50.4.4 Glyph Types

Each glyph has a particular type, which controls how the glyph’s image is generated. Each glyph type has a corresponding list of allowable image instance types that can be generated. When you call glyph-image-instance to retrieve the image instance of a glyph, XEmacs does the equivalent of calling make-image-instance and passing in dest-types the list of allowable image instance types for the glyph’s type.

• buffer glyphs can be used as the begin-glyph or end-glyph of an extent, in the modeline, and in the toolbar. Their image can be instantiated as nothing, mono-pixmap, color-pixmap, text, and subwindow.
• pointer glyphs can be used to specify the mouse pointer. Their image can be instantiated as pointer.
• icon glyphs can be used to specify the icon used when a frame is iconified. Their image can be instantiated as mono-pixmap and color-pixmap.

Function: glyph-type glyph

This function returns the type of the given glyph. The return value will be a symbol, one of buffer, pointer, or icon.

Function: valid-glyph-type-p glyph-type

Given a glyph-type, this function returns non-nil if it is valid.

Function: glyph-type-list

This function returns a list of valid glyph types.

Function: buffer-glyph-p object

This function returns non-nil if object is a glyph of type buffer.

Function: icon-glyph-p object

This function returns non-nil if object is a glyph of type icon.

Function: pointer-glyph-p object

This function returns non-nil if object is a glyph of type pointer.