Alexander Gelfenbain wrote: > > On Wed, Dec 19, 2001 at 07:20:45PM -0500, Sergey Babkin wrote: > > Alan Coopersmith wrote: > > > > > applications. We have designed a display and platform-independent text > > > architecture, the Standard Type Services (ST) framework, which handles > > > not just font rendering, but text layout and font management as well. > > > ST incorporates typographically sophisticated features and ideas from > > > the best regarded existing APIs, including Apple Type Services for > > > Unicode Imaging (ATSUI) and Java2D TextLayouts. On top of ST, we have > > > layered a new extension to the X protocol, called XST, which > > > incorporates the ST functionality. The ST API will also be exposed to > > > applications independant of the X environment so that it can be used > > > > It would be good if it also could provide the output in PostScript. > > It would be capable of generating outlines. Converting them to PostScript > is trivial.
I think, not quite trivial. I guess I should first explain that I don't want to sound ungrateful, and the way it is now this architecture looks very interesting and useful. Just it seems to me that it's a great opportunity to fix the historical X's weakness with printing. And seeing it missed once again would be a pity. Basically, rendering the general graphics in PostScript is easy and does not require much effort. Rendering of the text is much harder. The major thing making it complicated is the fonts. Of course, transferring the outlines of a rendered page back is a possible thing but it means large size of the resulting file and slow rendering to bitmaps at the printer. Providing a way to convert the used fonts to PostScript fonts, transferring them to the client and then rendering the pages in terms of these fonts looks like a much better thing. And probably provide a protocol to get the kerning information on to the client (unless all the rendering including kerning is done at the server side). Such a conversion is "trivial" too in the sense that it's clear how it can be done, the only difficulty is to actually do it and to provide an X protocol extension for such a transfer: - the Type1 fonts can be transferred directly, only with the encoding table changed according to X the server's idea about it and with the large fonts split into multiple 8-bit fonts (and/or possibly then combined into a Type0 composite font) - the TrueType fonts can be either converted to Type42 with the algorithm taken from ttf2type42 or converted to Type1 with the algorithm taken from ttf2pt1 - the other fonts can be rasterized to bitmaps and then converted to the Type1 fonts with the algorithm taken from ttf2pt1 Actually, one more possibility is to take the outlines produced from any kind of font and feed them into the algorithm from ttf2pt1. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that since yet another extension is being added to the X protocol, it would be nice to include this font transfer ability into it. -SB _______________________________________________ Fonts mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/fonts
