Re: problem running apps with cairo backend

[Fred Kiefer]

Krishna wrote:
> However when I run the apps, I get font not found errors. eg:
> 
> 2008-10-26 09:55:40.763 SystemPreferences[15591] The font specified
> for NSFont, Helvetica, can't be found.
> 
> Assuming the cairo backend uses fontconfig I tried `fc-match
> helvetica` and it returned a valid font (n019003l.pfb: "Nimbus Sans L"
> "Regular").
> 

Most likely we are not handling the fontconfig resolution correctly. At
them moment we are just looping over all the available fonts and use
calls like FcPatternGetString() to get the information about a font and
then cache it ourselves. When we then get asked for a font we use our
own cache to find out which face info to use for it.

Another option would be to delegate all of this to fontconfig but this
would require a whole redesign of our font handling. If you are willing
to do that, I am ready to review it.

One simple workaround for this problem is to redefine the default fonts
in your defaults.

Cheers,
Fred