Emacs doesn't pick up the right font when starting it with emacsclient
reddit / emacs

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zoliky · 2022-07-27 11:50

Hi,
I have these font definitions in my init.el:

    ;; Default
    (set-face-attribute 'default nil :font "Hack" :height 180)

    ;; Variable-pitch
    (set-face-attribute 'variable-pitch nil :font "Hack" :height 180)

    ;; Fixed-pitch
    (set-face-attribute 'fixed-pitch nil :font "DejaVu Sans Mono")
    (defun custom/org-fixed-pitch ()
       (set-face-attribute 'org-table nil :inherit 'fixed-pitch)
       (set-face-attribute 'org-block nil :inherit 'fixed-pitch
:foreground nil)
       (set-face-attribute 'org-code  nil :inherit '(shadow fixed-
pitch)))

When Emacs starts with `emacsclient -c` the `Hack` font is not used.
Probably the others font settings are ignored as well.

Also, I noticed that my org agenda files don't load up when
`emacsclient -c` is used. They don't show up in the buffers.

I would be grateful for any suggestion.

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alebrick · 2022-07-27 12:28

For the font issue, I had the same problem long ago. The solution is
to add a hook to `after-make-frame-functions`, which will accept a
frame as a parameter. You can pass that frame to the call to `set-
face-attribute`.

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zoliky · 2022-07-27 12:51

This is what you mean?

    (if (daemonp)
      (add-hook 'after-make-frame-functions
                (lambda (frame)
                  (set-face-attribute 'default nil :font "Hack"
:height 180))))

But that means I need to define each font twice. Once, when emacs
starts with `emacs` and the second time inside the `if (daemonp)` when
emacs starts with `emacsclient -c` I want them to work for both cases.

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rockatanescu · 2022-07-27 13:30

I believe you want to specify the `family`, not `font`, like this:

    (set-face-attribute 'default nil :family "Hack" :height 180)
    (set-face-attribute 'variable-pitch nil :family "Hack" :height
180)
    (set-face-attribute 'fixed-pitch nil :family "DejaVu Sans Mono")

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[deleted] · 2022-07-27 13:44

[deleted]

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shami1kemi1 · 2022-07-27 14:02

You can refactor it so that it works in both cases.

[For example, here's the way I do it in my config.](https://gitlab.com
/sham1/.emacs.d/-/blob/master/init.el#L232-242)

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zoliky · 2022-07-27 14:45

Thank you. The org agenda files show up in the buffer list if I run
`org-agenda-list` with M-x but if I restart the Emacs daemon again, I
need to run `org-agenda-list` again for them to show up.

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zoliky · 2022-07-28 17:05

What is the difference between ":family" and ":font"?

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rockatanescu · 2022-07-29 11:22

According to [the manual](https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/ht
ml_node/elisp/Face-Attributes.html), `:family` expects a font family
name (like `Hack` or `Iosevka`), while `:font` expects a font object
or a fontset.

This is how I set the fonts for Emacs (v28.1) in my personal config
file:

    (set-face-attribute 'default nil :family "Iosevka Term SS08"
:height 135)
    (set-face-attribute 'fixed-pitch nil :family "Iosevka Term SS08"
:height 135)
    (set-face-attribute 'variable-pitch nil :family "Iosevka Aile"
:height 135)

I generally use emacsclient to start emacs instances and the above
setup works just fine for me.