[tlug] Re: XFree86 4.3.0 and truetype - followup

[Mike FABIAN <mfabian@example.com>]

Godwin Stewart <gstewart@example.com> さんは書きました:

> Both "freetype" and "xtt" are commented out. Lemme uncomment "freetype" and
> try that...

[...]

> Now, the question is, why would Volkerding disable both TTF rendering
> engines?...

No idea.

> Or is the XFree86 Project responsible for that?

Probably not.

By the way, with XFree86 >= 4.3.0 you can enable both "freetype" and
"xtt" in XF86Config if you like. If you do that, "xtt" is used for
".ttc" and ".ttf" files and "freetype" for ".otf" files (xtt doesn't
handle OpenType fonts).

But that makes sense only if you prefer the way "xtt" renders
TrueType fonts for whatever reason.

"xtt" can do artificial emboldening and italicizing for fonts
which you only have in regular.

For example if you use the free Chinese Arphic PL fonts
which are only available in medium, you can only use the entry

bkai00mp.ttf -Arphic-AR PL KaitiM Big5-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso10646-1

with the "freetype" module. But if "xtt" is enabled in XF86Config,
you can also use 

ds=y:ai=0.15:bkai00mp.ttf -Arphic-AR PL KaitiM Big5-bold-o-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso10646-1
ds=y:bkai00mp.ttf -Arphic-AR PL KaitiM Big5-bold-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso10646-1
ai=0.15:bkai00mp.ttf -Arphic-AR PL KaitiM Big5-medium-o-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso10646-1

because the "xtt" module interpretes these extra options like
"ds=y:ai=0.15:" to create artificial bold and italic faces on the fly.

As the "freetype" module doesn't understand these options, you must
remove them when only "freetype" is enabled in XF86Config and not
"xtt".

As adding these options manually may be tedious, it may be helpful
to use my script

http://www.suse.de/~mfabian/misc/SuSEconfig.fonts/fonts-config

man-page:

http://www.suse.de/~mfabian/misc/SuSEconfig.fonts/fonts-config.1.gz

To use it, copy the above 2 files to

    /usr/sbin/fonts-config
    /usr/share/man/man1/fonts-config.1.gz

and call

    /usr/sbin/fonts-config --force

The skript checks whether you have "xtt" enabled in XF86Config and if
yes it generates entries for artificial bold and italic into fonts.dir
for all fonts which don't already have "real" bold and italic
versions. If "xtt" is disabled in XF86Config, all such entries are
removed.

I made this script for SuSE Linux 8.2 but it probably works on other
distributions as well. 

-- 
Mike Fabian   <mfabian@example.com>   http://www.suse.de/~mfabian
睡眠不足はいい仕事の敵だ。