Re: GNOME font library RFC

[Lauris Kaplinski <lauris ariman ee>]

On 27 May 2000, Miguel de Icaza wrote:

> 
> > Font server.
> > This should keep an eye on hot directories and update its internal font
> > list, if user drops/deletes some interesting (pfb, ttf) files. It acts as
> > central font resource, distributing fonts to clients via CORBA.
> > Possible additional functions:
> > - It can generate GhostScript fontmap
> > - It can act as X font server
> > - It can somehow handle font URL-s
> 
> This sounds beautiful Lauris!  That being said, I think we should
> not try to implement everything in a first pass.

For first pass we need client-side API. Moving it to client-server system
should be invisible to user program.
The problem is, at which level should the system interact with Pango.
- should Pango do all rendering itself?
- should Pango call gnome-font to do actual rendering
- should pango output GlyphList to be rendered in separate step
The problem is, that both renderer and Pango need full font information to
do their job, including desired output resolution.
I would VERY MUCH like to drop ALL nonscalable fonts (OK - if bitmap
version of scalable font exists, it should be used) in gnome-font. But as
future standard gtk text renderer, pango probably wants access to bitmap
fonts too.

Any suggestions?

Lauris