Re: [Freetype] Font Fusion vs. Freetype?

[Vadim Plessky]

On Tuesday 26 November 2002 11:39 pm, Pedriana, Paul wrote:
|  People comparing these libraries for consideration of use are concerned
|  with things other than just rendering quality. Features, cost support,
|  footprint, runtime stability, and API stability are all important
|  considerations. In fact, in the end I'd guess that rendering quality is
|  going to be the least of many users' considerations, given that all
|  these libraries have good quality output.
|
|  FontFusion looks good to game companies because they claim to run with a
|  very small footprint, especially with asian fonts. This is important to
|  game companies making console (e.g. PlayStation) games.
|
|  Additionally, one issue I've had with Freetype is that the API keeps
|  changing. Practically every revision I've updated to has broken my code.

Sorry, I can't agree with you here.
FreeType APi is pretty stable, and compatible with previous versions.

I successfully upgraded rom FT 2.0.6 to 2.0.9 to 2.1.3-rc2 to 2.1.3 final, and 
my XFree86 4.2.0 was unchanged.
And everything works fine - from IceWm to GTK/GNOME2 to KDE 3.1

May be, you just used some low-level features, which are hiddent to people in 
most cases?

|  I don't have time to futz with this and it brings an element of
|  uncertainty to the development process. This may work fine for open
|  source projects like Mozilla but is not a good thing for large scale
|  commercial software development.

Soi far, FreeType is working quite well for a lot of apps - from 
XFree86/GNOME/KDE to multiple BeOS clones to AtheOS to XXXX.
I still have to learn about some project where FreeType is not used or hard to 
use .

|
|  Paul
|
|  -----Original Message-----
|  From: Vadim Plessky [mailto:address@hidden
|  Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2002 12:24 AM
|  To: address@hidden
|  Subject: Re: [Freetype] Font Fusion vs. Freetype?
|
|
|  On Tuesday 26 November 2002 2:45 am, Thibault Jamme wrote: [...]
|
|  |  FreeType and FontFusion don't appear to be in the same business. For
|  | one  thing FreeType is free, FontFusion is a commercial product.
|  |
|  |  FreeType is a collective effort that addresses a collective need.
|
|  Paul, if you need (can afford for your projects) commercial product -
|  you
|  would better check out D-Type.
|  From what I have seen, D-Type's rendering is quite impressive. I don't
|  know how it compares to FreeType, though. FT-2.1.3 is indeed very nice.
|
|  |  I don't think anyone here should shy away with a comparison, but
|  | rather  welcome any test result. If FreeType is better, then let's
|  | boast. If not,  well then we have a useful reference to measure
|  | against (I saw some clean  screen shots at FontFusion) and possibly
|  | some goals set.
|
|  If someone can provide me working renderer for either FontFusion, or
|  D-Type -
|  I would be glad to make tests and post comparision results.
|
|  |  I am very curious indeed to see a comparison. Whatever result is not
|  | going  to stop me from using FreeType as it is not viable for me to
|  | pay for a  licence - at least now. FreeType answers some needs
|  | extremely well. Since  FreeType does not rely on income (at least
|  | directly), competition is a  non-issue. And here you have a direct
|  | link with the developers.
|
|  Which is extremly important, IMHO.
|  You can't get this for money.
|  _______________________________________________
|  Freetype mailing list
|  address@hidden
|  http://www.freetype.org/mailman/listinfo/freetype

-- 

Vadim Plessky
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