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List:       freetype-devel
Subject:    Re: [Devel] postscript fonts, freetype and mozilla, redhat's great fonts
From:       Anthony Fok <anthony () thizlinux ! com>
Date:       2003-01-16 5:02:10
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On Wed, Jan 15, 2003 at 08:32:11PM -0800, Michael Cardenas wrote:
> It is my understanding that fontconfig is a method for configuring
> fonts in one place instead of many, and that Xft2 is simply a library
> which transports the bitmaps from place to place within X. So,
> shouldn't I be able to get the same quality of rasterization without
> them? 

They are related.  For example, though it is now partly obsoleted, Red Hat
Linux 8.0 carried a series of slighthint patches applied to FreeType 2.1.2,
fontconfig, Xft, and probably Pango too (I forgot), and probably more, so
that gnome-font-property (?) may do quite a bit of fine-tuning on how
FreeType hint the fonts (best contrast, best shape, no hinting, or whatnot),
and these options are, again, passed from one level to the next, from Gnome
to Pango to Xft to fontconfig (?) all the way down to FreeType.  (I may have
misunderstood the details.)  Red Hat Rawhide is now sync'ed with
FreeType 2.1.3 with the new API, but the way it works is still similar.

/etc/fonts/fonts.conf also carry some options that vendors or end-users may
use to fine-tune the anti-aliasing or sub-pixel anti-aliasing to their
liking.  So yes, though they may not be directly involved, they do play a
part, and we need to know them, or at least know where to look for answers
or ask questions when we need to.  :-)

Cheers,

Anthony

-- 
Anthony Fok Tung-Ling
ThizLinux Laboratory   <anthony@thizlinux.com> http://www.thizlinux.com/
Debian Chinese Project <foka@debian.org>       http://www.debian.org/intl/zh/
Come visit Our Lady of Victory Camp!           http://www.olvc.ab.ca/

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