Re: can't use meson for 'freetype-demos'

[Charlie Jiang]

Hi Werner,

Thanks for the feedback.

> This is up to you.  Do what you want to do first :-)
I'm currently working on non-outline glyphs support. I'll post the 
roadmap later on the GitLab Issue (after taking consideration of points 
mentioned in your feedback).
> > I suddenly realized that we even don't need to use two different
> > sub-tab for "All Glyphs" and "Text String" rendering.  What about
> > having two parallel options:
> >
> > - Render Mode: Normal, Fancy, Stroked, Waterfall (only available for
> >    text string)
> > - Render Source: All Glyphs/CharMap, Text String, Repeated Text
> >    String
> >
> > And "Rotation" feature will be available for all modes.
> Sounds good.  Honestly, I'm lacking fantasy how to present the glyphs
> in the best way – I'm really bad at GUI design...
Good to hear, will give it a try.
> Some things I noticed, in random order, not necessarily directly
> related to your current workings :-)  I will check your code later.
>
> * I use a dark KDE theme; `ftinspect` looks as shown in the attached
>    image.  As you can see, the selected colours are suboptimal.  I
>    think that a 'dark' theme must be ignored for the grid background.
Err... Will look into this further.
> * It would be nice, however, to have an 'invert' option or radio
>    button to invert the colours: black background, white pixels, etc.
Got it, but may be not trivial or clean to implement. I will list it as 
a further plan.
> Singular Grid View:
>
> * I very much dislike the big 'help' screen explaining the scroll
>    functionality.  Instead, based on KDE's 'dolphin' file manager, I
>    suggest a small '?' button at the top right (directly left of the
>    'minimize' and 'maximize' window icons); if pressed, the cursor
>    changes to a cursor with a question mark, and the user can then
>    click on interesting objects to get contextual help.  Of course, a
>    similar, different solution would be fine, too.
I see. You mean what's called "What's this" button on Windows I assume, 
but it had been phased out long before, in Windows Vista. And the Qt 
solution for this is non-trivial on Windows (pretty easy on Linux 
though). Need to come up with a better approach later IMHO.
> * Ctrl+Scroll and Shift+Scroll doesn't work – I assume this isn't
>    implemented yet?
They're factually implemented (as shown in the GIF). I will give it a 
test once I prepared a desktop Ubuntu environment. I would be glad if 
you could place some breakpoints around 
`src/ftinspect/rendering/glyphcontinuous.cpp:71` and have a look at the 
value of `numSteps` and `event->modifiers()`, so I can firstly have a 
idea about the bug.
> * I suggest to make 'Ctrl-+' and Ctrl--' work for increasing and
>    decreasing the font size, respectively, and 'Ctrl-0' for resetting
>    to a default size.  Most people using a recent browser are expecting
>    this, I guess.  Maybe Ctrl-Shift-[-+] can then do zoom?  Or vice
>    versa?
Got it.
> * A radio button 'Show Grid', which is 'on' by default, would be quite
>    valuable to let the user view the glyph by itself.
Got it, and it will be placed besides other check boxes like "Show Bitmap".
> * (Maybe a KDE thing, I don't know the conventions used on Windows):
>    Right now, using the arrow keys change the grid viewport in
>    relatively small steps, and Ctrl/Alt have no influence.  What about
>    making Ctrl/Alt plus arrow keys change that?  For example, under KDE
>    I can move a window pixel-wise by adding the Ctrl key, and adding
>    the Alt key yields much larger steps than the arrow keys without a
>    modifier.
I have no idea about this behaviour, but it's doable anyway. Will put it 
onto the list with a lower priority.
> Continuous View:
>
> * I think the '(for Fancy)' and '(for Stroked)' text strings should be
>    removed.  This takes a lot of precious horizontal space, and greying
>    out is sufficient IMHO.
Got it.
> * What about a 'zooming' feature, i.e., displaying the pixels twice,
>    thrice, etc., as big as normal?
I didn't include this feature since `ftview` tool doesn't have it either.
> * I suggest to make 'Ctrl-+' and Ctrl--' work for increasing and
>    decreasing the font size, respectively, and 'Ctrl-0' for resetting
>    to a default size.  Most people using a recent browser are expecting
>    this, I guess.  Maybe Ctrl-Shift-[-+] can then do zoom?  Or vice
>    versa?
OK.
> * I think it would be nice if a user could click onto a glyph to get
>    more info: glyph name, character code, glyph index, glyph metrics
>    (in font units, in pixels, in points), the dimensions of the
>    displayed bitmap, etc.  Probably not a popup window but making the
>    continuous view windows a bit smaller horizontally.
Uh-oh,
> * What exactly does the 'Count:' field mean?  It isn't obvious.
>    Perhaps a better name is needed.
It means the numbers of glyph being rendered onto the canvas, and the 
name is adopt from `ftview` tool. As of a better name, what about 
"Viewport Glyph Count" or "Visible Count"?
> * I suggest a radio button 'compact mode', which make `ftinspect` show
>    all glyphs in the current cmap order but omitting unassigned slots.

Got it, but it may not gain so much priority.

Cheers,
Charlie