--- Tomas Frydrych <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Am I right in believing we don't actually need to > > build FreeType on platforms that already use the > real > > TrueType such as Windows and Mac? FreeType is an > > exact reproduction of the TrueType APIs right? I > also > > think TrueType is probably faster than FreeType > and > > of course it has the patent on hinting which is > > usually turned off in FreeType for legal reasons. > > No. We would use FreeType on all our platforms. Two > basic > reasons. (1) To use any native text handling > routines, we would > have to port Pango to platform XY, that is well > beyond our > resources (it means writing the interface between > Pango itself and > platform XY, plus writing the interfaces between > each existing > language module and platform XY).
But Pango already has a Win32 back end. Also I don't understand 100% how a FreeType back end is different to a TrueType back end. Is FreeType not compatible with TrueType on the level I thought? Having both TrueType and FreeType on an OS just sounds ugly. > (2) By using Pango with > FreeType we will get a consistent (and very decent) > capabilities > across all the platforms controlled from XP code. > One of the worst > nightmares with bidi build is getting consistent > behaviour on various > flavours of windows, and I cannot wait to get rid > off the native > windows textdrawing calls. > > I am not worried about FT2 performance too much, and > as for the > patented algorithms, many people could still use > them, since not > all of us live in countries where Apple holds the > patents :). Myself included but not too many church secretaries are going to edit their FreeType makefile and rebuild to get AbiWord to antialias like all their other software already does automatically. > > We'll be using Xft on *nix right? FreeType is > just a > > glyph renderer, not a Font Manager. > No we will not, but Pango with FT2 has an internal > font manager > that is cut-and-pasted from xft. So it's equivalent to using Xft? > > Another thing I've been wondering about is that > since > > there is pangowin32, pangoft, and pangox, what > would > > be used on Mac and shouldn't there be pangomac > that > > used ATSUI or Mac's TrueType? > > As I explained above, the only realistic option is > using FT on all > platforms. So are you suggesting using pangoft instead of pangowin32 even on Win32? Andrew Dunbar. > Tomas ===== http://linguaphile.sourceforge.net http://www.abisource.com __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Everything you'll ever need on one web page from News and Sport to Email and Music Charts http://uk.my.yahoo.com
