[GSoC] Report of status on project ftinspect until 2022/07/10

[Charlie Jiang]

Hello Werner, 鈴木さん and other folks,

Here’s my report of my changes on ftinspect until today. Changes that were already merged aren’t included.

Unmerged merge requests (not on gsoc-2022-chariri branch)

• !26: Initial introduction of CI: This MR only add CI support to Linux and meson. It leverages ci-templates project as suggested by Tim. Should be safe to merge.
• !27: [meson] Add option to disable librsvg dependency: This MR adds a feature-type option to meson script, so one can switch off the librsvg dependency. Reviewed by Tim and should be safe to merge.

Commits on gsoc-2022-chariri branch

I’m using GitLab Issues to track the project progress, so every issue will corrspond to a group of commits. Since all commit messages are pretty detailed, I’m only writing necessary additional info here. If possible, please review the commits using GitLab comment feature.

#13: Breaking maingui.cpp down

All changes here are moving code out from the oversized MainGUI, and doing so would be benefical to the later development of the multi-tab GUI. The GUI appearance and usage barely changes after changes for this issue.

These commits are already reviewed by Werner:

• 8cc92c54: Move out font file managing/watching out to a new class. This added a new FontFileManager class to watch on files and notify MainGUI.
• 1f0ead70: Decouple Engine from MainGUI. This removes the bidirectional dependency relation between Engine and MainGUI, and settings are all explicitly passed from MainGUI to Engine via setters.
• 5771bdf9: (Pure mechnical commit) Rename all private member variables with an underscore suffix. Already discussed in #13.
• 5f380ae9: Use custom QAbstractListModel instead of manually mapping.
• 96390184: (minor) Directly pass Engine object to constructor of MainGUI.
• 3a53026e & 6b4321d0: Re-organize custom widgets, and add necessary documentation.

These commits aren’t reviewed:

• 03fda0ea: Move settings panel to a separate class. This added a new SettingPanel class. Settings are explicitly passed to the engine via syncSettings function. Also wired signals to notify MainGUI when a reloading or repainting is needed.
• 0976b852: Remove QComboBoxx: No longer needed because our custom combo box model (introduced in 5f380ae9) can take care of disabling individual items.
• 3b05fb4c: Some event connections are missing. However these settings aren’t` implemented anyway.
• b38b2921: Fix parent-child relationships in Qt objects tree, so they can be properly cleaned up.
• 63e01f19 & d51b8020: Basically bug fixes for meson, and GCC on C++11.

To sum up:

• Those components are moved out from MainGUI:
  • Font file managing & watching
  • Setting panel
• Now Engine no longer depends on MainGUI;
• Now custom QAbstractListModel replaced the handcrafted QHash-based value mapping;
• Now custom widgets are combined into one single file, and QComboBoxx is removed.
• Now parent-child relations between Qt widgets are fixed.
• I didn’t implement setting saving feature and separated src file for default value - They’re crossed out as cancelled on the issue page as well

#15: GUI Improvent & New Features 1

This issue isn’t finished yet, and all commits aren’t reviewed:

• ece202dc: Improve mouse scrolling: Singular Grid View now support 4 kinds of scrolling operation, and I used a label at the top-left corner as a hint.
  
  If the image isn’t working/animating: https://ibb.co/nRCFFND
• 23fe7d1c: Support infinite panning, and added “Back to Center” button.
  
  If the image isn’t working/animating: https://ibb.co/BwKtmC1
• f29dba43: Support drag & drop to open font files: Directly drop the file(s) on the window, and they opens.
• 80939bdb: Rename custom_widgets.[ch]pp to customwidgets.[ch]pp: Naming convention.
• b60d597a: Add GlyphIndexSelector, move out related code from MainGUI. The GlyphIndexSelector will be reused in other tabs, so make a separate widget. It’s also improved with a input box and a label showing current & limit index.
  
  If the image isn’t working: https://ibb.co/KcPm3Pf
• 83b6bbb3: Use new signal/slots syntax: Refactoring.

Above are “GUI improvements”, and below are “New features”:

• e51718ed: (Oversized commit, let me know if it needs to be broken down) Move out ftgrid out from MainGUI to a new tabbed pane.
  
  If the image isn’t working: https://ibb.co/Gk3P5c4
• 7a22072e: Fix crash on changing glyph index after. Detailed info in the commit message.
• 8168f4aa: (Pure mechnical commit) Add override modifiers to all overriding functions: Modernize C++.
• 3e66c56e: Resolve naming confliction for repaint function: Don’t use the function name repaint.

Commits that aren’t ready for review/merge:

• b1746bda & 0148c2f6: (Severely oversized commit Let me know ASAP if needs to be broken down) WIP: Add initial support to “Continuous View”.
  
  If the image isn’t working: https://ibb.co/5FH5yz9

To sum up:

• Components extracted:
  • Font size selector;
  • Glyph index selector: improved with text box and label showing current index/range & limit index;
• Now the grid can be panned infinitely, and can return to the origin by “Back to Center” button;
• Now file(s) can be opened by dropping on the whole window;
• Now 4 scroll operations for singular is support, but I decide not to implement zooming and switching render mode via scroll, so only 2 operations are available for continuous view (Scroll: Index up/down, Shift+Scroll: Resize);
• Now the different modes are placed into a tabbed view;
• Implemented basic ftview tool (“Continuous View”) with only 1 mode;

Next Step

I’m current working on refactoring and writing documentation for the current event and data flow - they’re in quite a mess. After that, I will follow #15:

• Implement all modes from ftview, namely Fancy, Stroked and Waterfall. I noticed there’s another one called “text string”, and I assume it’s unnecessary because there would be another tab dedicated for string render (correct me if I’m wrong).
• Implement ftstring which is another sub-tab “Text String” in the “Continuous View” tab
• Implement ftmulti which is another tab “Hinting Comperator”

However, I noticed there’re a lot of unimplemented features:

• Support for non-outline glyphs like bitmap glyphs and SVG glyphs
• Support for LCD hinting
• Currently the rendering code for “Continuous View” is different from the legacy ftview tool. Need to further investigate if we should adopt code from the legacy tool.

I would like to know which should I prioritize.

As the project progressed faster than my estimation, we can expect to bring forward the first evaluation period if possible.

Cheers,
Charlie Jiang

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