what is the status of the font rendering

Hi Bert,
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bert Freudenberg" <[hidden email]>
To: "The general-purpose Squeak developers list"
<[hidden email]>
Sent: Sunday, April 22, 2007 12:55 PM
Subject: Re: what is the status of the font rendering


> On Apr 22, 2007, at 11:37 , Andrew Tween wrote:
>
> > It is better to use FFI to get the known font paths from the OS.
>
> Even better would be to have a plugin answer that platform-specific
> font search path. I'd love to see freetype rendering go into the
> default VM, but I do not want to depend on FFI for something so basic.

Yes. That would be better.

>
> There has been talk about such a "system queries" plugin, it should
> provide access to other directories, too (like, where should
> preferences be stored, or pictures, etc.).

That's a great idea.

>
> Also, there is the HostFont plugin, which has not been ported to
> other platforms than Windows. Maybe it should be extended with a
> primitive to ask for font folders.

Or the primitive could be added to the FT2Plugin.
But I much prefer the 'system queries' plugin idea.

>
> > I don't know if it is possible to get the paths from a Linux OS
> > using FFI, hence
> > the hardcoded paths.
>
> There is no FFI way because there is no OS-wide standard. Well, the
> closest to a standard is probably fontconfig, maybe that could be
> used with FFI or a proper plugin.

fontconfig is a possibility.
This would also allow for getting other info about installed fonts, such as how
they should be hinted at various point sizes, etc.

Cheers,
Andy

Andrew Tween wrote:
>
>  
>>  Here's what I mean: http://bradfuller.com/access/setfontmenu.ogg
>>    
>
> I can't get oggs to play on my machine, so unfortunately I can't look at that :(
> But thanks anyway
>  
How about H264:

http://bradfuller.com/access/setfontmenu.mp4


Ogg is a very nice technology that is entirely free. Good to have around:
http://www.vorbis.com/

and VLC, as a player, is in the same boat:
http://www.videolan.org/

--
brad fuller
www.bradfuller.com
+1 (408) 799-6124

Hi Brad,
----- Original Message -----
From: "Brad Fuller" <[hidden email]>
To: "The general-purpose Squeak developers list"
<[hidden email]>
Sent: Sunday, April 22, 2007 5:54 PM
Subject: Re: what is the status of the font rendering


> Andrew Tween wrote:
> >
> >
> >>  Here's what I mean: http://bradfuller.com/access/setfontmenu.ogg
> >>
> >
> > I can't get oggs to play on my machine, so unfortunately I can't look at
that :(
> > But thanks anyway
> >
> How about H264:
>
> http://bradfuller.com/access/setfontmenu.mp4
>

that works, thanks.
I see what you mean. The menus can be very long. Something better is needed.

You can also set the font in a workspace with Alt-k , ctrl-k, cmd-k
And the text style with Alt-shift-k etc.
This then gives a shorter menu, with a 'more...' item at the top.

>
> Ogg is a very nice technology that is entirely free. Good to have around:
> http://www.vorbis.com/
>
> and VLC, as a player, is in the same boat:
> http://www.videolan.org/

Thanks.
Andy

A small question.. Since true type fonts are vector, is there any
plans to add some protocols to allow rendering fonts in vector
(outline) form?
Typically a rasterised TTF glyphs is enough for most applications,
but for creative gyus who want to play with fonts its may be good
alternative if they could use fonts in vector form to create nice text
effects.

An OpenGL maniac inside of me tells me that throwing away such
functionality is not very clever, and i would like to support them
both.

I checked a TTGlyph class and saw that loaded font is actually a set
of point triplets which define a curve. But i can't deduce more than
that.
Is there any description on how to draw a glyph from given data?

On Apr 22, 2007, at 21:43 , sig wrote:

The data is just a series of bezier control points in Balloon2D  
format, use that to render. Try

        TTSampleStringMorph initializedInstance openInHand

Note all this TT* stuff has nothing to do with Freetype (FT*), this  
is the original Squeak-native implementation.

- Bert -