Re: font-backend

[finalpatch]

Kenichi Handa <handa <at> m17n.org> writes:

>  In article <uodahkpjy.fsf <at> gnu.org>, Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at>
> gnu.org> writes: > > > Can someone "in the know" please post an
> explanation of the > > > font-backend feature, and what are its
> advantages/disadvantages?  > > > > The reason most people seem to use it
> (and I think just about > > _everybody_ who I've seen mention building
> unicode-branch or post-merge > > emacs, seems to) because they want
> anti-aliased fonts.  > > > > Some other advantages might be better
> integration with modern > > client-side font mechanisms, particularly
> font-selection, instead of > > using the traditional (and largely regarded
> as "crufty") X font > > mechanism.  I think the biggest advantage is the
> Emacs can use OTF with the font-backend mechanism.  For such script as
> Indic, it's vital matter.  > Thanks, but I also asked about disadvantages.
> Once the code gets stable, I think there's no disadvantage.  --- Kenichi
> Handa handa <at> ni.aist.go.jp

Just tested the font-backend build on windows, and there are 2 obvious
problems I have noticed. 1) the rendering speed is painfully slow, even on my
core2 cpu. 2) it cannot render italic font correctly for non-ascii
chars(they are displayed as boxes). Now the bright side, the annoy vertical
lines and incomplete rendered chars are completely gone, cool. if the above 
mentioned issues are fixed, i see no reason not to use it as the default.