Re: [GSoC 2022] Idea on Project "Improve FreeType demo programs"

[Werner LEMBERG]

Hello Charlie,


> I'm interested in contributing to the project "*Improve FreeType
> demo programs*".

Very nice, and welcome!

> 1. My main workspace is running Windows 10 and Visual Studio 2019.
>    Therefore the binaries are built on that, using mesonbuild.
>    However, I'm facing great difficulty building one certain
>    dependency *librsvg* on Windows + MSVC.  It has several more
>    dependencies.  Although I managed to get most from conan build,
>    *Gdk-Pixbuf* is still failing due to a link error in glib (maybe
>    glib recipe on conan is also problematic, more testing needed).
>    Therefore, on Windows, I manually edited the build.meson of
>    freetype-demos, dropping the librsvg dependency and removing the
>    |HAVE_LIBRSVG| switch. I wonder about the consequence of doing
>    this.

Eventually, the problem with 'librsvg' on Windows should be fixed.
I'm not a Windows user so I can't help (maybe Alexei can).  However, a
quick search in the internet gives me

  https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/librsvg/-/tree/main/win32

Does this help?  Otherwise, compiling the demo programs without
'librsvg' is fully sufficient for improving the demo programs.

>    I noticed two build systems are maintained for ftinspect (meson
>    and qmake) - is it desired?

Good question, I don't know.  Revising FreeType's build system is
another GSoC project :-)

>    The grid size is definite, so the character size may exceed the grid
>    size.

This is due to my limited knowledge of Qt programming.  The grid
should be indefinite.

>    Some convenience operations are missing in the ftinspect program
>    (no drag-drop file open, no mouse wheel zoom etc.).

The same – and a lack of stamina.  Improvements are most welcomed.

> 4. I've played around with ftgrid and ftview, but not all features
>    of them.  They directly crash when I press "?" if an IME is
>    enabled (e.g. MS Pinyin Input Method).

Interesting.  Alexei?

>    Some keys are not working on Windows (notably arrow keys, maybe
>    related to console-attachment problems) The keyboard-based
>    control is not so straightforward (at least for Windows users),
>    and moving towards a fully Qt-based GUI could certainly relieve
>    this.

Do you have suggestions how to improve that?

>    However, I noticed some automation functionalities are present
>    (-k option, and p stroke).  Should I consider them in ftinspect
>    project?

Ideally yes, allowing `ftinspect` being executed on the command line
as a batch program.  Alas, such an approach doesn't work on Windows
since on that platform you can't execute a GUI program on the command
line.

> 5. There're other tools besides ftgrid and ftview (ftbench, ftchkwd,
>    ftdiff ...). Should I include all of them in ftinspect as well?

Not all demo programs make sense for inclusion.  `ftbench` and
`ftdiff`, however, are useful.

> 6. I'm not familiar with text rendering and font processing,
>    therefore I'm refering to FreeType documentations and other
>    online materials.  Are those skills considered as prerequisites
>    before I submit my proposal?

No, those skills are not prerequisites.

> 7. The proposal submitting has already begun. Am I too late to begin a
>    proposal?

Not at all :-)  It's great that you are interested in helping us.


   Werner