Re: [tlug] GUI font tools

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

>>>>> "Matt" == Matt Gushee <matt@example.com> writes:

    Matt> I'm considering developing a desktop utility that would help
    Matt> end users install and manage fonts; although several such
    Matt> tools exist, it doesn't seem to me that any of them are
    Matt> great (please don't hesitate to correct me if I'm wrong--I
    Matt> don't want to reinvent the wheel). And I have the audacity
    Matt> to think I can develop a great one.

What is the goal here?  I mean, for installation, what's insufficient
about apt, yum, and even gold old rpm?

For font management = setting up defaults, fontconfig seems to be the
way to go.  The problem is that unless the font exists as TrueType or
maybe Type 1, fontconfig is unable to do much sensible with it.
However, in free fonts for multibyte languages, it's still true that
many fonts are available only in BDF or idiosyncratic forms.

IMO Debian's debconf does a pretty good job of munging the fontconfig
files as appropriate.  This is entirely transparent to the user,
though.  I would assume that yum and rpm do well too.

I think that font management = making things look good to the user
really is an application-specific problem.  Eg, consider the recent
post (maybe by Lyle?) about ugly fonts in Firefox v. Thunderbird.
There's just not that much that users can do about that from outside
the app.  I suspect that's why there are no "great" font managers.

-- 
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