Re: [ft-devel] Re: [ft] Re: Few typefaces are not loading

[mpsuzuki]

I thank Dmitry for guiding Noorul to right place, while
I was off line.

On Sat, 29 Aug 2009 12:41:39 +0530
Noorul Sahabudeen <address@hidden> wrote:
>Windings works fine with FT_ENCODING_MS_SYMBOL, but is there any simple 
>way to set the default style that font supports and load the charmapa, 
>Because i dont' know anything about these encoding styles ans stuffs.

Before all, FreeType2 tries to provide Unicode character
interface by default, for convenience of the programmers.
"Unicode by default" is not perfect solution, but the most
generic solution especially for TrueType. More generic-but-
hardheaded solution would be "no cmap is loaded by default",
but I don't think it's welcomed in today, except of die-hard
programmers with Code Set Independent style.

With keeping "Unicode by default" feature, the automatic
determination of cmap is quite difficult, because most of
non-Unicode cmap of TrueType is incompatible with Unicode
(e.g. CJK encodings and Apple WorldScript encodings for
Arabic/Hebrew/Indic etc). Some people may request the
encoding convertor (something like iconv()) behind of FT2
API, but there's no compact, portable, generic library
with appropriate license to be included in FT2. FT2 user
should select the best encoding convertor fitting their
own purpose.

Even if a genius could write encoding convertor for FT2,
the problem of MS Symbol cannot be solved. MS Symbol encoding
is used for the glyph collection that cannot be coded by
Unicode. They are per-font encoding and mutually incompatible
in most case.

For example, my Windows XP has following TrueType fonts with
MS Symbol cmap: BSSYM7.TTF, REFSPCL.TTF, WINDNG2.TTF, WINDNG3.TTF,
marlett.ttf, symbol.ttf, webdings.ttf, wingding.ttf. All of
them have different glyph collection, and there is no interoperability.
Nothing to say, some of (or all of) the glyphs in these fonts
cannot be coded by Unicode. So, when we access the glyph via
MS Symbol encoding, the integer used as character code cannot
be mixed with Unicode anymore. Only FT2 API (with "Unicode by
default" feature) can do is only behaving aslike if there is
no Unicode character. Anyway, it could be worthful to mention
about the encoding issue in FT2 tutorial, because current
document has a sample code using "Unicode by default" feature
and not generic for the fonts without Unicode cmap.

>If it is not a great thing to find the charmap and set that , please 
>post the solution

As I written in above, it would be great work.

Regards,
mpsuzuki


>Dmitry Timoshkov wrote:
>> "Noorul Sahabudeen" <address@hidden> wrote:
>>
>>>    For few fonts like "Cambria" face is Null and for few fonts line 
>>> webdings i am not getting any characters.
>>
>> You need to select an appropriate charmap:
>>
>> FT_Select_Charmap(face, FT_ENCODING_UNICODE); // or FT_ENCODING_MS_SYMBOL
>>
>