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List:       koffice-devel
Subject:    Re: VPainter (Re: Explanation on WP vs DTP modes in KWord)
From:       Vadim Plessky <lucy-ples () mtu-net ! ru>
Date:       2002-12-11 12:05:51
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On Tuesday 10 December 2002 5:29 pm, Dirk Schönberger wrote:
|  > Interface to FreeType on XFree86 is provided via Xft (Xft2+FontConfig
|  2.1), so
|  > it's already present.
|
|  Using freetype font rendering would lead to treating text output liek
| image rendering, i.e. you render the text into a bitmap, and you output
| this bitmap to your "real" output device, e.g. X window

That's what Xft does (Xft==X FreeType interfase), AFAIK.
And Qt3 uses Xft (Qt 3.1 - Xft2)

|  It also limits yourself to the elements freetype text output allows, which
|  IMHO doesn't include things like kerning and proper zooming.

FreeType supports kerning.
If you wnat "live example" - take ImageMagick and use Annotate method, you can 
ask IM to kern text.  IM's Delegates files have exact description for fonts, 
and AFM file is part of such (XML) entry.

Zooming is implemented in KWord/KPresenter, using methods very close to 
described in FreeType docs.  I don't think that it's really FreeType's task 
to "zoom" glyphs, it's Xft' task (in case if you use XFree86 platform)
David Faure wrote once that he is waiting Xft2 so that zooming/text layout 
would be finally implemented with real WYSISYG  (you need floating-point 'pt' 
sizes, etc.)

|
|  Somehow I like the approach of treating fonts like vector paths, i.e.
|  accessing their outline data, more.

There is nothing wrong with that - Adobe, Corel, etc. work with fonts/text 
exactly in this way.
But note that this results in not very readable text at small sizes, as hints 
are ignored (or do not work correctly) in their toolkits.

|  This may lead to some sub-optimal rendering on screen.
|
|  > What is not present at a moment is modern PostScript-like, SVG-like API.
|
|  Agreed.
|
|  > If you want to trade-off "clearness" of text rendering in favour of
|  > "correctness" (that's how I understand your words),
|  > you need to render text using either:
|  >  * non-hinted anti-aliased outlines
|  > (that's how Adobe does in Adobe Type Manager, Illustrator, Acrobat
|  > Reader, etc.)
|  > or
|  > * use "partial hinting"  (apply hints partially, and try to prevent
|  distortion
|  > of outlines)
|
|  So effectively hinted rendering has to be done "manually"

There are several optiions in FT-2.1.3, which allow you to control *level of 
hinting*.
For example: you can do grid-fitting and apply hints. Or:  you can do 
grid-fitting and *ignore hints*.  Rendering results would be different.
gnome-control-center-2.1.3 (snapshot of development version of GNOME 2) allows 
you to preview such modes (I guess Owen Taylor was coding this, he also did 
several nice patches for FreeType).  Worth trying.  
Unfortunately, it (gnome-control-center) crashes for me all  the time and I 
can't send you screenshot.
Does anyone have GNOME2 CVS and can help with screenshot?

|
|  Regards
|  Dirk
|  _______________________________________________
|  koffice-devel mailing list
|  koffice-devel@mail.kde.org
|  http://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/koffice-devel

-- 

Vadim Plessky
SVG Icons * BlueSphere Icons 0.3.0 released
http://svgicons.sourceforge.net
My KDE page
http://kde2.newmail.ru  (English)
KDE mini-Themes
http://kde2.newmail.ru/themes/
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