Re: What's the prerenderer do?

[Lars Clausen <lrclause cs uiuc edu>]

On Tue, 05 Mar 2002, Akira TAGOH wrote:
> > > > > > On Mon, 4 Mar 2002 07:28:31 +0100,
> > > > > > "CC" == Cyrille Chepelov <cyrille chepelov org> wrote:
>
> CC> OK. Be aware however that the very definition of "list of standard PS
> CC> fonts" is locale-dependent (actually, it depends on whether LC_ALL
> CC> matches "ja_.*" or not).
>
> as I said with previous mail, if we assume dia uses freetype
> by default, that list is not useful. I think probably we
> should have the thing like font list files per locale, in
> order that dia may understand whether it's a font for what
> language.

There are only two reasons for having such a list, as far as FreeType is
concerned: One is to be able to understand when Dia objects call for a
specific font, the other is to be able to make smaller portable PostScript
code.  It seems the only standard PS fonts are Times, Courier and Helvetica
in four styles, Symbol.  This means only those fonts should be used for
output.  As for the first part:  Do the translators actually change the
font names into local fonts?  If so, we can have the exchange table for
ps->freetype be translated as well, and the fonts would be automatically
substituted. 

In a later version, we could have the user setup what fonts should be
assumed available, so those with localized printers can make use of that.
It would be nice to be able to ask the printer what fonts it has
available... 

I don't think we're ready to assume freetype by default, there are still
some kinks to get out (such as the glyphs that are larger than their
advance).  Also, the freetype code is not at all optimized for speed, there
are simple caching possibilities that have not been done yet.  But I would
encourage everybody to try compiling with --enable-freetype and let me know
if there are any new and exciting problems.

-Lars

-- 
Lars Clausen (http://shasta.cs.uiuc.edu/~lrclause)| Hårdgrim of Numenor
"I do not agree with a word that you say, but I   |----------------------------
will defend to the death your right to say it."   | Where are we going, and
    --Evelyn Beatrice Hall paraphrasing Voltaire  | what's with the handbasket?