Good morning Clint,
I think it was last week that I downloaded the current freetype release.
I will recompile Unicon against my new environment and see what happens.
From my reading last night, it appears that X Windows is able to
offload the font rendering to a client based font engine. The
particulars at the moment I do not know.
I will set aside some time to see if I can puzzle out the code in the 3D
section while the cold winter rains are pouring down outside.
This appears to be one of those times when you want to do something, you
have to build the tools to build the tools that you want to use. Ah
well, probably no different to what I am trying to achieve in my
workshop (building the tools to build the tools to build wind turbines
and pumps).
And this all started out with a desire to combine VIB, UI and UDB into
an integrated whole. Just goes to show that we sometimes take on more
than we can chew.
regards
Bruce Rennie
On 06/07/2013 05:36 AM, Jeffery, Clint wrote:
Hi Bruce,
You are correct that X Windows fonts may ALL be selected using their
native X11 names, and that it is a subset of those names that can be
selected using the Icon/Unicon portable font name syntax, and that X
Windows might not magically and implicitly be able to use fonts in
other formats such as truetype. To be honest, although I am
responsible for much of the Unicon graphics facilities font support, I
am not a font expert. I am left to study the technical specifics of
the current situation much as you are. Here are a few reflections
which may or may not be useful, and may or may not be correct for that
matter.
* X11 has its own native font formats, which include fixed-size and
scalable fonts. We can use them all.
* At some point, an Adobe Type 1 postscript font engine was donated.
X11 might have a standard way
to use Adobe Type 1 fonts. Unless that was somehow "built-in" to
the existing Xlib fonts API, Unicon
would not be able to use them without someone writing code for a
new API. I think it is built-in.
* TrueType fonts are this Apple and/or Microsoft semi-proprietary
response to the proprietary Adobe Type 1
format. They are likely supported as built-in on those platforms,
and Unicon's font names might get mapped onto them routinely,
especially on Windows.
* At some point, the Freetype library became widely available on X11.
It is an entire font engine for TrueType fonts.
It works. It is not built in to X Windows and its API is separate.
It is not universally installed so we can not
assume that it will be available. Its size is larger than Unicon,
so we would not want to bundle it
with Unicon distributions in order to ensure its presence.
* We have done some work to support Freetype when it is available. I
have seen it work recently from 3D code.
I don't think we've wired it up to work from the 2D code yet.
We would welcome and assist code improvements and additions in this
area.
Cheers,
Clint
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From:* Bruce & Breeanna Rennie [bren...@dcsi.net.au]
*Sent:* Thursday, June 06, 2013 6:06 AM
*To:* unicon-group@lists.sourceforge.net
*Subject:* Re: [Unicon-group] Question relating to font specification
in procedure Font()
Good evening all,
I have found some of the information I needed in the rwindows.r file.
Some of the styles are not represented. I have also been able to
determine that true type fonts cannot be accessed. The fonts
accessible appear to be only those that have X Windows font file.
This now makes sense of the "Help Wanted" list under Fonts about using
the Freetype font engine and native fonts.
I now have a way to add all available X Windows fonts and have them
known by the common name.
I'll do further investigation into the code to see what I might be
able to contribute. I am no C expert so this may take some time to get
anywhere.
At any rate regards to all and may the rats not be a plague for you.
Bruce Rennie
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