Re: Why dose art not use fontconfig?

[Isaiah Beerbower]

On 8/20/07, Riccardo <multix@ngi.it> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On 2007-08-17 18:59:11 +0200 Jesse Ross <gnustep@jesseross.com> wrote:
>
> >>
> >> I agree. While these arguments against using fontconfig are valid,
> >> the
> >> mere annoyance of having to create a bundle for each font you want,
> >> and not being able to keep all your fonts in one place, out weighs
> >> them in my mind.
> >>
> >> In short, I think it would be a good idea if the art back end could
> >> use fontconfig.
>
> There is an additional reason: Those bundles are very openstepish.
> While I never really figured out the font system on X11 and find
> installation of fonts tedious, on mac you just drop them in to the
> Font folder. Moreover oyu have a system font folder, but also one for
> each user. Nfonts allow this logic and I like that. It is one of the
> few things I like more in art compared to xlib!
>
> > This begs the question -- why make more adjustments to the art
> > backend when
> > Cairo has been blessed as the backend of choice for  future
> > development?
> >
> >  From Greg's blog (
> > http://heronsperch.blogspot.com/2006/12/plans-for-
> > change.html ):
>
> Because art and xlib still have advantages and having them is an added
> flexibility?
>
> >> 5) Focus and concentrate on one and only one set of display
> >> technologies
> >> per platform. We expend way too much time and energy  on maintaining
> >> mulitple backends (xlib, art and etc) when we really  don't have to.
> >> For
> >> Linux/BSD we have two functional backends and  another on the away
> >> for
> >> cairo. What's the point of this? In my  opinion we should complete
> >> the
> >> cairo backend and deprecate BOTH the  xlib and art backends. xlib is
> >> hopelessly outdated and libart isn't  really supported by anyone
> >> anymore.
>
> xlib works very well and has several advantages and it can be made
> pretty fast too as myStep demonstrates. Art has a difference philosphy
> and except for some bugs, it has a very high quality display, but
> clearly slower in some cases. Personally I don't share the idea of
> using cairo as a tool to support different platforms (like windows).
>
> Art has for example that pretty nice font mechanism. What I'd like
> would be a tool that could creeate the nfonts packages in an automated
> and perhaps a visual way, including the name assignment.

Fontconfig can be told to look for fonts in your Library/Fonts folder.
To say that nfont bundles are what allow such behavior is total
nonsense. Your example of how Mac OS X handles fonts proves this
point, seeing as Mac OS X does not use nfonts.

I am working on a font manager (called FontManager) for Étoilé.
FontManager will let you preview an uninstalled font, and will install
it for you if you want. This is far easier than any dragging and
dropping into a fonts folder.

FontManager will also be able to create nfont bundles. But the vary
fact that you want this process to be automated shows that it's an
inconvenience.

Thanks,
Isaiah Beerbower

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