Re: T1 Font Support

[Wim Oudshoorn]

On Wed, 8 Nov 2000 ian.mondragon@bankofamerica.com wrote:

> Wim -
> 
> (a)
> e-pat you on the back for how nice the work you've done looks <pat, pat>,
> and (b) ask if you'd be willing to send me the code in case I could be of
> assistance in trying to help out with the project?  
Thank you for (a).  
About (b) I will make the source available this weekend.
However,  it really is a proof of concept.   The hard part 
is not the rendering of the text.  I use T1lib for that and
use the bitmap drawing routines already available in
the xgps backend.

The hard part however, is making the font system fit
with the rest of GNUstep.  That is:
- Provide the T1 fonts to the GNUstep system.
- Map the names of the T1 fonts to names like `Helvetica' and back.
- Get all the font charactersitcs right.
- Make it possible to mix AA fonts and non AA fonts.
- Make it possible to use Xlib fonts and T1 fonts
 at the same time.
Etc.

I will try to make a inventarisation of these problems/issues
over the weekend (I have already started, but it takes time)

Deciding how to go about these issues and how the
font configuration should be implementend takes
probably more time than implementing them.  
For me anyway because I am new to GNUstep.
(I have Openstep experience but mainly on the non-GUI
part).

>I've currently got a
> couple of large projects of my own on the front burners (see
> http://www.dragonhelix.org for the details of them, if curious), but I would
> love to make myself more useful in terms of contributing to the overall
> quality of GNUstep - which your T1 font support most definitely does.
> 
> - Ian
Well, it is funny how priorities differ between people.
I would say that the T1 font support is a nice to have,
but what is seriously lacking are programs that actually
do something usefull,  like a configuration utility!

The reason I took the T1  font support up was that it
is small project and gives immediate satisfaction ;-)

Side note:  as a developper I would like to see
some GUI application that manages the 
NSUserDefaults in a nice way.  Well, maybe
after I have finished this.

Greetings,
Wim Oudshoorn.