[GRASS-dev] iconv a required dependency for using Freetype?

[Michael Barton]

I was afraid that you'd say something like that. Oh well.

Michael


On 5/7/07 10:26 AM, "Glynn Clements" <glynn at gclements.plus.com> wrote:

> 
> Michael Barton wrote:
> 
>>>> OK well it doesn't work on Windows anyway. The device number corresponds
>>>> to the drive letter but it appears the inode number is always 0. So I
>>>> suppose we can just keep the string comparison of the directory names. Or
>>>> remove the option of specifying the full path to a GRASS stroke font - I
>>>> generally feel unhappy with the idea of removing functionality but maybe
>>>> it is the best option here?
>>> 
>>> I think so.
>>> 
>>> Allowing a full path is exposing an implementation detail, it isn't
>>> sufficient for files containing multiple faces, and it may cause
>>> problems with future development.
>>> 
>>> I would rather just have fonts selected by an abstract identifier.
>> 
>> Could this be the kind of font specification used in native font selection
>> dialogs for wxPython and TclTk? They *appear* to be quite similar in the way
>> they specify fonts. But I still have found no way to get back to original
>> font files from these specifications, suggesting that it happens somewhere
>> at the system level. If we could somehow tap into that, it could ultimately
>> make life easier for cross-platform font selection.
> 
> It cannot be done.
> 
> Just because a program can get a list of fonts, get information about
> those fonts, and even draw text using those fonts, that doesn't mean
> that it can actually access the underlying files (if there are any).
> 
> An X application can ask the X server for a list of fonts (XListFonts,
> XListFontsWithInfo), can obtain information about a font (XQueryFont,
> XGetFontProperty), and can tell the X server to use a specific font
> for drawing text (XSetFont, XChangeGC).
> 
> It cannot, however, obtain either the raw contents of the underlying
> file or it's path (not that it would be much use, given that it may
> not have access to the filesystem of the system on which the X server
> is running). Even the X server may not have that access if it's
> getting its fonts from a font server.
> 
> There may not even *be* any underlying files. A font server can
> manufacture glyphs on the fly, e.g. automatically generating bold
> and/or oblique versions of a font, generating outlines from strokes,
> bitmaps from outlines, etc.
> 
> IOW, any list of fonts which you can get from X is only useful insofar
> as you can pass the name to XLoadFont() etc.

__________________________________________
Michael Barton, Professor of Anthropology
School of Human Evolution & Social Change
Center for Social Dynamics and Complexity
Arizona State University

phone: 480-965-6213
fax: 480-965-7671
www: http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton