:54, Hendrik Boom wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 08, 2019 at 02:38:27PM +0200, Dr. Nikolaus Klepp wrote:
> > Anno domini 2019 Tue, 8 Oct 08:32:22 -0400
> > Hendrik Boom scripsit:
> > > I ask because I'm having trouble choosing a font size in xterm.
> >
> > xfontsel
>
> OK. Just tried it. That was it. It looks pretty unusabe to present-day
> UI sensibilities.

My UI sensibilities are the 99% command-line habits of an assembler
programmer from the 1970s, and yet I find it unusable too.

Not that I faff with fonts from one decade to the next, but this seems at
least usefully functional:

List what's there:

$ fc-list | more     # Or grep some constraint, perhaps.
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/droid/DroidNaskh-Bold.ttf: Droid Sans:style=Bold
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-dejavu/DejaVuSans-Oblique.ttf: DejaVu Sans:style=Oblique
/usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1/s050000l.pfb: Standard Symbols L:style=Regular
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-dejavu/DejaVuSans-BoldOblique.ttf: DejaVu Sans:style=Bold Oblique
/usr/share/fonts/opentype/stix/STIXIntegralsUp-Bold.otf: STIXIntegralsUp:style=Bold
/usr/share/fonts/opentype/stix/STIXIntegralsUpD-Regular.otf: STIXIntegralsUpD:style=Regular
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-dejavu/DejaVuSerif-BoldItalic.ttf: DejaVu Serif:style=Bold Italic
...

Display one:

$ xfd -fa "Droid Sans:style=Bold"

That whips up a window with 256 fontified characters, all in glorious
black/white a la 1980s X11 on HPUX or Solaris. Hit "next" and it moves
on to subsequent 256 character sets from the font, not all available.
(The first 256 in "STIXIntegralsUp:style=Bold" are all blank.)

It seems odd that some fancy GUI font selector thingy isn't more
prominent, but I for one am content with the CLI, particularly when it
doesn't change much from one century to the next. (Seriously)

Erik