nanogui: Fonts and keyboard support
Subject:
Re: Fonts and keyboard support
From:
"Vidar Hokstad" ####@####.####
Date:
4 Jan 2000 15:26:59 -0000
Message-Id: <20000104152540.5148.qmail@mail.relight.com>
On Tue, 04 Jan 2000 10:05:54 -0500 Martin Jolicoeur ####@####.####
wrote:
>Vidar,
>Kool. We need internationalization too for our project. And we also need
>rotating fonts (looks like we'll need vectorial fonts ... )
That should work fine with Freetype... But it needs consideration when for
API changes etc.
>>
>> - Support for font formats.
>> For very small devices, compiled in fonts like it is currently would
>> probably be enough. However for larger devices, support for many fonts
>> and maybe even scalable fonts, may be requirement. I suggest making it
>> easy to replace the font rendering at compile time. (We're considering
>> adding support for Freetype, but realize that Freetype is *way* to big
>> to just add to Nano-X without an option to turn it off).
>>
>
>I also considered Freetype (http://www.freetype.org) for truetype fonts and I
>am concerned about the patent issue.
Yes.. I'm pretty confident that will be resolved though, from the explanations
on the website. But we won't risc our business on it :-)
>Freetype is surely too big to be incuded in nanox but could be supported
>through a wrapper as an external support library for those
>who want.
I agree. Font rendering is so important, that it would be extremely nice to
be able to pick the one best suited, without having to rewrite client
applications.
>Also, I was wondering how easy it would be to strip it down to a >mininum.
I haven't looked at that yet, but from a fairly standard build, I ended up
with a 270kb shared library, and that isn't too bad for our use.. Of course
it may be unacceptable for other people, which is why I'd like it to be easy
to switch to something simpler.
>I considered T1lib
>(http://www.neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/ini/PEOPLE/rmz/t1lib/t1lib.html)
>for adobe type 1 fonts (postscript fonts), it is somewhat smaller and don't
>seem to have patent issue. Needs more study ...
Thanks for the pointer.
>We could join forces on the font issue, I'll see what I can do on my side
That would be great.
Thanks for your comments.
Regards,
Vidar Hokstad
Screen Media AS
