Re: [Devel] FreeType 2.0.6 pre-release in CVS

[David Turner]

Hi again,

  I forgot the main list of changes, for those interested in this.
  Let me know if something was forgotten...

Cheers,

- David

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LATEST CHANGES BETWEEN 2.0.6 and 2.0.5

 *** IMPORTANT BUG FIXES:
 
  - it wasn't possible to load embedded bitmaps when the auto-hinter was
    used. This is now fixed..

  - the Postscript font driver now supports font transforms (i.e. obliquing)
    in all cases
 
  - the TrueType font driver didn't load some composites properly
    (the sub-glyphs were slightly shifted, and this was only noticeable
     when using monochrome rendering)

  -  Various fixes to the auto-hinter.  They merely improve the output of
     sans-serif fonts.  Note that there are still problems with serifed
     fonts and composites (accented characters).

  - all scalable font drivers mistakenly returned un-fitted glyph advances
    when hinting was requested. This created problems for a number of layout
    applications. This is a very old bug that got undetected mainly because
    most test/demo program perform rounding explicitely or implicitely
    (through the cache).

  - FT_Glyph_ToBitmap did mistakenly modify the source glyph in certain cases.

  - "glnames.py" still contained a bug that made FreeType return invalid
    names for certain glyphs.


 *** IMPORTANT UPDATES & NEW FEATURES:

  - important updates to the Mac-specific parts of the library. 

  - The caching sub-system has been completely re-designed, and its API has
    evolved (the old one is still supported for backwards).
    
    The documentation for it will be completed on the next release though..
    For now, you're encouraged to continue using the old API

  - A new charmap cache is provided too. See FTC_CMapCache. This is useful
    to perform character code -> glyph index translations quickly, without
    the need for an opened FT_Face..

  - A NEW POSTSCRIPT HINTER module has been added to support native hints in
    the following formats: Postscript Type 1, Postscript CID and CFF/CEF.

    CHECK THIS OUT !! Note that the auto-hinter produces better results for
    a number of badly-hinted fonts (mostly auto-generated ones) though..


  - A memory debugger is now part of the standard FreeType sources. To
    enable it, define FT_DEBUG_MEMORY in <freetype/config/ftoption.h>,
    and recompile the library.
    
    Now, define the _environment_ variable FT_DEBUG_MEMORY and run any
    program using FreeType. When the library is exited, a summary of
    memory footprints and eventual leaks will be displayed..

    this works transparently with _any_ program that uses FreeType..
    you'll need _lots_ of memory to use this however (allocated blocks
    are never released to the heap to detect double deletes easily)

 *** OTHER:
 
  - we're aware of subtle differences between the output of FT 1 and FT 2
    when it comes to monochrome TrueType-hinted glyphs. These are most
    probably due to small differences in the monochrome rasterizers and
    will be worked out in an upcoming release.

    
  - the next release will be named FreeType 2.1, and will include a
    _major_ rework of the library's internals, both to make the source
    code more consistent, readable, etc.. as well as to implement new
    features like:
    
      - sub-pixel filtering ("ClearType" and "CoolType" like)
      - gamma-correction
      - dynamic version and features retrieval
      - important enhancements to the auto-hinter
      - important enhancements to the monochrome rasterizer
        (especially for Postscript-based formats)


  Merry XMas :-)