Re: [Devel] Using freetype "characters" for window decorations

[Vadim Plessky]

On Saturday 09 November 2002 11:05 pm, Otto Wyss wrote:
|  I haven't found a better subject but I'll try to describe my idea and what
| I'd like to know.
|
|  I've started participating in the wxWindows project (wxUniversal port)
| since I'm looking for a true portable programming framework. Now for the
| window decorations (like close box, scroll arrows, etc.) there are still
| bitmaps images used which of course aren't portable (at least not for PC's
| and PDA's). So I thought if the decorations are defined in an useable
| outline format this limitation would vanish.

Such usable format is SVG, in my opinion.

|
|  I've look a little into freetype and from what I know IMO it should be
| easy to outline a close box or a scroll arrow as an ordinary freetype
| "character" and use them in the window drawing. Unfortunately the window
| decoration don't stop with this simple ones, they get rather complex (i.e.
| folder symbol, icons). The main problem IMO is, freetypes always have an

Perhaps you would be interested to see my SVG icons.
I release them under BSD license, so it's fully reusable stuff.
I was planning to make packaging of those icons for KDE3 and GNOME2 (GTK2), 
but adding project like wxWindows sounds quite interesting, too.


| inside and outside with just one foreground and background color, while the
| complex decorations have multiple colors. Beside this I think it should be
| possible to design any decorations in an outline format.
|
|  Now I'd like to know:
|
|  - Is it a good idea to use an outline format instead of bitmaps for window
| decorations?

Yes, of course. I was thinking about this since Oct.2001, but necessary tools 
(like Sodipodi [1] vector-drawing editor, with support for radial gradients, 
and librsvg2 [2]) appeared just now, at least in *usable* state.
So, I started to work on this stuff again (SVG icons, in particular) beginning 
of Oct. 2002.
Pls let me know if you are interested to join.
I created "svgicons" project at Sourceforge today, tomorrow will upload both 
SVG and pre-rendered PNG pixmaps to the server. 

|
|  - Is there a better (free available) outline format (library) than
| freetype for this idea?

Once more:  SVG is indeed very good for vector drawings, in particular - for 
icons.

|
|  - Freetype supports rather many different formats, which would be the best
| for this idea?

If you still want to stick to FreeType-only solution - than I guess PS Type1 
format should do the work.

|
|  - Is it possible to extend freetype for this kind of use (if necessary) or
| is it better to build another library?

I think there is no need for yet-another-library.

Also: you may want to check libsvg [3].
Here is some info, from Carl Worth's announce:

--------------------------------------
Mailing list:
        http://neptune.east.isi.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xsvg

The purpose of this mailing list is to discuss SVG support for the X
Window System. Appropriate topics for discussion include the
following:

xsvg            X11 SVG viewer (using libxrsvg)

libxrsvg        Render libsvg objects with Xr

libsvg          Parse SVG documents, (relies on libxml2 and libpng),
                and render via abstract rendering interface.

Xr              Postscript-like API for drawing in X, (using Xc)
                Will also eventually support PNG/PDF output as well.

Xc              Intended to provide client-side emulation of the
                RENDER extension, (still unfinished)
------------------------------------------------
If you are interested, I can send you more details about this lib.
Or you can check mailinglist archives, I think you will find quite interesting 
things there.  :-)

|
|  Please tell me what you think about and please CC me, I'm not subscribed.
|
|  O. Wyss

[1]  http://sodipodi.sourceforge.net

[2]  librsvg2 ("Raster SVG")
(original librsvg was designed for support of SVG emblems in Nautilus File 
Manager for GNOME)
http://cvs.gnome.org/lxr/source/librsvg/
ftp://ftp.gnome.org/ftp/mirror/gnome.org/sources/librsvg/2.1

[3] libsvg  / libxrsvg / xsvg
"The code is still progressing rapidly, so nothing has been released,
but things are available from CVS. The xsvg client and its supporting
svg libraries are available from:
        cvs -d :pserver:address@hidden:/cvs/cworth login
        (empty password)
        co xsvg
        co libxrsvg
        co libsvg

Additionally, the Xr/Xc libraries can be obtained from keithp's CVS
server:
        cvs -d :pserver:address@hidden:/local/src/CVS login
        (empty password)
        co Xr
        co Xc
"

|
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Cheers,
-- 

Vadim Plessky
http://kde2.newmail.ru  (English)
33 Window Decorations and 6 Widget Styles for KDE
http://kde2.newmail.ru/kde_themes.html
KDE mini-Themes
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