J.Pietschmann wrote: > I'd like to see *one* program for handling metrics, dealing > with PFM, TTF and TTCs intelligently, but integrating it into > the main CLI goes a bit beyond the "one tool for one purpose" > principle which should apply to the FOP CLI as well.
This is not very difficult to do, and I have much of it done already, but there are some issues: Problem 1: There is no place to check it in. Nobody wants to do another release from the maintenance branch. There is no way to use it or test it in the trunk, until we at least get configuration working again. Also, until we get a usable layout system in trunk, such a change does no good. Further, until all integration work between the two branches is complete, any changes to either one make an ugly mess. Problem 2: The better solution is to eliminate the font-metrics file completely, have the config point to the font file itself, and read the font file on-the-fly to get the metric information. I don't think this is going to be very hard to do either. Of these two problems, the first is the bigger. I have been working on FOP for over a year now, and at no time in that period has there been a way to improve a usable version of FOP without 1) hacking the developer base off, and 2) causing even wider differences between the two development lines. I am neck deep in a project right now to try to correct this problem, but it is too early to tell whether it will ultimately be successful. Once that is done, I hope that we will do a release that is merely for integration (i.e. no new features, just test and make sure we haven't gone backwards). *After* that, fonts are at the top of the priority list (mine anyway), and Andreas is welcome to do as much of it as he likes. We have a wide range of under-the-hood improvements planned, as well as items like the above that should simplify using fonts. I just want to make sure folks don't think we are ignoring these things. We are actually making some progress, although it seems slow and painful. I could double my productivity if I could stop cursing the decision to split the development into two lines. Victor Mote --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
