[9372] in The GTK GIMP ToolKit mailing list archive
[gtk-list] Re: Hershey fonts are now supported!!
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Owen Taylor)
Sat Oct 17 11:00:20 1998
To: serge@physics.unc.edu
Cc: gtk-list@redhat.com
From: Owen Taylor <otaylor@redhat.com>
Date: 17 Oct 1998 11:11:00 -0400
In-Reply-To: "Sergei O. Naoumov"'s message of "Fri, 16 Oct 1998 16:30:16 -0400"
Resent-From: gtk-list@redhat.com
Reply-To: gtk-list@redhat.com
"Sergei O. Naoumov" <serge@physics.unc.edu> writes:
> Hi!
>
> I just finished porting Hershey font support to Gtk. I got the bits and
> pieces from the GNU libplot, and adopted them. All the Hershey fonts (Roman,
> Cyrillic, Japanese, Symbols, etc.) are supported, as well as a little syntax
> parser, so one can freely write mathematical expressions. The picture is
> available:
>
> http://www.physics.unc.edu/~serge/gtkhershey.gif
>
> The question I have is this. If the maintainers of Gtk+ agree, this piece
> can be included into the core Gtk+, as there are only two functions: one
> sets the font parameters, and the other actually draws a Hershey string on
> an arbitrary drawable. Otherwise, I'll make a little add-on thing (I don't
> even know how to call it, for it is not a widget. Nor it is an application.)
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.
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
- Metrics: X suports a decent range of font metrics, that
probably could be approximated for any font renderer. But
other font systems include even more - and also some font
renderers may want non-integer-valued metrics.
- Non-metric information. Quickdraw GX, as an extreme example
stores a lot of information about things like ligatures
and line breaking within the font.
- Extra drawing parameters. (Rotation, Multiple-master axes,
antialising, etc.)
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.
Regards,
Owen
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