how to use kdialog --font ?

[Stephen Dowdy]

It appears to me that kdialog is ignoring the '--font' option.  (kdialog
has a lot of "missing features", "misfeatures", etc.  it's a shame)

However,

Ref: https://nowardev.wordpress.com/2013/06/28/kdialog-set-fonts/
$ kdialog --geometry 1024x768 --msgbox "<FONT FACE="Monospace">$(cat
/etc/motd)</FONT>"
renders a monospace font, but in an unre-sizable fixed window :-(
(i.e. --geometry is ignored)

This seems to mostly work:
$ cat /tmp/kdialog.txt
<pre style="font-family: monospace; font-size:24pt">The programs included
with the Debian GNU/Linux system are free software;</p>
<pre style="font-family: monospace; font-size:24pt">the exact distribution
terms for each program are described in the</p>
<pre style="font-family: monospace; font-size:24pt">individual files in
/usr/share/doc/*/copyright.</p>
<pre style="font-family: monospace; font-size:6pt"> Debian GNU/Linux comes
with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by applicable law.</p>
<p style="font-size:30px">This is a paragraph.</p>

$kdialog --geometry 1024x768 --textbox /tmp/kdialog.txt

The "HTML" parser seems to be very limited.  It is line oriented (i.e. a
<CR> terminates any current deviation from defaults, so you have to prefix
every line with what you want).

'font-color' is not supported, i suppose many things aren't.

So, this example works (IT WORKS FOR ME(TM))

$ lsblk | sed -e 's/^/<pre style="font-family: monospace;
font-size:12pt">/;s/$/<\/pre>/' > /tmp/kdialog.txt
$ kdialog --geometry 1024x768 --textbox /tmp/kdialog.txt

--or--

kdialog  --textinputbox "$(lsblk | sed -e 's/^/<pre style="font-family:
monospace; font-size:12pt">/;s/$/<\/pre>/')" "" 1 1

but the following does not (using bash process substitution)

$ kdialog --geometry 1024x768 --textbox  <(lsblk | sed -e 's/^/<pre
style="font-family: monospace; font-size:12pt">/;s/$/<\/pre>/')
kdialog does funky things with file handles, so you might be able to mangle
that up, but otherwise, probably easiest to make a temporary file, and use
a shell trap to ensure it gets removed.


As a REALLY Ugly hack, you can use the kdialogrc KDE config file:

you could use maketemp to create a temporary hierarchy
and populate:

FAKE_KDE_HOME=/tmp/kdeFOO/
FAKE_KDE_CONFIG=/tmp/kdeFOO/share/config
cat >> ${FAKE_KDE_CONFIG}/kdialogrc << "EOF"
[General]
font=Sans Serif,20,-1,5,50,0,0,0,0,0
EOF
# NOTE: i do not know what format that font-spec is in, that's just an
example from a distro (arch?) creating a /usr/share/kde4/config/kdialogrc
# NOTE: it's up to you to figure out the correct specification.   I *think*

then:

KDEHOME=${FAKE_KDE_HOME} kdialog ...

That also changes the Button font to what you specify in the [General]
group font key.


--stephen





On Tue, Oct 27, 2015 at 5:02 AM, ianseeks <ianseeks at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> On Tuesday 27 Oct 2015 10:03:06 Duncan wrote:
> > ianseeks posted on Tue, 27 Oct 2015 08:05:49 +0000 as excerpted:
> > > On Monday 26 Oct 2015 20:31:48 J. Leslie Turriff wrote:
> > >> I want to use kdialog to display a table of values, and to make
> > >> the output columns line up, the simplest way is to display the data
> > >> with a monospace font, e.g. DejaVu Sans Mono.  kdialog --help-qt
> > >> shows option -fn <name> or --font <name>, but does not describe the
> > >> format of the <name> string.
> >
> > [snip the details as not relevant to this particular subthread]
> >
> > > I've just done a "kdialog ?" and there is no reference to a "--font"
> > > and thats using this version
> > > Qt: 4.8.7
> > > KDE Development Platform: 4.14.12
> > > KDialog: 1.0
> >
> > The two of you are using two different sets of help output.
> >
> > For most kde executables, <command> --help (or <command> ?, which was new
> > to me) will output help text in two sections.  The first section is
> > generic parameters such as --help itself, the section is command-specific
> > options, followed by command specific arguments.
> >
> > You (ianseeks) were looking at the ?/--help output and apparently focused
> > on the (command specific) Options section, which, you correctly noted,
> > contains no --font or similar option.
>
> seemed the sensible thing to do at time. :o)
>
> > However, the OP (J Leslie Turrif) specifically mentioned help output
> > found under --help-qt, which is qt-specific help that generally applies
> > to all qt-based programs, pretty much regardless of what they actually
> > are.  Similarly, --help-kde is kde-specific help that generally applies
> > to all kde-based programs, pretty much regardless of what they are.
> > --help-all should list all the above, the generic options, followed by
> > the command specific options, followed by the qt options, then the kde
> > options, and finally the command arguments.
> >
> > And it can be observed that --help-qt (as well as --help-kde and
> > --help-all) is indeed listed under the generic options (at least for my
> > kdialog 1.0, on kde 4.14.13, on qt 4.8.7) section when invoking
> > kdialog --help or kdialog ? .
>
> perhaps the qt/kde options should be listed at the same time something
> along
> the lines of "man rpm"  i.e. get all the options into the open
>
> thanks for the enlightenment.
>
> > And, --help-qt (and the qt section under --help-all) does indeed list
> > both --fn and --font, as synonyms for each other.
> >
> >
> > So... the --fn/--font option is a generic qt option, that should work
> > with most qt-based apps, and is actually a generic option included due to
> > the app being qt-based, even if in some cases --fn/--font won't apply, or
> > will be overridden by something else.
> >
> >
> > So far so good.  But I don't have an answer to the original question,
> > because while I've occasionally used some other qt option and had it
> > work, I've never needed to use that one.  Also, kdialog is a rather
> > unusual application, and I'm not /entirely/ sure it honors that
> > particular qt option at all.
> >
> > What I could suggest as the way I'd try figuring it out here is this.
> >
> > Try using the --fn/--font option with other more traditional qt apps.  In
> > particular, if you have any non-kde qt-based apps (based on the same qt
> > major version, right now qt4 and qt5 based apps are out, and a test on a
> > qt5 app while kdialog is based on qt4, or the reverse, a qt5 based
> kdialog
> > with a test on a qt4 app, won't be particularly helpful), try using the
> --
> > font option on them, and see if you can get it to work there, where it's
> > much more likely not to be overridden.
> >
> > Once you get it working there, you'll know the font name pattern to use,
> > and can try the same thing on kdialog.
> >
> > It may also be that in the kde environment, kde overrides the normal qt
> > font options, and may override it here, as well.  So it may also be worth
> > trying that qt-based non-kde app in a non-kde desktop environment,
> > perhaps failsafe, if your distro provides such a login option, or gnome
> > or one of the gtk-based desktop environments.  Again, if you get it
> > working there, you can try the font name pattern that worked there under
> > kde to see if it works under kde as well.
> >
> >
> > Meanwhile, my google-foo might be a bit better than yours.  Searching
> > on...
> >
> > qt command line option "--font"
> >
> > ... (the quotes around font being critical), the first hit is to a page
> > of qt 4.8 embedded documentation, with command-line-options down the
> > page.  Here's a direct link:
> >
> > http://doc.qt.io/qt-4.8/qt-embedded-running.html#command-line-options
> >
> > The first option listed there is -fn <font>.  It says "The font should be
> > specified using an X logical font description."  However, that doesn't
> > tell me a whole lot.  The example isn't a whole lot better in that it
> > doesn't show size or weight or anything, but here it is:
> >
> > <command> -fn helvetica
> >
> > Two things to note about that:
> >
> > 1) -fn not --fn.  So try it with just one -.  It might just work, or
> > again, it may be that kde adapted that and it really is two -- under kde.
> > Trying it both ways is the only way to know for sure.
> >
> > 2) If you have the helvetica font installed, you can try the example
> > verbatim, and if it works, go from there.  If it doesn't, again, try a
> > different qt-based app, to be sure that kdialog isn't overriding it for
> > some reason.
> >
> >
> > Another hit, this one in the documentation for pyqt, adds an interesting
> > caveat:
> >
> > -fn or -font font, defines the application font. The font should be
> > specified using an X logical font description. Note that this option is
> > ignored when Qt is built with fontconfig support enabled.
> >
> > It may be that your qt and/or kde is built with fontconfig support, and
> > that's what's overriding the option.  I believe you'd need to check your
> > distro information and/or package deps to be sure.
> >
> > There's likely more examples and information using the google above...
> >
> >
> > That is of course assuming nobody else posts with more helpful
> > information that can shortcut the process.  I'd give it a few days before
> > giving up on that, as sometimes, people don't get to the list every day,
> > but will reply in 2-3 or sometimes within the week, if that's the
> > frequency at which they check it.
>
>
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-- 
Stephen Dowdy  -  Systems Administrator  -  NCAR/RAL
303.497.2869   -  sdowdy at ucar.edu        -  http://www.ral.ucar.edu/~sdowdy/
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