Subject: Re: the thorny font problem [was Re: abiword script shouldn't add font when it already exists]
From: Bryce Nesbitt (bryce@obviously.com)
Date: Fri Jan 18 2002 - 14:21:09 CST
Tomas Frydrych wrote:
>
> > 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, and others, strongly object to that statement.
An innocent application like Netscape gets asked for a font:
<font face="arial, helvetica">
So it asks the system first for arial, then helvetica.
If Abi is running it finds Abi's Arial first which is really an
ugly Nimbus Sans, and it never falls back to Helvetica.
This is WRONG. It is NOT RIGHT for netscape to give a foundary
in this case. Poor netscape has done nothing wrong.
Messing with OTHER applications sucks. Period. The X font system
also sucks. Having two sucks just makes it blow. Don't take bad
and make it worse. Imagine if two applications acted like AbiWord
does on the same system? Chaos would result.
> 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
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b25 : Fri Jan 18 2002 - 14:21:11 CST