Emacs: fontaine version 0.4.0

Fontaine lets the user specify presets of font configurations and switch between them on demand. This makes it easy to optimise for different contexts, such as a “reading” preset with large, spacious fonts, and an “editing” preset with smaller, more compact fonts.

Below are the release notes. Also make sure to check my [growing] list of Emacs packages: https://protesilaos.com/emacs.


  • Made it possible for the user option fontaine-presets to cover the fixed-pitch-serif face. This face is used by the default Emacs faces in Info buffers to render inline code elements. A list of properties within fontaine-presets can thus look like this (the manual explains everything in detail—else check my current setup at the end of this entry):

    (regular
     ;; I keep all properties for didactic purposes, but most can be
     ;; omitted.
     :default-family "Monospace"
     :default-weight regular
     :default-height 100
     :fixed-pitch-family nil ; falls back to :default-family
     :fixed-pitch-weight nil ; falls back to :default-weight
     :fixed-pitch-height 1.0
     :fixed-pitch-serif-family nil ; falls back to :default-family
     :fixed-pitch-serif-weight nil ; falls back to :default-weight
     :fixed-pitch-serif-height 1.0
     :variable-pitch-family "Sans"
     :variable-pitch-weight nil
     :variable-pitch-height 1.0
     :bold-family nil ; use whatever the underlying face has
     :bold-weight bold
     :italic-family nil
     :italic-slant italic
     :line-spacing nil)
    

    When the relevant attributes of fixed-pitch-serif are not specified, they fall back to the values of the default face.

    Note that fixed-pitch-serif is not used by my modus-themes and ef-themes because I think it looks awful out-of-the-box (a bitmap font on the GNU/Linux distros I used). One can still modify any face to inherit from fixed-pitch-serif, if they want to.

  • Introduced the command fontaine-apply-current-preset and wrote a relevant entry in the manual on how to “Persist font configurations on theme switch”. Relevant quote from the manual:

    Themes re-apply face definitions when they are loaded. This is necessary to render the theme. For certain faces, such as bold and italic, it means that their font family may be reset (depending on the particularities of the theme).

    To avoid such a problem, we can arrange to restore the current font preset which was applied by fontaine-set-preset. Fontaine provides the command fontaine-apply-current-preset. It can either be called interactively after loading a theme or be assigned to a hook that is ran at the post load-theme phase.

    Some themes that provide a hook are the modus-themes and ef-themes (both by Protesilaos), so we can use something like: […]

  • The once private variable fontaine--current-preset is now made public by means of a rename to fontaine-current-preset. In practical terms, this tells advanced users that they can rely on the presence of this variable and/or on the fact that changes to it will be documented accordingly.

My current configuration as of 2022-09-07 17:56 +0300, which might give you some ideas:

(require 'fontaine)

;; Iosevka Comfy is my highly customised build of Iosevka with
;; monospaced and duospaced (quasi-proportional) variants as well as
;; support or no support for ligatures:
;; <https://git.sr.ht/~protesilaos/iosevka-comfy>.
;;
;; Iosevka Comfy            == monospaced, supports ligatures
;; Iosevka Comfy Fixed      == monospaced, no ligatures
;; Iosevka Comfy Duo        == quasi-proportional, supports ligatures
;; Iosevka Comfy Wide       == like Iosevka Comfy, but wider
;; Iosevka Comfy Wide Fixed == like Iosevka Comfy Fixed, but wider
;; Iosevka Comfy Motion     == monospaced, supports ligatures, fancier glyphs
;; Iosevka Comfy Motion Duo == as above, but quasi-proportional
(setq fontaine-presets
      '((tiny
         :default-family "Iosevka Comfy Wide Fixed"
         :default-height 70)
        (small
         :default-family "Iosevka Comfy Fixed"
         :default-height 90)
        (regular
         :default-height 100)
        (medium
         :default-height 110)
        (large
         :default-weight semilight
         :default-height 140
         :bold-weight extrabold)
        (code-demo
         :default-weight semilight
         :default-height 170
         :bold-weight extrabold)
        (presentation
         :default-weight semilight
         :default-height 220
         :bold-weight extrabold)
        (t
         ;; I keep all properties for didactic purposes, but most can be
         ;; omitted.  See the fontaine manual for the technicalities:
         ;; <https://protesilaos.com/emacs/fontaine>.
         :default-family "Iosevka Comfy"
         :default-weight regular
         :default-height 100
         :fixed-pitch-family nil ; falls back to :default-family
         :fixed-pitch-weight nil ; falls back to :default-weight
         :fixed-pitch-height 1.0
         :fixed-pitch-serif-family nil ; falls back to :default-family
         :fixed-pitch-serif-weight nil ; falls back to :default-weight
         :fixed-pitch-serif-height 1.0
         :variable-pitch-family "Iosevka Comfy Motion Duo"
         :variable-pitch-weight nil
         :variable-pitch-height 1.0
         :bold-family nil ; use whatever the underlying face has
         :bold-weight bold
         :italic-family "Iosevka Comfy Motion"
         :italic-slant italic
         :line-spacing nil)))

;; Set last preset or fall back to desired style from `fontaine-presets'.
(fontaine-set-preset (or (fontaine-restore-latest-preset) 'regular))

;; The other side of `fontaine-restore-latest-preset'.
(add-hook 'kill-emacs-hook #'fontaine-store-latest-preset)

;; Persist font configurations while switching themes (doing it with
;; my `modus-themes' and `ef-themes' via the hooks they provide).
(dolist (hook '(modus-themes-after-load-theme-hook ef-themes-post-load-hook))
  (add-hook hook #'fontaine-apply-current-preset))

(define-key global-map (kbd "C-c f") #'fontaine-set-preset)
(define-key global-map (kbd "C-c F") #'fontaine-set-face-font)