[Freefont-bugs] New .sfd format, and best way to proceed

[Steve White]

Hi, all!

As I said in the announcement, I intend to address all the outstanding
bug reports, but it seems there is a messy problem right off the bat.

Several of the open bug reports contain patches, each representing an
expenditure of time and effort from one of you. However, the new
version of FontForge produces .sfd files in a very different format from
previous versions: one sees at the beginning
       SplineFontDB: 2.0
rather than the old
       SplineFontDB: 1.0
Simply opening an old .sfd file and saving it results in tens of thousands
of lines of changes.

This is going to make the application of outstanding patches rather tricky.

I want to first test and rescue any of these patches, and finally upgrade
the CVS to the new .sfd format.

My best idea at this time is this.  I will apply each patch individually
to separate copies of the old .sfd file.  Then I will check and save each.
At this point, I hope that I can merge the changes in the updated .sfd
files by hand.

Ideas are welcome!