Font management is the area where NsCDE and CDE are probably most different. Font Style Manager is completely NsCDE tool to set fonts for usage inside FVWM and external toolkits integration (X Resources/Motif, GTK2, GTK3, Qt4, Qt5 ...).

NsCDE defines 15 fonts. Five groups with three members:

This fonts are defined as FVWM infostore variables in $NSCDE_ROOT/config/NsCDE-Font-$DPI.conf and/or in $FVWM_USERDIR/NsCDE-Font-$DPI.conf. Further, they are defined as CPP macros in $FVWM_USERDIR/Xdefaults.fontdefs which is included in $FVWM_USERDIR/Xdefaults where it is used. GTK2 and GTK3 are also getting default font (Normal Medium) in their configurations if integration option has been selected in Font Style Manager. X resources and GTK are not refreshed by default, their checkboxes must be selected by the user.

The Font Style Manager itself consists of fontsets and fonts. Fontsets are named complete sets of five groups of three members of fonts defined above. Fontsets are stored in $NSCDE_ROOT/share/fontsets and in $FVWM_USERDIR/fontsets. If font set is selected in Font Style Manager, 15 fonts from the set are loaded into preview lists of the application and can be immediately applied or further customized before saving as $FVWM_USERDIR/NsCDE-Font-$DPI.conf. Fontsets are on the leftmost GUI list and inactive until button Use Selected Font Set is not clicked. Manual font selection contains list of XFT fonts found on the system in the middle list and their styles (regular, bold, italic ...) on the rightmost list.

Fonts can be set for the current DPI, or custom predefined DPI can be set. If custom DPI is set, fonts configuration file will change in $DPI part of the name.

Main font selectors are:

First popup menu loads 5 fonts from one of the 3 sets: small, medium or large. Second popup determines on which font current selection is working (normal, bold, italic, mono, mono bold), and third popup menu sets font size. When Font Style Manager is started, current configuration is loaded and fonts selected for a preview.

Button Default loads $NSCDE_ROOT/share/fontsets/Default_$DPI.fontset which can then be saved or further customized. Bottom half of the Font Style Manager contains preview for all fonts from the one of the three selected size sets.

Checkboxes Refresh Gtk2/Gtk3, and Refresh X Resources" are integrating font selection with popular widgets by providing variable normal medium font and it's size to their configuration files. Qt4 and Qt5 should automatically pick Gtk fonts if GTK2 font engine is active in their configurations. If not, qtconfig-qt4 and qt5ct applications can be started and some minor changes done and undone - enough for Apply/Save to take effect, and then font from Gtk will be loaded for sure. Checkbox Run User Script will attempt to run $FVWM_USERDIR/libexec/fontmgr.local if exists, with arguments of the new config file and current DPI. This is intended for user's customizations which are currently beyond NsCDE's scope of integrations.

Save button will save configuration of fonts and ask user to immediately restart FVWM, while Save Font Set will first save configuration as a new fontset and then as active configuration. In that way, further experiments with fonts can be done by the user, but saved fontset from some good point can be loaded to replace current configuration. When Use Selected Font Set is clicked, list of the fontsets becomes active, and lists of fonts and their styles inactive. Once font set is clicked, it will load preview of all the fonts in the fontset and the same button which is now called Select Fonts Manually can be clicked for further customizations. Mentioned button will change back it's title to Use Selected Font Set. Button Close discards actions, and Help button will call help text (if implemented).

Configuration of fonts can be totally reset and discarded by removing file $FVWM_USERDIR/NsCDE-Font-$DPI.conf and FVWM restarted.

Key Bindings: