RE: [Devel] initial release of FTLayout/GXLayout

[Turner David]

Hello,

> This is the initial release of FTLayout/GXLayout.
> 
> You can get it from 
> --- http://www.gyve.org/~jet/gxlayout/ftl-20040225.tar.gz
> 
> ...
>
> Suggestions are welcome. Especially APIs.  If a bug hits you, reports
> the detail as possible: the font name, glyph ids and feature settings.
> 

Thanks for your contribution, I'll try to take a deep look at it in
the following days. Having scanned it quickly, there are a few things
that bother me however:

  - OTLayout seems to be under LGPL. There is no chance that we're
    going to distribute it in the FreeType 2 source package, since
    this license is more restrictive than the current dual-license
    plan we're using. For example, LGPL code is practically unusable
    in most embedded systems.

  - Wouldn't be better if these components were provided separately
    from FreeType ? I have several reasons to believe it'd be
    beneficial:

       - smaller size of the font engine for those who don't want
         to use the extra features

       - different release points, so that a bug-fix in the layout
         engine doesn't generate a new release for the font engine

       - independent testing / debugging.

       - the ability to use a different font engine !

       - independent license (LGPL if you want)

    This would require some form of cooperation from FT2, but nothing
    really spectacular.

As I said, I'll try to read the details of the source later, maybe
these questions will be answered by themselves then.

For the name, I'm proposing these alternatives names that don't use
the FreeType moniker:

  - FontScript  (because the package is really about international scripts)

  - TypeScript  (same idea here)

  - ScriptText

  - Semtex  (it doesn't need to carry exact meaning, does it ;-)

  - RedHat Layout (if you really insist)

Please, please, please avoid stupid names like "Xft", "stsf", etc...
wathever you chose, you'll be stuck with it for ages. Two simple syllables
are an absolute must in most cases.

By the way, in a similar vain, what about renaming "PfaEdit" to something
a bit more catchy ? I mean, here's a great program with a very poor, and
even misleading, name. What about something like "Font Forge", which doesn't
seem to be taken yet ?


Thanks,

- David Turner
- The FreeType Project  (www.freetype.org)


> Regards,
> 
> Masatake YAMATO, RedHat K.K.
> Mpsuzuki, Hisorhima University.
> 
> p.s. I know the word "ftlayout" is a reserved by FreeType
> developers. However no good name hits me as the name of general text
> layout layer stacked on FreeType2.
> 
> ftl-20040225/ftlayout.txt:
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> ----------
> 
> About FTLayout
> ==============
> FTLayout is a layout engine stacked on FreeType2.  Currently
> TrueTypeGX/AAT is supported as a file format.  OpenType is also
> supported, but highly experimental.
> 
> FTLayout provides an generic interface which is shared by a layout
> engine(GXLayout) for TrueTypeGX/AAT and a layout engine(OTLayout)for
> OpenType for glyph substitution, one of the text layout function.
> 
> See "The TureType Font File"
> (http://developer.apple.com/fonts/TTRefMan/RM06/Chap6.html)
> about TrueTypeGX/AAT.
> 
> About GXLayout
> ==============
> GXLayout provides interface for mort, morx, lcar, format 0, 2 3 kern, 
> feat TrueTypeGX/AAT tables. 
> 
> We tested GXLayout against "Non-contextual glyph substitution" and
> "Ligature substitution" in kochigx-substitute-20040218
> fonts. "Non-contextual glyph substitution" in
> kochigx-substitute-20040218 fonts represents "vertical
> substitution". "Ligature substitution" in kochigx-substitute-20040218
> fonts represents "Non-contextual glyph substitution".
> 
> We tested GXLayout against "fi" ligature("Ligature substitution") in 
> MacOSX's dfonts. 
> 
> It seems that Pfaedit can generate TrueTypeGX/AAT font. However, we
> have not tested GXLayout against fonts generated by Pfaedit yet.
> 
> About OTLayout
> ==============
> (Different from GXLayout)OTLayout is not written from scratch; it
> is just applied existing implementation to FTLayout, a newly designed
> interface. The existing implementation stands for:
> 
>       The code ported by the author of Pango to FreeType2 for using 
>       the code in Pango from TrueTypeOpen code in FreeType1
>       implemented by FreeType developers.
> 
> What we have done is to make fit the existing implementation to
> new FTLayout glyph substitution interface. As written above, OTLayout
> in FTLayout is highly experimental. We have tested only punctuation
> substitution in Japanese vertical writing. Currently OpenType/TrueType
> is supported; OpenType/CFF is not supported. Hereafter in this
> document we focus on GXLayout.
> 
> Install
> =======
> You have not changed the install procedure. However we recommend to
> give --prefix=/somewhere-different-from-/usr-or-/usr/local to
> configure command if FreeType2 is already installed on your system.
> e.g. --prefix=/opt
> 
> We have taken care that we do not change the source/binary interfaces
> of FreeType2. However FTLayout development is based on the FreeType
> code of HEAD in FreeType2's CVS repository(as of Mon Feb 23 14:30:49
> 2004). If source/binary interfaces are not compatible between in
> FreeType2 on your system and that of HEAD, installing FreeType2 with
> FTLayout into /usr/lib or /usr/local/lib will be trouble. Take care.
> 
> Demo program
> ============
> fi and gxdemo are bundled as GXLayout demo programs. To build the demo
> programs, type following command line in src/gxlayout after installing
> FreeType2 with FTLayout:
>         
>         $ make -f demo.mk
> 
> fi and gxdemo will be built.
> 
>    - fi command
>    With rules defined in a font file specified as the first argument
>    for fi, try to substitute "fi" glyph string; and print the result
>    to stdout. The default value defined in feat table is used as font
>    feature settings in substitution. If you want to try different
>    settings, gxdemo is suitable.
> 
>    Example:
> 
>       $ ./fi /Library/Fonts/Zapfino.dfont 
>       -------------------
>       File: /Library/Fonts/Zapfino.dfont
>       Name: Zapfino
>       [IN]f: 536, i: 552
>       [OUT]f: 1089, i: 65535<empty>   
> 
>    This output stands for
>    - [IN] is input glyph string,
>    - [OUT] substituted glyph string,
>    - ([IN])the glyph id for `f' is 536,
>    - ([IN])the glyph id for `i' is 552, and
>    - ([OUT])as the result of substitution, we get single glyph which
>      is 1089. 536, 552 are ligature into 1089.
> 
>    Only FreeType2 with FTLayout and standard C library are used in
>    fi.
> 
>    - gxdemo
>    gxdemo is a tool to inspect tables in a TrueTypeGX/AAT font and 
>    the behavior of GXLayout with GUI.
> 
>    Run gxdemo with a target TrueTypeGX/AAT font file from a terminal.
>    gxdemo's window has multiple tabs.
> 
>    In "Features" tab, you can change the feature settings. Pressing
>    "Reset" button and the settings are reset; setting are set to the
>    default values defined in feat table. With "Run" button, you can
>    try to substitute glyphs under the setting given in this "Features"
>    tab. Pressing "Run" button, "Input: " prompt is appeared in the
>    terminal. Give the glyph ids separated by space and type return key
>    at the end of input glyph ids. Then substituted glyph ids are
>    printed on the terminal.
> 
>    Example:
>       $ ./gxdemo ~/.fonts/kochigx-mincho-subst.ttf 
>       Input:       200 19 20 300
>       Substituted: 200 14571 65535<empty> 300 
> 
>    In "Glyph" tab, you can render a glyph by giving a glyph id.
> 
>    In "Dump" tab, you can dump the TrueTypeGX/AAT tables of the font
>    in pseudo XML format with pressing "Dump Font Tables" button.  Also
>    with pressing "Dump Feature Request" button, you can dump the
>    current font feature settings in "Features" tab in a text format.
> 
>    Batch dump mode is also available. To dump mort and feat from a
>    terminal, type 
> 
>       $ ./gxdemo --batch --table=mort:feat font.ttf  
> 
>    We, FTLayout developers used
>    mlview(http://www.freespiders.org/projects/gmlview/) to browse
>    the XML formated dump datum.
> 
>    In "Trace" tab, you can set FreeType2's trace level. To examine
>    the process of glyph substitution, set "gxvm" and "gxchain" to 3.
> 
>    Different from fi, gxdemo uses gtk+ GUI toolkit. To build gxdemo,
>    following libraries are needed:
>    - glib-2.0
>    - gtk+-2.0
>    - libgnomecanvas-2.0
>    - popt
>    At least Red Hat Linux 9 includes these libraries.
> 
> Using FTLayout and GXLayout
> ===========================
> To do glyph substitution in your program, you have to use both
> FTLayout interface(as generic interface) and GXLayout interface(as
> concrete interface). The symbols in FTLayout have "FTL" as prefix.
> The symbols in GXLayout have "GXL" as prefix. Symbols in FTLayout
> are declared in include/freetype/ftlayout.h. Symbols in GXLayout
> are declared in include/freetype/gxlayout.h. To include these header
> files in your source file, you have to obey to the way of FreeType2;
> you have to specify the header files in symbols:
> 
>       #include<ft2build.h>
>       ...
>       #include FT_LAYOUT_H
>       #include FT_GXLAYOUT_H
> 
> 
> The outlines of usage are:
> 
>     1. Create a face
>        This procedure is the same as before.
>        Create a `face' from the target font file after
>        initialize the library itself.
> 
>     2. Check the existence of substitution tables
>        You can check the existence of substitution table
>        in the target font by the logical AND operation between
>        face::face_flags and FT_FACE_FLAG_GLYPH_SUBSTITUTION.
>        
>     3. Check the type of layout engine
>        You can check whether the type of text layout engine
>        is GXLayout or OTLayout by invoking FTL_Query_EngineType.
>        Hereafter, we assume the engine type is GXLayout.
>        
>     4. Create a request
>        A `request' is needed in FTLayout to specify the
>        font feature settings in substitution. You can create more
>        than one requests against one face and specify the font 
>        feature settings independently each of them; and activate
>        one of them. Invoke FTL_New_FeaturesRequest with a face to
>        create a requests. Invoke FTL_Done_FeaturesRequest to release a
>        request.
> 
>     5. Set the features and settings to the request
>        Concrete text layout engine(GXLayout)'s interface is used to 
>        specify the font feature settings to a request. Following
>        functions are available to specify:
> 
>        - GXL_FeaturesRequest_Get_Feature returns a object(feature)
>          which represents Nth feature of a face.
> 
>        - GXL_FeaturesRequest_Get_Feature_Count returns the number of
>                features in a face.
> 
>        - GXL_Feature_Get_Setting returns a object(setting) which
>          requests Nth setting of a feature.
>        
>        - GXL_Feature_Get_Setting_Count returns the number of settings
>          in a feature.
> 
>        - GXL_Feature_Get_Name returns the name of given feature.
> 
>        - GXL_Setting_Get_State returns the state (enable or disable)
>                of given setting.
> 
>        - GXL_Setting_Get_Name returns the name of given setting.
> 
>        - GXL_Feature_Is_Setting_Exclusive returns whether given
>        setting is exclusive or not.
> 
>        These functions may be useful to construct GUI thorough which
>        application users can specify the font features settings.
>        "Features" tab of gxdemo may be good example to construct 
>        GUI.
> 
>        The writing direction(vertical or horizontal) have to be
>        specified also in FTLayout level. Use
> 
>                 FTL_Set_FeaturesRequest_Direction
> 
>        to specify. Whether you have to specify the direction in
>        GXLayout level or not depends on the target font file.
> 
>     6. Activate request
>        After setting a request by functions explained in 5., 
>        You have to activate it. Use
> 
>                  FTL_Activate_FeaturesRequest
> 
>        to activate a face. (Only one request is active for
>        a face at the same time.)
> 
>     7. Create input/output glyph array
>        FTL_New_Glyphs_Array is used to create a glyph array.
>        To substitute two glyph arrays are needed to store
>        input glyphs(input) and substituted result(output).
> 
>        About the input, you have to set the length and fill the array
>        with glyphs by your self. Use
> 
> 
>               FTL_Set_Glyphs_Array_Length
> 
>        to set the length of glyph array. Use `gid' field of glyph
>        array to fill the input glyphs.
>        
>        The length of output are automatically set by FTLayout.
> 
>     8. Substitute
>        Invoke 
> 
>                     FTL_Substitute_Glyphs
>             
>        with a face, input and output.
> 
> Other than 5. are procedures are done in fi command. Therefore fi.c
> may be good simple example to substitute glyphs.
> 
> TODO
> ====
> - lazy table loading
> - verification table data during loading not in 
>   substitution time
> - more detailing error codes and using them
> 
> 
> License
> =======
> The licenses of FTLayout and GXLayout are the same as that
> of FreeType2. About OTLayout, see src/otlayout/README.
> 
> Acknowledgments
> ===============
> This development is supported by Information-technology Promotion
> Agency, Japan(IPA). We would like to appreciate the supports.
> 
> Mitsuru Oka advised us about OpenType and Pango. We would like to
> appreciate his advices.
> 
> Contact
> =======
> Masatake YAMATO, Redhat K.K.
> <address@hidden> or <address@hidden>
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Devel mailing list
> address@hidden
> http://www.freetype.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
> 

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