new font-backend mechanism

new font-backend mechanism

[Kenichi Handa]

In article <E1FVTER-000815-00@etlken>, Kenichi Handa <handa@m17n.org> writes:

> Actually, after reading codes of XFT branch, I started to
> design a new font handling mechanism.  The basic plan is to
> use multiple font-backends drivers (xcore, xft, windows,
> bdf, atm, etc).  The main motivation for this rewriting is
> that the current XFT code in the branch is very difficult to
> utilize fontconfig's help for font selection, and to drive
> OTF fonts.  And also, I want to clean up the current fairly
> complicated font related codes (including many HAVE_XFT
> conditionals, many XLFD parsing code, etc).

> But, as there are many other works to be done, the progress
> for the above code is slow.  Please don't expect a quick
> response on this matter.  Anyway, here's the current font.h
> file (not yet fully considered) with which you may get a
> feeling of the design.

I've just committed changes for this font-backend mechanism
in emacs-unicode-2 branch.  As I added two tags before and
after the commit, you can see what are changed by:

% cvs diff -Nu -r unicode-pre-font-backend -r unicode-post-font-backend

The reason I dared not make a new branch is that the new
codes don't affect the current behavior of emacs-unicode
unless you configure with "--enable-font-backend" and run
Emacs with the same arg.  README.unicode contains some more
information about the changes.

We still need many more works to make using of font-backend
the default.  But, before going ahead, I'd like to ask
people working on Windows and Mac porting to check if the
current mechanism (APIs of font-driver) is sufficient for
native fonts support.

I think it is better to use emacs-unicode@gnu.org (not
emacs-devel@gnu.org) for the further discussion on this
matter to avoid disturbing the works for the official
realease.  So, people who are interested in it please join
emacs-unicode mailing list.  For that, as far as I remember,
Eli <eliz@gnu.org> can handle a request of subscribing.

Eli, is it right?

---
Kenichi Handa
handa@m17n.org

Re: new font-backend mechanism

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Kenichi Handa <handa@m17n.org>
> CC: jan.h.d@swipnet.se, emacs-devel@gnu.org, Meik.Hellmund@math.uni-leipzig.de,
>         sdl.web@gmail.com
> Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2006 13:16:43 +0900
> 
> So, people who are interested in it please join
> emacs-unicode mailing list.  For that, as far as I remember,
> Eli <eliz@gnu.org> can handle a request of subscribing.
> 
> Eli, is it right?

Yes.

Re: new font-backend mechanism

[Adrian Robert]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:


>> Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2006 13:16:43 +0900
>> 
>> So, people who are interested in it please join
>> emacs-unicode mailing list.  For that, as far as I remember,
>> Eli <eliz@gnu.org> can handle a request of subscribing.
>> 
>> Eli, is it right?
>
> Yes.

Hi,

Maybe I am just not seeing it, but I cannot find info on this
mailing list from the two links here:

http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/#HelpMailing

Anyway, is there an archive available?  And is there any chance of
getting it onto Gmane, or is it too low traffic (for now) to be
worth it?

thanks,
Adrian

Re: new font-backend mechanism

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Adrian Robert <arobert@cogsci.ucsd.edu>
> Date: Thu, 08 Jun 2006 11:11:53 -0400
> 
> Maybe I am just not seeing it, but I cannot find info on this
> mailing list from the two links here:
> 
> http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/#HelpMailing

That's because it's not a public list.  (If it were, you wouldn't be
needing me to subscribe.)

> Anyway, is there an archive available?

Only to those who have an account on gnu.org machines.

> And is there any chance of getting it onto Gmane, or is it too low
> traffic (for now) to be worth it?

Most of it is spam.  The list was very silent for years.  You don't
want the archive, believe me.  Maybe if it becomes home to some
important discussions, it would be worthwhile to make it a public
list, but not yet.