[SOLVED] How can I change the fonts' size under fvwm configuration?

i92guboj · 11-05-2009, 09:30 AM

Well, the title font size is probably too huge to fit on these decorations. If you need to make the fonts bigger than the decoration, you are going to have to pick another decoration. Either that or edit the decoration, probably involving some image resizing with gimp or whatever.

The height of the title bar is controlled by a line similar to this:

Code:

+ TitleStyle Height xx

Being 'xx' the height in pixels. You will have one of these for each decoration probably. You should be able to see them by using

Code:

grep -r 'TitleStyle' *

inside ~/.fvwm/ like in the other example above. Changing the number in this line you will make the titlebar bigger, however the pixmaps might not fit correctly (I am not sure, I rarely use pixmaps on my windows at all).

About the other elements: each fvwm component can be customized separately. For the menus, you should be able to change the font adding just another line to the function above, so it would look something like:

Code:

DestroyFunc FuncFvwmResetInitFunctions
AddToFunc   FuncFvwmResetInitFunctions
+ I DestroyFunc StartFunction
+ I DestroyFunc InitFunction
+ I DestroyFunc RestartFunction
+ I DestroyFunc SessionInitFunction
+ I DestroyFunc SessionRestartFunction
+ I AddToFunc StartFunction
+ I + I FuncFvwmLoadAllHooks
+ I + I Test (Init) Schedule 10000 Exec exec conky -o -y 0 -d
+ I + I Style * Font "Shadow=1 SE:xft:Sans:pixelsize=21:Bold:minspace=true"
+ I + I MenuStyle * Font "xft:DejaVu Sans:size=8:encoding=iso10646-1"

Of course, use whatever font you want instead of that one I posted.

About the panels, that would require further analysis. The module that is used to pain the panels is FvwmButtons, it's usually invoked using something like:

Code:

Module FvwmButtons MyPanel

And configured using something like:

Code:

DestroyModuleConfig MyPanel: *
*MyPanel: Colums 10
*MyPanel: Rows 5
*MyPanel: Font "xft:......."

"MyPanel" can be whatever string, it can even be "FvwmButtons", no problem. So you will have to identify the name of the panel first, looking for FvwmButtons in your config, once you know the name of the module, you will need to search for a line starting with "*name: Font.....", and change the font there. I can't really be more concrete on this one.

However, as someone said above, I really advice to build your own. It's gonna be easier in the long term, and it will give you a better understanding about fvwm.

markush · 11-05-2009, 10:19 AM

Hello ggyyree,

What happend is that you have changed the font but not the size of the titelbar of the window. I'd recommend to read the manpage of fvwm2, it is a big manpage but you'll find everything. Search for "TitleStyle" and "Decor".

Markus

EDIT: Sorry, I did not see the post of i92guboj on the following page when I wrote my post

ggyyree · 11-05-2009, 12:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by i92guboj

Well, the title font size is probably too huge to fit on these decorations. If you need to make the fonts bigger than the decoration, you are going to have to pick another decoration. Either that or edit the decoration, probably involving some image resizing with gimp or whatever.

The height of the title bar is controlled by a line similar to this:

Code:

+ TitleStyle Height xx

Being 'xx' the height in pixels. You will have one of these for each decoration probably. You should be able to see them by using

Code:

grep -r 'TitleStyle' *

inside ~/.fvwm/ like in the other example above. Changing the number in this line you will make the titlebar bigger, however the pixmaps might not fit correctly (I am not sure, I rarely use pixmaps on my windows at all).

About the other elements: each fvwm component can be customized separately. For the menus, you should be able to change the font adding just another line to the function above, so it would look something like:

Code:

DestroyFunc FuncFvwmResetInitFunctions
AddToFunc   FuncFvwmResetInitFunctions
+ I DestroyFunc StartFunction
+ I DestroyFunc InitFunction
+ I DestroyFunc RestartFunction
+ I DestroyFunc SessionInitFunction
+ I DestroyFunc SessionRestartFunction
+ I AddToFunc StartFunction
+ I + I FuncFvwmLoadAllHooks
+ I + I Test (Init) Schedule 10000 Exec exec conky -o -y 0 -d
+ I + I Style * Font "Shadow=1 SE:xft:Sans:pixelsize=21:Bold:minspace=true"
+ I + I MenuStyle * Font "xft:DejaVu Sans:size=8:encoding=iso10646-1"

Of course, use whatever font you want instead of that one I posted.

About the panels, that would require further analysis. The module that is used to pain the panels is FvwmButtons, it's usually invoked using something like:

Code:

Module FvwmButtons MyPanel

And configured using something like:

Code:

DestroyModuleConfig MyPanel: *
*MyPanel: Colums 10
*MyPanel: Rows 5
*MyPanel: Font "xft:......."

"MyPanel" can be whatever string, it can even be "FvwmButtons", no problem. So you will have to identify the name of the panel first, looking for FvwmButtons in your config, once you know the name of the module, you will need to search for a line starting with "*name: Font.....", and change the font there. I can't really be more concrete on this one.

However, as someone said above, I really advice to build your own. It's gonna be easier in the long term, and it will give you a better understanding about fvwm.

Sure, I will try that. Thanks a lot.

As you and markush suggested, I should build my own configuration rather than just use a fixed one. Also I need to read the man page of fvwm2. I really appreciate the help from you guys. I decide to close this topic at this stage. After I try my own configuration if any problems I will show up again. Cheers.

p.s. If any of you can suggest a good (easy of course) configuration to start, please post it here. Thanks very much.

i92guboj · 11-05-2009, 12:31 PM

The guide in zensites that markush linked above is a great resource for newcomers:

http://www.zensites.net/fvwm/guide/index.html

It's old and probably unmaintained, but most of it should hold true still. It's also very basic. The fora at fvwm.lair.be used to be a great place for reference, and also served as a database for user configs that you could use as a start, being most of them far easier to understand and modify that the -themes and -crystal blobs, which are great and very well made, but way too big for the one who's learning fvwm.

You can also check my site, it has some configs and material about fvwm (look signature), it also has a tutorial but it's in Spanish so if you can't read Spanish it will do you no good

I've been thinking about making my own repository with user configs, if nothing else it would be at least a place where people could still get other user's configs. There's actually no place for that at all. I might actually do this if I can find support on the fvwm.lair.be side.

Feel free to ask here or in a new thread when you are creating your own config. It will be fun and it will eventually fit you better than any premade config. Also, if you get stuck and we can't help you here, you can also join the fvwm mailing list. Not that it's hyper-populated but there are one or two persons around there that are really knowledgeable about fvwm.

If you open a new thread about fvwm, feel free to poke me via a private message or a mail and show me a link to the thread. There aren't much fvwm users around and I might miss it because of the heavy traffic in this forum.

Enjoy.

markush · 11-05-2009, 03:36 PM

Hello ggyyree,

I was looking for a transparent colorset for fvwm and found one: http://www.adebenham.com/fvwm/fvwm-config.tar.bz2 this was my startingpoint for my own configuration.

Markus