Re: New libart/freetype-based backend

[Philippe C.D. Robert]

Hi,

very nice, indeed! Keep up the effort, this is very promising!

-Phil

On Fri, 12 Apr 2002, Alexander Malmberg wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> As an interesting experiment, I've written a new backend (as a part of
> gnustep-back) based on libart (for most basic rendering) and freetype
> (for fonts). Features are:
> 
> - Looks very good (antialiased bezier paths, antialiased fonts, alpha
> support (not complete yet)).
> - Good font character set handling.
> - The rendering code is quite portable since it just renders to buffers.
> Event/window handling and a way of getting the buffers to the screen is
> all that is required for eg. a win32 backend.
> 
> Disadvantages are:
> - It's slower than xgps (but still fast enough to use), and uses more
> memory (double backing store: both the gsc/ stuff and the internal
> buffer).
> - Many things are still unimplemented. However, enough things are
> implemented to run basic apps (LuserNET, GNUMail, EasyDiff, etc.).
> 
> 
> A first version is now available at:
> 
> http://w1.423.telia.com/~u42308495/alex/backart/backart-0.0.tar.gz
> 
> (contains the new files and patches to use them). To use it, you'll need
> libart (I've used the cvs version) and freetype (I've used v2.0.9). Fix
> the freetype include path in back/Source/art/GNUmakefile.preamble, run
> autoconf, configure with --enable-art and it should compile.
> 
> To use it, some fonts are necessary. There's a sample font configuration
> file at:
> 
> http://w1.423.telia.com/~u42308495/alex/backart/backart.cfg
> 
> It should be in placed in ~/GNUstep/Library/Fonts/ . I've tested with
> truetype (.ttf) and type1 (.pfa/.pfb) fonts. At least one font must be
> available.
> 
> 
> There are a bunch of screenshots in:
> 
> http://w1.423.telia.com/~u42308495/alex/backart/
> 
> Particularly interesting are:
> 
> backart9.png - font handling; I set mostCompatibleEncoding to utf8 and
> decode the strings in DPSshow. freetype has no problems handling unicode
> 
> backarta.png - transparent antialiased bezier paths and rectangles.
> shows what dps is capable of
> 
> backart_scale_[1-4].png - 1 and 2 were rendered 1.5 times larger than
> they should be (using some really ugly temporary hacks in the backend).
> hopefully this is what things will look like in the future when we all
> have high resolution screens :) (dpi-wise). 3 and 4 are for comparison.
> 1 and 4 use hinted fonts, 2 and 3 use unhinted.
> 
> 
> As always, feedback is nice!
> 
> - Alexander Malmberg
> 
> 
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> 

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