DtStdAppFontNames(file formats) DtStdAppFontNames(file formats)
NAME
DtStdAppFontNames -- CDE Standard Application Font Names
SYNOPSIS
The CDE Standard Application Font Names are a set of generic X Window
System font names, usable by applications as their default
fonts, for the most common categories of type designs and styles.
These names, for at least six sizes of 13 typefaces,
must be provided on all CDE
systems, and they should be provided in any
X server product on which CDE applications are expected to run.
They are typically mapped to existing fonts on the system
using the font alias mechanism, although this method is not required.
DESCRIPTION
CDE 1.0 does not come with a common set of fonts on all vendors' systems, and both CDE itself and CDE applications must be able to run on
X servers and X terminals from non-CDE vendors if those vendors so desire. Therefore, there are a standard set of ``generic'' font names
and sizes that each CDE vendor makes available on their CDE systems and that X server vendors may make available on their X servers and
terminals. The names map to existing fonts on each vendor's system, which may vary from vendor to vendor.
The CDE Standard Application Font Names described here allow applications to use a single set of default font specifications in their app-
defaults files, without concern for the system or X server on which CDE is running. These app-defaults application defaults are given as
XLFD font name patterns that will match the standard CDE font names on all CDE systems. This allows application developers both to reduce
their concern with selecting their default fonts from a varying set of fonts on different CDE systems and to make use of the system default
fonts.
Background
Application fonts are the fonts used within an application, where a wide variety of text designs, styles, weights and point sizes are use-
ful. These variations are used for emphasis, cross-references, section headers, and so forth. There are thousands of fonts available in
the market for use in applications, and different CDE systems will have different fonts. The standard names attempt to provide the minimum
variety in generic designs, styles and sizes that an application might want to use as defaults. (The CDE Standard Interface Font Names,
described in DtStdInterfaceFontNames(5), provide a similar mechanism for the elements of the CDE desktop itself.)
Common application font names prevent applications from needing different app-defaults files on each CDE system. The Standard Application
Font Names allow applications to use a single app-defaults file across all CDE systems. In addition, any X server or X terminal vendor may
ensure that CDE applications can run on their X server by mapping these standard application names to fonts of the corresponding style on
their individual X systems.
Rationale
Two of the most common design variations in fonts used to display text are the presence or absence of serifs and the choice between propor-
tional or regularly spaced (mono-spaced) characters. Combining these two design variations yields four ``generic'' font designs, or fami-
lies:
o serif proportionally-spaced
o sans serif proportionally-spaced
o serif mono-spaced
o sans serif mono-spaced
Common examples of these four designs are:
o Times Roman
o Helvetica
o Courier
o Lucida Sans Typewriter
Each of these designs typically come, for text fonts, in four styles (combinations of weight and slant):
o plain
o bold
o italic
o bold-italic
The four styles of each of the four design variations yield 16 generic font variations. These 16 generic fonts are among the most commonly
used in general desktop computing. For example, taking the first three real examples above (Times Roman, Helvetica, Courier), these 12
fonts, along with the Symbol font, constitute the so-called ``Adobe 13'' that is a de facto minimum set of fonts in the PostScript commu-
nity in the desktop computer marketplace.
In some cases, applications do not care about the exact font family or name to be used, but do need to use a mono-spaced font, a sans serif
font or a serif font. This CDE mechanism allows such applications to be freed from the need to be concerned about the exact font names
that may or may not be present on a particular CDE system.
The Standard Names for the Latin-1 Character Set
The 13 standard application font names are provided on all CDE systems only for the ISO 8859 (Latin-1) character set. These represent 12
generic design and style variations (serif and sans serif proportionally-spaced, and a mono-spaced font that is either serif or sans
serif), as well as a symbol font. These standard names are provided in addition to the ``real'' names of the fonts that the standard names
are mapped to for a particular CDE system. An additional four standard font names, to allow both serif and sans serif designs in a mono-
spaced font, may also be provided by a CDE system.
XLFD Field Values for the Standard Application Font Names
The standard names are available using the X Window System XLFD font naming scheme. There are three aspects to the standard names:
o The underlying font on each system, or X server platform, to which a standard name is mapped, typically will be different on each
system.
o The standard name itself, a full XLFD name mapped to the underlying font, may be different on each system in some of the XLFD fields.
However, most of the fields are the same from system to system, allowing the patterns (described next) to be the same.
o The font resource pattern containing the * wildcards, used in app-defaults files, which will match the full XLFD name of the standard
name, is the same across all systems, for a given use in an app-defaults file.
Each CDE or X server vendor implementing this specification must provide full XLFD names for the standard names, mapped to system-dependent
underlying fonts, so that the XLFD patterns used in CDE application app-defaults files will always match one of the full XLFD names pro-
vided.
The Standard Application Font Names are identified by the presence of the following XLFD field name values:
o FOUNDRY is dt
o FAMILY_NAME is application
o WEIGHT_NAME is medium or bold
o SLANT is r or i
o SETWIDTH is normal
o ADD_STYLE is sans for sans serif, serif for serif
o SPACING is p or m
o CHARSET_REGISTRY is iso8859
o CHARSET_ENCODING is 1
Although sans and serif are not required by the XLFD font convention, they are always part of the standard CDE font names.
Point Sizes
The complete set of point sizes available for each of the standard application font names is determined by the set of fonts included in a
system, whether bitmapped only or both bitmapped and scalable outline. The minimum set of sizes required and available on all CDE systems
corresponds to the standard sizes of bitmapped fonts that make up the default mapping for X11R5: 8, 10, 12, 14, 18 and 24.
For example, the entire set of six sizes of the plain monospaced font, on any CDE system, is represented by:
-dt-application-medium-r-normal-*-*-80-*-*-m-*-iso8859-1
-dt-application-medium-r-normal-*-*-100-*-*-m-*-iso8859-1
-dt-application-medium-r-normal-*-*-120-*-*-m-*-iso8859-1
-dt-application-medium-r-normal-*-*-140-*-*-m-*-iso8859-1
-dt-application-medium-r-normal-*-*-180-*-*-m-*-iso8859-1
-dt-application-medium-r-normal-*-*-240-*-*-m-*-iso8859-1
These patterns will match the corresponding standard font name on any CDE system, even though the PIXEL_SIZE and AVERAGE_WIDTH numeric
fields may be different on various systems, and the matched fonts may be either serif or sans serif, depending on the implementation of the
set of standard names. The RESOLUTION fields in the XLFD names of the underlying fonts, when those fonts are bitmapped fonts, must match
the resolution of the monitor on which the fonts are displayed for the point sizes to be accurate. To provide expected point size behavior
for applications, systems should ensure that the RESOLUTION_X and RESOLUTION_Y fields of the underlying fonts vary no more than 20% from
the real monitor resolution of the displays on which the fonts will be used.
Applications requesting point sizes different from the six in the minimum set may obtain either ``scaled bitmapped'' fonts of the requested
design, or scaled outline versions of the requested design. This behavior requires that the X server in question support the scaling of
fonts and that the standard names are mapped to underlying fonts that can be scaled using this support.
Example XLFD Patterns for the Standard Names
Using the specified field values for these standard names, subsets of the standard names can be represented with various XLFD patterns.
The XLFD pattern
-dt-application-*
logically matches the full set of CDE Standard Application Font Names. (Note that no specific X server behavior is implied). The pattern
-dt-application-bold-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-p-*-*-*-
matches the bold, proportionally-spaced CDE fonts, both serif and sans serif. And the pattern
-dt-application-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-m-*-*-*-
matches the monospaced fonts (including both serif and sans serif).
The full set of CDE Standard Application Font Names can be represented with the following patterns:
-dt-application-bold-i-normal-serif-*-*-*-*-p-*-iso8859-1
-dt-application-bold-r-normal-serif-*-*-*-*-p-*-iso8859-1
-dt-application-medium-i-normal-serif-*-*-*-*-p-*-iso8859-1
-dt-application-medium-r-normal-serif-*-*-*-*-p-*-iso8859-1
-dt-application-bold-i-normal-sans-*-*-*-*-p-*-iso8859-1
-dt-application-bold-r-normal-sans-*-*-*-*-p-*-iso8859-1
-dt-application-medium-i-normal-sans-*-*-*-*-p-*-iso8859-1
-dt-application-medium-r-normal-sans-*-*-*-*-p-*-iso8859-1
-dt-application-bold-i-normal-*-*-*-*-*-m-*-iso8859-1
-dt-application-bold-r-normal-*-*-*-*-*-m-*-iso8859-1
-dt-application-medium-i-normal-*-*-*-*-*-m-*-iso8859-1
-dt-application-medium-r-normal-*-*-*-*-*-m-*-iso8859-1
-dt-application-medium-r-normal-*-*-*-*-*-p-*-dtsymbol-1
Each of these 13 standard names comes in at least six point sizes.
Implementation of Font Names
Each CDE system vendor and X server vendor provides mappings of their own fonts to XLFD names meeting this standard, so that CDE applica-
tions will work on their system. The actual XLFD names will vary from system to system, just as the fonts they are mapped to, since they
contain some of the same values as the XLFD name of the underlying font. What does not vary is the behavior: the common patterns in which
only specified fields are used will match each system's standard names. This is guaranteed by the field specifications given earlier.
The following requirements are placed on each CDE or X server vendor's implementation of the Standard Application Font Names:
o The names must be fully specified XLFD names, without wild cards.
o The WEIGHT_NAME, SLANT, SETWIDTH_NAME, SPACING, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING fields must contain valid values as defined
previously and must match those in the underlying font.
o The ADD_STYLE_NAME field must contain either the serif or sans designation, whichever matches the underlying font.
Default CDE Mappings for Latin-1 Locales
The default mapping of these standard application font names for the ISO 8859 locales is to the following standard X11R5 bitmapped fonts
(the six minimum sizes are not shown explicitly in these patterns):
-adobe-times-bold-i-normal--*-*-*-*-p-*-iso8859-1
-adobe-times-bold-r-normal--*-*-*-*-p-*-iso8859-1
-adobe-times-medium-i-normal--*-*-*-*-p-*-iso8859-1
-adobe-times-medium-r-normal--*-*-*-*-p-*-iso8859-1
-adobe-helvetica-bold-o-normal--*-*-*-*-p-*-iso8859-1
-adobe-helvetica-bold-r-normal--*-*-*-*-p-*-iso8859-1
-adobe-helvetica-medium-o-normal--*-*-*-*-p-*-iso8859-1
-adobe-helvetica-medium-r-normal--*-*-*-*-p-*-iso8859-1
-adobe-courier-bold-o-normal--*-*-*-*-m-*-iso8859-1
-adobe-courier-bold-r-normal--*-*-*-*-m-*-iso8859-1
-adobe-courier-medium-o-normal--*-*-*-*-m-*-iso8859-1
-adobe-courier-medium-r-normal--*-*-*-*-m-*-iso8859-1
-adobe-symbol-medium-r-normal--*-*-*-*-p-*-adobe-fontspecific
A system may provide a different mapping of these standard names as long as all 13 names map to fonts of the appropriate design and style
and the required six point sizes are available. The system documentation must document the system-specific default mapping for the stan-
dard names.
Font Names in app-defaults Files
An application can use a single app-defaults file to specify font resources and use it across all CDE systems. Since most of the fields (
FOUNDRY, FAMILY_NAME, WEIGHT_NAME, SLANT, SETWIDTH_NAME, ADD_STYLE_NAME, POINT_SIZE, SPACING, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING) of the
standard names are the same across different systems, these values can be used in the resource specification in the app-defaults file.
However, other fields ( PIXEL_SIZE, RESOLUTION_X, RESOLUTION_Y and AVERAGE_WIDTH) may vary across systems, and so must be wild-carded in
the resource specification. For example:
appOne*headFont: -dt-application-bold-r-normal-sans-*-140-*-*-p-*-iso8859-1
appOne*linkFont: -dt-application-bold-i-normal-sans-*-100-*-*-p-*-iso8859-1
might be used to specify some of AppOne's default font resource needs.
Other Character Sets in the Common Locales
The standard application font names defined above can be used for locales other than the ISO 8859 character set with the following excep-
tions and differences. For the following locales, CDE guarantees that systems provide fonts with the following XLFD attribute values, and
that they be accessible using these names. For full information on how vendors ship the fonts, and make such names usable with the appro-
priate font base name lists required for correct CDE support for internationalization, see the guidelines in the CDE Internationalization
Programming Guide document.
o Locales using ISO 8859-2, -3, -4, -5 (Cyrillic), -6 (Arabic), -7 (Greek), -8 (Hebrew):
The same values for FOUNDRY, FAMILY_NAME, WEIGHT_NAME, SLANT, SET_WIDTH, ADD_STYLE and SPACING as are used in this definition for
the ISO 8859 locale.
o Japanese locales:
Two values for the FAMILY_NAME attribute (Gothic and Mincho) and two values for the WEIGHT_NAME attribute (medium and bold) as
well as SLANT (r), ADD_STYLE (*) and SPACING (m).
o Chinese (Taiwan) locales:
Two values for the FAMILY_NAME attribute (Sung and Kai) and two values for the WEIGHT_NAME attribute (medium and bold) as well as
SLANT (r), ADD_STYLE (*) and SPACING (m).
o Chinese (PRC) locales:
Two values for the FAMILY_NAME attribute (Song and Kai) and two values for the WEIGHT_NAME attribute (medium and bold) as well as
SLANT (r), ADD_STYLE (*) and SPACING (m).
o Korean locales:
Two values for the FAMILY_NAME attribute (Totum and Pathang) and two values for the WEIGHT_NAME attribute (medium and bold) as
well as SLANT (r), ADD_STYLE (*) and SPACING (m). Note that these names are unofficial, tentative romanizations of the two common
font families in use in Korea; Totum corresponds to fonts typically shipped as Gothic, Kodig or Dotum and Pathang corresponds to
fonts typically shipped as Myungjo or Myeongjo. The official roman names for these fonts are under review and may be changed in
the future by the Korean government, and thus may change for CDE.
In addition, to facilitate app-defaults files that work under a variety of locales, CDE systems must provide an additional set of Standard
Application Font Names where the FAMILY_NAME is application. These font names are identified by the presence of the following XLFD field
values:
o FOUNDRY is dt
o FAMILY_NAME is application
o WEIGHT_NAME is medium or bold
o SLANT is as appropriate (see above)
o SET_WIDTH is normal
o ADD_STYLE is *
o SPACING is as appropriate (see above)
o CHARSET_REGISTRY is as appropriate
o CHARSET_ENCODING is as appropriate
This set of names is mapped to an underlying font representing one of the FAMILY_NAMES as listed above.
For example, the XLFD names
-dt-mincho-medium-r-normal--*-*-*-*-m-*-jisx0208.1983-0
-dt-application-medium-r-normal--*-*-*-*-m-*-jisx0208.1983-0
may both be mapped to
-ibm_aix-mincho-medium-r-normal--*-*-*-*-m-*-jisx0208.1983-0
This scheme allows application writers to create a XmFontList in a resource file as follows, without regard for a particular locale:
*FontList:-dt-application-medium-r-normal-*-0-14-75-75-m-0-*-*:
and be assured that the font will be reasonable. Notice that specifying fonts this way not only disregards the selection of the Asian FAM-
ILY_NAME, but also the Latin serif or sans ADD_STYLE field. The font selected will be the default.
SEE ALSO
dtstyle(1), dtterm(1), DtStdInterfaceFontNames(5)
NOTES
There is no requirement on a CDE system to implement these standard names in a particular way. Several mechanisms are possible: duplicate
font files with altered naming attributes, X11R5 font aliases, or vendor-specific mechanisms. The only requirement is that an XLFD pat-
tern, written with attributes taken from the set that define the standard names, can be successfully used to open a font with the Xlib
function XLoadFont; and, specifically, the Xlib function XListFonts need NOT return the same XLFD names for the pattern on different CDE
systems.
CDE applications should, of course, be written to behave in a reasonable manner if these standard font names are not available on a partic-
ular X server. This is typically done in an X application by defaulting to the fixed and variable fonts.
DtStdAppFontNames(file formats)