Subject: the thorny font problem [was Re: abiword script shouldn't add font when it already exists]
From: Tomas Frydrych (tomas@frydrych.uklinux.net)
Date: Fri Jan 18 2002 - 14:02:27 CST
> Just for the record: modifying the global unix font path on the
> fly while AbiWord is running means that other applications operate
> differently, depending if Abi is running. This is highly unusual in
> the Unix world.
There is nothing wrong with modifying the path on the fly, and I
cannot see a way around it as long as we distribute fonts with AW;
obviously we will have to seriously rethink the font management in
the future, but any system better than the present will require a
drastic rewrite, and is out of the question before 1.0. Also it is
worth keeping in mind that these problems stem from the nature of
the system and services it provides and does not. If the system
provided decent font API that would allow both display and printing,
we would not have to bend backwards to get a wysiwyg behaviour.
As for other applications being affected by AW running, if an
application needs to use a specific font, it should request it
properly, i.e., specify the foundry. If the application does not care
about the foundry, then the appearance of the font it gets is not
guaranteed on X.
I fear at the moment anything we will do, will be seen as wrong by
someone -- when we distribute fonts with AW, people complain;
when we rename them to come at the bottom of the X list not to
interfere, people complain about the foundry name, should we
decide not to distribute fonts, people would complain that setting
up the fonts is too complicated.
I must say that I am seriously tempted to resort to the latter option,
and instead of our fonts provide a detailed instructions on how to
make AW use fonts on the system; or perhaps we should have two
packages, for the people who want it out of the box and do not
want to mess with anything, and for those who do not mind having
to setup the fonts directory themselves.
Tomas
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