Customizing the SAS Windowing Environment

Customizing Fonts under OpenVMS

Difference between the System Font and Windowing Environment Fonts

SAS uses two main types of fonts:

The system font is used in most dialog boxes and menus. SAS inherits the system font defined by the *.systemFont resource. If this resource is not defined, SAS uses a Helvetica font.
Windowing environment fonts are used in SAS windows. You can change the SAS windowing environment font either through the Fonts dialog box or by specifying the resources in your resources file. The windowing environment font must be a fixed font.

Note: It is best to change fonts before invoking any applications. Changing fonts while applications are running might result in unexpected behavior. [cautionend]

How SAS Determines Which Windowing Environment Font to Use

SAS determines the normal (not bold) default windowing environment font as follows:

If you have saved a font in SASUSER.PROFILE.DMSFONT.VMSPREFS through the Fonts dialog box, this font is used as the default normal font.
If you have not saved a font using the Fonts dialog box, but you have set the SAS.DMSFont resource, SAS uses the font specified by this resource as the default font.
If you have not set the SAS.DMSFont resource, SAS uses any *Font resources that you have defined.
If you have not set the *Font resources, but you have set the SAS.DMSfontPattern resource, SAS uses this resource to determine which font to use. The SAS.DMSfontPattern resource will have no effect if a *Font resource is defined.
If no resources have been set, SAS chooses a font from the fonts that are available on your server.

If you have not specified a value for the SAS.DMSboldFont resource, SAS uses the default normal font to determine the default bold font. If the normal SAS.DMSFont resource has an X Logical Font Description (XLFD) name associated with it, then SAS selects the matching bold font and loads it. If SAS cannot automatically select or load a bold font, the normal font is also used for the bold font.

In many cases, font names are given aliases so that a shorter name can be used to refer to a font that has an XLFD name associated with it. The name used in determining a bold font is based on the XA_FONT font property for the normal font.

Customizing the Font Using the Fonts Dialog Box

Introduction to Fonts Dialog Box

The Fonts dialog box enables you to change windowing environment fonts for the entire SAS session. If you change the font, the font that you select is stored in SASUSER.PROFILE.DMSFONT.VMSPREFS and will be used in future SAS sessions.

Opening the Fonts Dialog Box

To open the Fonts dialog box, use one of the following methods:

Issue the DLGFONT command in the command window.
Select Tools Options Fonts.

Fonts Dialog Box

[Fonts Dialog Box]

How to Change the Windowing Environment Font

To change the windowing environment font, complete the following steps:

Open the Fonts dialog box.
Select a font name, a size, weight, and slant. (Not all fonts are available in all sizes, weights, or slants.) The Sample field shows what the selected font looks like.
Click OK to change the existing font to the selected font. To return to the default font, click Default. To cancel any changes and exit the Fonts dialog box, click Cancel.

Specifying Font Resources

You can customize the fonts used in the SAS windowing environment with the following resources:

SAS.DMSFont: font-name

specifies the font that you want to be used as the default normal font. The font must be a monospace font. The default is dynamic, which means that the default value is determined at run time. If you change the value for the SAS.DMSFont resource, then you must also change the SAS.DMSboldFont resource to one that has the same style, set width, font size, point size, spacing, and number of pixels (or dots) per inch.

SAS.DMSboldFont: font-name

specifies the font that you want to be used as the default bold font. The default is dynamic, which means that the default value is determined at run time. If you change the value for the SAS.DMSboldFont resource, then you must also change the SAS.DMSFont resource to one that has the same style, set width, font size, point size, spacing, and number of pixels (or dots) per inch.

SAS.DMSfontPattern: XLFD-pattern

specifies an XLFD pattern that you want SAS to use to determine the windowing environment font. Most fonts in the X Window System are associated with an XLFD, which contains a number of different fields delimited by a dash (-) character. The fields in the XLFD indicate properties such as the font family name, weight, size, resolution, and whether the font is proportional or monospaced. For more information about the XLFD and font names used with X Windows, see your X Window documentation.

The XLFD-pattern that you specify for SAS.DMSfontPattern must contain the same number of fields as an XLFD. An asterisk (*) character means that any value is acceptable for that particular field. For example, the following pattern (which is the default) matches any font that has a regular slant, is not bold, is monospaced, and is an ISO 8859 font:

SAS.DMSfontPattern: \
  -*-*-*-r-*--*-*-*-*-m-*-iso8859-1

SAS uses the XLFD-pattern to choose a font as follows:

SAS queries the X server for the list of fonts that match the SAS.DMSfontPattern resource.
SAS excludes all fonts that have X and Y resolution values different from the current X display, all fonts that have variable character cell sizing (such as proportional fonts), and all fonts that have point sizes smaller than 8 points or larger than 15 points. If this step results in an empty list, SAS chooses a generic (and usually fixed) font.
The font with the largest point size is chosen from the remaining list.

Given an XLFD font for the DMS font, the matching XLFD bold font name is derived and loaded. If the SAS interface to Motif cannot automatically select or load a DMS bold font, the DMS font is also used for the DMS bold font. The auto-selection of the DMS bold font is independent of the auto-selection of the DMS font. If the font resources are explicitly specified, then the auto-selection processing is not invoked. Explicitly specified values for the SAS.DMSFont and SAS.DMSboldFont resources take precedence over automatic selection.

If you have not specified a value for the SAS.DMSboldFont resource, then the SAS interface to Motif chooses a value by using the current DMS font as a reference point. The current DMSFont must have an XLFD name associated with it. The SAS.DMSfontPattern resource will have no effect if a *Font or *FontList resource is defined.

In many cases, font names are aliased so that a shorter name can be used to refer to a font that has an XLFD name associated with it. The name used in determining a SAS.DMSboldFont is based on the XA_FONT font property for the DMS font.

SAS.fontPattern: XLFD-pattern

specifies an XLFD font pattern that describes the candidate fonts used to resolve SAS graphics font requests. This enables you to optimize or control the use of X fonts within the context of various SAS graphics applications. The default value of an asterisk (* ) usually does not affect performance to a significant degree. Cases where it might be appropriate to restrict the font search include X servers with an excessive number of fonts or X servers operating on performance-limited environments.

SAS.systemFont

specifies the system font. The SAS windowing environment font is used in SAS windows. The system font is used in most dialog boxes and menus. SAS typically inherits the system font from the font resources set by the X Window environment. If the *.systemFont resource is not set, SAS uses a 12-point Helvetica font.

Specifying Font Aliases

Syntax for Specifying Font Aliases

If your server does not provide fonts to match all of those that SAS supplies, you can use font-alias resources to substitute the fonts that are available on your system. (Ask your system administrator about the fonts that are available.) Use the following syntax to specify font aliases in your resource file:

SAS.supplied-fontAlias: substitute-fontfamily

where supplied-font is the name of the font that SAS supplies and substitute-fontfamily is the family name of the font that you want to substitute.

CAUTION:

Do not specify a SAS font as a font alias.

A conflict can occur if you specify a font that is supplied by SAS as a font alias, as in the following example:

SAS.timesRomanAlias: symbol

Assigning this value to a font alias prevents the selection of any symbol fonts through the Fonts dialog box, because they are specified as the Times Roman alias. [cautionend]

The following table lists the SAS font-alias resource names. All of the resources listed are of the type String and have a default of NULL.

SAS Font-Alias Resources
Resource Name		Class Name
SAS.timesRomanAlias		TimesRomanAlias
SAS.helveticaAlias		HelveticaAlias
SAS.courierAlias		CourierAlias
SAS.symbolAlias		SymbolAlias
SAS.avantGardeAlias		AvantGardeAlias
SAS.bookmanAlias		BookmanAlias
SAS.NewCenturySchoolbookAlias		NewCenturySchoolbookAlias
SAS.palatinoAlias		PalatinoAlias
SAS.zapfChanceryAlias		ZapfChanceryAlias
SAS.zapfDingbatsAlias		ZapfDingbatsAlias

Example: Substituting the Lucida Font for Palatino

Suppose that your system does not have a Palatino font, but has the following Lucida font:

b&h-lucida-bold-r-normal-sans-
    10-100-75-75-p-66-iso8859-1

To substitute Lucida for Palatino, include the following line in your resource file:

SAS.palatinoAlias: lucida

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