Re: System fonts

[Kazunobu Kuriyama]

Yen-Ju Chen wrote:

>>
>> Yen-Ju Chen wrote:
>>
> [snip]
>
>> > In other word, only one font is used to display everything.
>> > Does font substitute work for you ?
>>
>> What a shame! It seems to me that back-xlib was implemented by
>> someone who
>> might be ignorant of what fontconfig is for.
>
>
> I think it's because GNUstep has its own defaults (NSFont, NSBoldFont). 

Perhaps, OpenStep had no strategy at all for world domination when they
made up the specifications. It appears an unjustifiable constraint
to us, doesn't it?

>
> So back-xlib does not really use fontconfig (fonts.conf) to do font
> substitute. 

It doesn't live up to my expectation.

>
> By the way, can fontconfig really do the font substitute ? 

Yes. Rather, Xft is designed to be a replacement of the traditional
text rendering of X11.

>
> If so, it is a good way to use it to implement the font substitue. 

Basically, this can be done by replacing traditional X11 functions
with Xft ones. Of course, you have to deal with some new data
structures which are not found in the legacy X11 interface. Other
than that, there's nothing special.

>
>
> [snip]
>
>>
>> >
>> > Maybe we should write a document in the LanguageSetup.gsdoc about
>> > using back-xlib.
>>
>> Could you tell me it more specifically? What's your idea on that?
>>
>
> Just add a new session in LanguageSetup.gsdoc, which now only contains
> back-art.
> (http://www.gnustep.org/resources/documentation/User/Gui/LanguageSetup.html)

Ah, you are right. I remember that.

>
>
> Ask user to install freetype and fontconfig and use back-xlib.
> Have encoding and locale correctly set.
> Use font panel in Ink.app to check the available fonts and specify
> them in GNUstep defaults.
> That's it. Very simple. 

I think the first stuff finds its right place in a general instruction
manual
for installing the GNUstep packages, say GNUstep-HOWTO. So LanguageSetup
doesn't necessarily need the stuff. Your thoughts?


Regards,
- Kazunobu Kuriyama