On 31 May 2002, Juliusz Chroboczek wrote: >I've sent this already, but it was upheld for moderation due to file >size. Sorry for not thinking about this earlier. > >I've put a patch that removes the bitmap scaling code on > > http://www.pps.jussieu.fr/~jch/software/private/no-bitmap-scale.patch > >I've only tested it with KDrive, but there's no good reason why it >should break the XFree86 server. It probably breaks Xprt, though. > >I'd be glad to get some feedback before submitting it. If people >object, I can always make a patch that makes the bitmap scaling >optional but doesn't actually remove any code.
I have also taken a stab at removing bitmap scaler support, although mine is build tested but not runtime tested. I just fiddled with it until I got it to build. ftp://people.redhat.com/patches/XFree86-4.2.0-remove-bitmap-scaler.patch >Here's my suggested release notes entry: > > The support for scaling bitmap fonts is removed. > > The server's ability to scale bitmap fonts confuses both users and > application developers. Many X installations are configured > incorrectly, leading to the familiar ``ugly fonts'' syndrome. > > Recently, high-quality free scalable vector fonts have become widely > available; a number of such fonts are included with XFree86, others > can be found bundled with other software packages, notably Aladdin > Ghostscript version 6.0 and later. Because of that, the ability to > scale bitmap fonts is no longer needed, and has been removed from > XFree86, leading to much simpler server configuration. All sounds good to me. > Because of this change, you will need to remove any ``:unscaled'' > attributes from your font path. Please check your XF86Config (or > XF86Config-4) file for any lines of the form > > FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc/:unscaled" > > and remove the ``:unscaled'' part, e.g. > > FontPath "/usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc/" That causes a major compatibility issue. In new installation scenarios we can control if unscaled gets automatically added somewhere or not, but in 3rd party font packages we can't control if they add :unscaled or not. Also, upgrade scenarios - we do not modify configuration on upgrade generally, so special hacks would need to be present to clean up the configs for options not supported anymore as well as automate it via the xfs initscript or some other ugly way. In short... ick! ;o) Better to keep :unscaled, but dont make it do anything, since the fonts are unscaled by default. After I wrote the above patch, I contacted Keith to discuss it. He seems to think that many applications out there may rely on bitmap scaled fonts, and by completely removing the support, we could end up breaking various apps. Red Hat Linux by default is configured to not have bitmap scaled fonts - or at least I try to have it do that. So I'm not sure that many apps would break, but it is best to be safe than sorry. Keith has suggested that we make unscaled the default, and add a new :scaled option. I was going to look into that at some point in time, unless someone else beats me to the punch. Right now I am working on font recoding stuff. Just an additional note about the bitmap font scaler problem that is important (at least to me). My initial reason for wanting to kill the scaler is twofold: 1) Eliminating ugly fonts, and thus incoming bug reports about ugly fonts. I can only control the font path so far. Anything can add to the fontpath during package installation, etc. that is outside my control. The default is to scale, which is inconvenient, because many people, as well as developers are unaware of the actual problem, and equally unaware of the ":unscaled" convention. Any solution that requires either end users to do something, or font packagers to do something special IMHO will not solve this problem. 2) Having a sane default font path without having to do anything special. The :unscaled thing is special. It is way too easy to forget it. Since :unscaled seems to be the sensible sane default all of the time for all fonts, I really like Keith's idea of making unscaled the default and adding :scaled as the optional way to go. Even better would be .../75dpi:ilovedrugs for scaling to be enabled. Then make it ask a skill testing question. ;o) Another thing I'm considering, is in cases where scaled bitmaps are used - intentionally or unintentionally, is to have the code spit out a warning to the log file that fonts may appear ugly due to bitmap scaling, and how to fix it. If someone whips up a patch to change the default to unscaled and add the :scaled option instead, please post it to the list and I'll bang on it, and get it into rawhide for some serious guinea pig testing. ;o) TIA -- Mike A. Harris Shipping/mailing address: OS Systems Engineer 190 Pittsburgh Ave., Sault Ste. Marie, XFree86 maintainer Ontario, Canada, P6C 5B3 Red Hat Inc. http://www.redhat.com ftp://people.redhat.com/mharris _______________________________________________ Fonts mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/fonts
