NAME

xfed − font editor for X window systems bdf and snf font files

SYNOPSIS

xfed [options] filename.[bdf|snf]

DESCRIPTION

xfed lets you interactively edit existing bdf or snf font files.  When started, xfed, opens a Main Window containing a title bar, menu bar, the name of the font file being edited and the current glyph hexadecimal coding value.  An Edit Window shows a magnified version of the first glyph in the font.  The Image Window displays the first 256 glyphs of the font.  xfed displays a menu bar with the following five pulldown menu panes. 

The File Menu contains buttons to Open, Close and Save the font file, as well as Quit to exit the program. 

The Edit Menu enables the user to copy or clear the current glyph, or undo previous edit changes.  The Mask function is intended for use with glyph cursor fonts to overlay the edited glyph with the following "mask" glyph. 

The View Menu will display the Font Info, Glyph Metrics, as well as stepping to the next page of fonts with more than 256 glyphs. 

The Options Menu enables the resizing of the edit grid. 

The Help Menu will display a dialog window of user capabilities. 

The Edit Window is a sized grid containing the largest glyph of the font.  A circle designates the glyph Origin (or hotspot in the case of Glyph cursors).  The bounding box of the glyph is displayed as a rectangle, according to the metrics of lbearing, rbearing, ascent and descent. 

The Image Window displays one page of unmagnified glyphs from the font.  The current glyph is highlighted in inverse video.  It will dynamically reflect changes made in the Edit Window.  Undefined glyphs in the font are tiled with a scales bitmap.  A thickened cell border identifies glyphs modified during the current edit session. 

If you try to quit xfed or close the file without saving edit changes to a glyph, a dialog window will give you the option of saving or discarding them. 

COMMANDS

In addition to the standard command line options, xfed accepts the following command line arguments:

−csize number
This option changes the pixel cell magnification factor (default 16). 
The remaining (font compiler) options apply only to snf font files. 

−l
The font compiler flag for bitorder of LSBFirst − default is MSBFirst −m. 

−L
The font compiler flag for byteorder of LSBFirst − default is MSBFirst −M. 

−p number
The font compiler flag for glyphPad byte width  − default is −p4. 

−u number
The font compiler flag for scanunit byte width − default is −u2

EXAMPLES

xfed $ANYPATH/fontfile.bdf(A bdf file)
xfed /usr/lib/X11/ncd/fonts/misc/6x10.snf(NCD snf file)

INTERACTIVE (MOUSE) COMMANDS

When the cursor is in the Edit Window, each mouse button has a different effect upon the square that the cursor is over.  The left mouse button sets the pixel to the foreground color (black).  The right mouse button resets the pixel to the background color (white).  The middle mouse button inverts the pixel to the other state (from black to white and back). 

In the Image Window, use the arrow cursor with the left mouse button to select a different glyph for editing.  If Get Glyph or Put Glyph is selected from the Edit Menu, the Image Window cursor is changed from arrow to target.  Use this cursor to select the source or destination glyph.  To abort Copy Mode, click in the Edit Window and the arrow cursor will be restored. 

Other mouse interactions follow the OSF/Motif standards for Widget behavior. 

Keyboard accelerators appear as underlined letters in the menu labels and behave as documented for OSF/Motif Widgets. 

FILE FORMATS

For bdf file format, see X−Doc ’Character Bitmap Distribution Format 2.1’. 
For snf file format, the default font compiler options (−l −M −p0 −u2) are in effect. 
The Motorola exception is cursor.snf in oldx11 directory was compiled with the -L flag which reverses the byte order.

ENVIRONMENT

DISPLAY − the default host and display number

FILES

/usr/lib/X11/app−defaults/xfed specifies the required resources for xfed

SEE ALSO

X(1), bitmap(1). 

BUGS

Unimplemented features include:

a way to switch font compiler options when opening snf files with formats that differ from the original snf file opened

bitmap edit features such as CopyArea, MoveArea, DrawLine, etc. 

the ability to generate a bdf output file from a snf input file

If you move the mouse too fast while holding a mouse button down, some glyph edit squares may be ‘missed’.  This is caused by limitations in how frequently the X server can sample the mouse location.