FONTEDIT(1)

NAME
fontedit - a vfont screen-font editor

SYNOPSIS

fontedit [ generic-tool-argument ] ... [ font_name ]

AVAILABILITY
This command is available with the SunView User's software installation option. Refer to for information on how to install optional software.

DESCRIPTION

fontedit is an editor for fixed-width fonts in vfont format whose characters are no taller than 24 pixels (larger characters will not fit completely onto the screen). For a description of vfont format, see vfont(5).

OPTIONS

generic-tool-argument
    fontedit accepts any generic tool argument as described in sunview(1). Otherwise, you can manipulate the tool using the Frame Menu.

COMMANDS

To edit a font, type `fontedit'. A font_name may be supplied on the command line or may be typed into the Control panel once the program has started. If it exists, the font_name file must be in vfont format. When the program starts, it displays a single large window containing four subwindows. From top to bottom, the four subwindows are:

1)  The top subwindow, a message subwindow, displays messages, prompts, and warnings.

2)  The second subwindow from the top, an Control panel, allows you to set global parameters for the entire font and specify operations for editing any single character. The options are:

    (Load)
        Load in the font specified in the file name field. The program will warn you if you try to read over a modified font.

    (Store)
        Store the current font onto disk with the name in file name field.

    (Quit)
        Quit the program; warns you if you have modified the font.

    Font name:
        The name of the font.

    Max Width and Max Height:
        The size, in pixels, of the largest character in the font. If you edit an existing font, these parameters are set automatically; you must set them if you are creating a new font. Changing either of these values for an existing font may alter the glyph of some characters of the font. If the glyph size of a character is larger than the new max size, then that character is clipped to the new size (its bottom and right edges are moved in). However, if a glyph's size is smaller than the new size, the glyph is left alone.

    Caps Height and X-Height:
        The distance, in pixels, between the top of a capital and lowercase letter and the baseline. When an existing font is edited, the values of Caps Height and X-Height are estimated by fontedit, and may require some adjustment.

    Baseline:
        The number of pixels from the top (that is, the upper left corner) of the character to the baseline. For an existing font, the value of the largest baseline distance is used. For a new font, each character will have the same baseline distance. If this value is changed, then the baseline distance for all characters in the font will be the new value.

    (Apply)
        Apply the current values of Max Width, Max Height, Caps Height, X-Height, and Baseline to the font. That is, changes made to these values do not take effect until Apply is selected.

    Operation:
        This is a list of drawing and editing operations that you can perform on a character. For drawing, the left mouse button draws in black, and the middle draws in white. Operations are:

        Single Pt
            Press a mouse button down and a grey cell will appear; move the mouse and the cell will follow it. Releasing the button will draw.

        Pt Wipe
            Pressing a button down will draw and moving with the button down will continue drawing until the button is released.

        Line
            Button down marks the end point of a line; moving with the button down rubber bands a line; releasing button draws the line.

        Rect
            Like Line except draws a rectangle.

        Cut Button down marks one end of rectangle, and moving rubber bands the outline of the rectangle. Button up places the contents of the rectangle into a buffer and then ``cuts'' (draws in white) the rectangular region from the character. The Paste operation (below) gets the data from the buffer.

        Copy
            Like Cut except that the region is just copied; no change is made to the character.

        Paste
            Button down displays a rectangle the size of the region in the buffer. Moving with the button down moves the rectangle. Button up pastes the contents of the buffer into the character.
            The contents of the paste buffer cannot be transferred between tools.
            In Copy or Cut mode, holding down the shift key while pressing the left or middle mouse button will perform a Paste action. For best results, after placing a region in the buffer, press down the shift key and hold it down, then press down the mouse button. Release the mouse key to paste the region and then release the shift key.

3)  The third subwindow echoes the characters in the current font as they are typed. Note that the cursor must be in this window in order to see the characters. Your character delete key will delete the echoed characters.

4)  The bottom subwindow, the editing subwindow, displays eight smaller squares at its top; these are called edit buttons. The top section of each of these buttons contains a line of text in the form nnn: c, where nnn is the hexadecimal number of the character and c is the standard ASCII character corresponding to that number. In the lower section of the button the character of the current font, if it exists, is displayed. Clicking once over an editing button selects its character for editing.

    Just below this row of buttons is a box with the characters ``0 9 A Z a z'' in it. This box is called a slider. The slider allows you to scroll around in the font and select which section of the font you want displayed in the edit buttons. The black rectangle near ``a'' is an indicator which shows the section of the font that is displayed in the buttons above. To move the indicator, select it by pressing the left or middle mouse button down over the indicator and then move the mouse to the left or right with the button down; the indicator will slide along with the cursor. Releasing the button selects the new section of the font. A faster method of moving about in the font is to just press down and release the mouse button above the area you want without bothering to drag the indicator. Another method of scrolling through the characters of the font is to press a key on the keyboard when the cursor is in the bottom window; that character is the first one displayed in the edit buttons.

EDITING CHARACTERS:

To edit a character, click once over the edit button where the character is displayed. When you do this, an edit pad will appear in the bottom subwindow.

The edit pad consists of an editing area bordered by scales, a proof area, and 3 command buttons. The editing area is Max Width by Max Height when the pad opens, and displays a magnified view of the selected character. Black squares indicate foreground pixels. The editing area is surrounded by scales which show the current Caps Height, X-Height and Baseline in reverse video.

Just outside the scales, on the top, right side, and bottom of the pad, are three small boxes with the capital letters "R", "B", and "A" in them. These boxes are movable sliders that change the right edge, bottom edge, and x-axis advance of the character respectively. In a fixed-width font, these values are usually the same for all characters; however, in a variable-width font these controls can be used to set these properties for each character.

To the right of the pad is the proof area where the character is displayed at normal (that is, screen) resolution and three buttons. The three buttons are:

    Undo
        Clicking the left or middle mouse button undoes the last operation.

    Store
        Stores the current representation of the character in the font.

    Quit
        Closes the edit pad.

In the bottom subwindow, the right mouse button displays a menu of operations. These operations are the same as those in the control panel discussed above; you can select the current operation by either picking the operation in the control panel or by selecting the appropriate menu with the right button of the mouse. When the cursor is in the other subwindows, the right button displays the standard tool menu.

ENVIRONMENT

The environment variables LC_CTYPE, LANG, and LC_default control the character classification throughout fontedit. On entry to fontedit, these environment variables are checked in the following order: LC_CTYPE, LANG, and LC_default. When a valid value is found, remaining environment variables for character classification are ignored. For example, a new setting for LANG does not override the current valid character classification rules of LC_CTYPE. When none of the values is valid, the shell character classification defaults to the POSIX.1 “C” locale.

FILES
/usr/lib/fonts/fixedwidthfonts
    Sun-supplied screen fonts

SEE ALSO
sunview(1), vswap(1), locale(5), vfont(5), iso_8859_1(7)

BUGS

Results are unpredictable with variable-width fonts. The baseline should be greater than 0 or else the font cannot be read in by fontedit or by sunview(1).