Re: What backend should be the default now on -nix?

[Alex Perez]

Adrian Robert wrote:
> On Oct 27, 2004, at 6:46 AM, Nicolas Roard wrote:
>
> > For me, the only real problem with backart, is the fact that it uses 
> > its own font system. I personally like it and found it better; but I 
> > understand very well that it could be
> > held against it -- and in a non "gnustep os" (ie, not something 
> > dedicated to gnustep... that is... everywhere at the moment..) that's 
> > probably a problem :-)
> > The solution would be ideally to use fontconfig in addition to the 
> > nfont system...
>
>
> For most, this objection would probably end if a decent package of fonts 
> were included with the back-end (instead of as a separate download).  Is 
> there some obstacle to this, like there are lots of systems out there 
> with nfonts already installed that this would mess up?

No, there's no technical obstacle to this. The reasoning is 
size-related. Shipping fonts (even just Bitstream Vera Sans, our 
default, would add 648kB of data to -backart. This would effectively 
double its size.

>  If so, perhaps a 
> script could be written to detect this, and install only if needed.

Yes this is what I think should happen. When you make install, if you 
dont have any nfonts, it should offer to download them for you 
automatically (using wget or curl if you have them) and barring that 
should give you the URL to the ArtResources package and tell you that 
you need to install it.

> Also, if there is a way to convert or wrap existing fonts, either Type 1 
> from X, TrueType from Windows, or whatever Ghostscript uses, to the 
> nfont system, a script could be included to do this.

It already exists, it's called mknfont, and it's yet another stop-gap 
solution to the problem which hasn't been used in any automation process 
because lots of people think this whole nfont issue "isn't a problem". :(

>  For example, the 
> Pstill PDF distiller supports this with Type 1 and Ghostscript fonts, 
> and it's also possible to get X itself to use Windows TrueType fonts.  
> If this is possible for nfont, it would be best to have some scripts 
> that initiate this (and can update it) on install/upgrade, since the 
> time to learn how to do it and then do it manually will prevent many 
> from doing it at all.

It's not about what's possible, it's about what people think is 
important. Personally I think its important, but not enough to fix it.

> The current state of the "easy" Art font install leaves you with 
> something like 4 different fonts, which is OK for developers and casual 
> users, but not sufficient for serious use.

Agreed.

> On the Xlib back end, is there an obstacle to setting anti-aliased fonts 
> on by default?  I personally only noticed this capability after months, 
> and don't imagine this is that unusual among general users.  Ideally, 
> anti-alias should default to ON, but the code should autodetect if 
> libfreetype is absent in in this case fall back to non-antialiased.

No I dont think there's any reason this shouldn't be the default, but I 
am sure some other AA-haters will pounce on me for saying this, even 
though they would easily be able to disable it with a simple default.

Cheers,
Alex Perez