Re: [gtk-list] Re: Hershey fonts are now supported!!

[Aaron Digulla <digulla wi-pc44 fh-konstanz de>]

Quoting Owen Taylor (otaylor@redhat.com):

> No offense, but last time I looked at the Hershey fonts, they were
> not exactly especially attractive. (My opinion - I've heard the
> opposite from other people)
>
> I tend to think that they are, in any case, too specialized
> to go into core GTK+. However, people have, in the past
> floated around ideas for putting plug-in font renderer support
> into GTK+, and I think that might be the way to go.

A plugin font renderer would be a good idea, IMHO.

> The issues that come to mind that would need to be addressed
> for plug-in support are:
>
>  - Naming. Perhaps one could use names like
>
>    "XLFD:-*-charter-*-r-*-*-*-180-*-*-*-*-*-*"
>    "Type1:TimesRoman-14"
>
>    But this doesn't allow any sort of closest matching or subsitution

Why not ? You could use this to select the plugin (that's the part
before the :) and the rest is a pattern for the fonts. You would get
a list of fonts and then use a more sophisticated way to select what
you want. But there are problems, still. Fonts just aren't that
orthogonal. I guess the font-plugin must offer a standardized
GUI which one can put into a HBox (or similar) where the user can
select a font.

I have *no* idea if it would be possible to create an abstract GUI
which can select any font from any plugin. But maybe this is not
a big problem: If you just want a font, then you usually, don't
care for the more esotheric features (eg. rotatablility). And if you
need special features, you should know which plugin offers them.
So it might be possible to create a basic font selector which works
for all plugins and special selectors per plugin because the needs
are different enough.

> Probably the first order of business would be deciding
> which of the above could be ignored. Perhaps all that is
> necessary is simulating X's font routines - a
> illustration or page-layout program might well want to
> use its own font system in any case.

I think with the plugin system, the page layout software could
use this system, too, and come with its own plugins. They wouldn't
have to invent this a second time.

--
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"(to) optimize: Make a program faster by      FH Konstanz, Brauneggerstr. 55
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