Re: High-res Customize icons

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2020 06:11:01 +0200 (CEST)
> From: Werner LEMBERG <wl@gnu.org>
> Cc: casouri@gmail.com, yuri.v.khan@gmail.com, cpitclaudel@gmail.com,
>  yandros@gmail.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> Why not creating a specialized outline font family with the needed
> glyphs?  Emacs could then always use it (and be distributed with these
> fonts).
> 
> It should be straightforward to take a free font family, strip all
> other glyphs, and modify the remaining symbols to make them fit.

Unlike some other programs, Emacs doesn't use fonts directly, it does
so via system APIs that manage fonts.  Therefore, to use a font with
Emacs, you need to install it.  Installing a font means this
specialized font will be visible to all of the other applications, and
also to Emacs itself when it looks for a suitable font to display a
given character.

(I'm sure you, Werner, know all that, but I'd like to make sure
everyone else who reads this does.)

So installing an additional font (or a set of them, actually -- won't
we also need bold, italic, etc. variants?) affects the entire system
and affects Emacs itself, by adding a font that isn't really meant to
be used for displaying readable text in any script.  It's a trick that
we would use to work around the need to display an image.  I'm asking
whether this is such a good idea?  Won't this font get in the way?

What other applications are known to come with their own fonts and
install them into the global font space of the system?  Is this
considered a good practice?