From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: James Cloos Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: The WHY of Xft Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 11:49:50 -0500 Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1111356870 27596 80.91.229.2 (20 Mar 2005 22:14:30 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 22:14:30 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org, miles@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Mar 20 23:14:29 2005 Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by ciao.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1DD8gc-000439-Nh for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 20 Mar 2005 23:14:19 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1DD8xa-0000Uu-OE for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 20 Mar 2005 17:31:50 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1DD8uM-0007dp-UU for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 20 Mar 2005 17:28:33 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1DD8uF-0007a7-5r for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 20 Mar 2005 17:28:26 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1DD8uC-0007V3-Re for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 20 Mar 2005 17:28:20 -0500 Original-Received: from [64.240.156.239] (helo=ore.jhcloos.com) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (TLSv1:DES-CBC3-SHA:168) (Exim 4.34) id 1DD8Uq-0001cS-Lu; Sun, 20 Mar 2005 17:02:09 -0500 Original-Received: from lugabout.jhcloos.org (host-69-48-10-151.roc.choiceone.net [69.48.10.151]) (using TLSv1 with cipher EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA (168/168 bits)) (Client CN "lugabout.jhcloos.org", Issuer "ca.jhcloos.com" (verified OK)) by ore.jhcloos.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7FE6F1C36A; Sun, 20 Mar 2005 16:01:21 -0600 (CST) Original-Received: by lugabout.jhcloos.org (Postfix, from userid 500) id 492A04D42D2; Sun, 20 Mar 2005 16:49:50 +0000 (GMT) Original-To: snogglethorpe@gmail.com In-Reply-To: (Miles Bader's message of "Sun, 20 Mar 2005 08:47:19 +0900") X-Hashcash: 0:050320:snogglethorpe@gmail.com:5581a1f4ff95985d X-Hashcash: 0:050320:miles@gnu.org:778c8bf778532346 X-Hashcash: 0:050320:emacs-devel@gnu.org:82968bbcf56a12ae Original-Lines: 53 User-Agent: Gnus/5.110003 (No Gnus v0.3) Emacs/22.0.50 (gnu/linux) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org X-MailScanner-To: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:34856 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:34856 >>>>> “Miles” == Miles Bader writes: >> The other benefits are just as important. Control and installation >> of fonts are easier for most users Miles> Can you explain in more detail? I use debian, and Emacs Miles> already seems able to use the same fonts as xft-using programs, Miles> albeit not in anti-aliased form. That is becasue debian did the hard work for those fonts that it includes as part of the distribution. The hard part for users comes when they want to install a font not part of the dist, whether one they've purchased or otherwise acquired. It is much easier to just drop a font into ~/.fonts than to mess with fonts.dir and fonts.scale files, etc. At least for those who've not been doing so for a couple of decades.... ☺ fc-cache should be run when the contents of the searched directories change, but cli-averse users will probably use a gui not unlike that on doze or macs which can do that for them. mkfontscale has helped ease installation of server-side fonts, but it is still not as easy. Obviously for emacs it is less of an issue than for something like gimp, but I’m sure it will come up for some. Especially if packages like preview-latex can use the client-side fonts to preview the entire document as it is being edited rather than just selected portions. >> fonts with large encodings -- such as CJKV fonts or any >> iso10646-encoded font -- use *much* less vm and data transfer >> between client and server is reduced for most workloads. Miles> Doesn’t the X server already support partial loading of large Miles> fonts? [I mean the “-deferglyphs 16” in the X startup Miles> options.] I’m not familiar with deferglyphs; I don't remember it from any of the discussions I read or participated in on the fontconfig, xfree or freedesktop lists. And I cannot find it in X(7x) or Xorg(1x). My understanding is that when a (server-side) font is opened by the X server it must determine all of the glyphs’ metrics, which requires rendering all of them. There are also still at least a couple of things I forgot to mention. Server-side unicode fonts are limited to the bmp, so one cannot edit scripts that use non-bmp characters w/o switching to client-side fonts. Client-side fonts are also necessary to take full advantage of opentype features. -JimC -- James H. Cloos, Jr.