Re: System fonts

[Fred Kiefer]

Kazunobu Kuriyama wrote:
> <snip>
>
> > The main problem is not to implement it somehow, but to get it fast 
> > enough right from the start. If font substitution or even just the 
> > check, if it is needed take to much time, the whole GNUstep text 
> > system will be come unusable. 
>
>
> (1) Although some people allegedly believe that CJK fonts make system
>    response significantly slow, I've never met anyone here in Japan who
>    complains of it. In fact, they doesn't make anything noticeably slow.
>    The first practical wordprocessing software for the Japanese language
>    appeared about 15 to 20 years ago.  It's not an issue of the 21st
>    century.

This was never the question. I did not write about fonts themselves or 
displaying them, but about font substitution. With this paragraph and 
the precvious mail you are fighting a straw man you build up yourself.

> (2) True, font substitute makes the system a little bit slow.  But as a
>    matter of fact, all other GUI toolkits/frameworks were somehow succeeded
>    in coming through this difficulty.  Why doesn't this happen with 
> GNUstep?

We need somebody to do it. I may be able to do a bit, Alexander perhaps 
another one (?). He did such a great job on the GNUstep text system, it 
would be horrible if we would get back to to old dates of a unusable 
slow text rendering.

> (3) As for X11, unnecessary fonts won't be loaded automatically.  So dear
>    European users, you don't need to worry about that aweful oriental 
> script;
>    it won't get in the way of your life.

Again, whom are you telling this? I know that already.

> Consequently, if font substitute actually makes something slow, it's a 
> matter
> of implementation, neither underlying systems nor h/w in use.  Other GUI
> toolkits and framesworks prove it.

Excalty, if you read the cited paragraph again you may notice that it is 
actually trying to state something close to this.