Re: [I18n]Re: U+3000 limit

[Mohammed Elzubeir <elzubeir at fakkir dot net>]

On Tue, Jan 15, 2002 at 09:01:39PM -0800, Keith Packard wrote:
> 
> Unless those legacy applications are using the X output method stuff, 
> they're not going to display properly even if the core font has the 
> necessary glyphs; the document encodings don't identify which glyphs are 
> to be used, nor do most of these applications handle BIDI.

An example for this case would be VIM (GUI), which does not use the Xft
interface library. It is much more difficult for us to ask and submit patches
for applications which would include adding a new dependency (no matter how
logical or inevitable it is), than to rely on the fact that the fonts will be
in fact available regardless. 

Think of it from our side, XFree86 is the root of it. We have the font, then
we can say, okay, let's use the Xft.. if not, the core fonts are available.
The VIM patch which Arabeyes has submitted relies on the core fonts. That is
what VIM uses.. where do we go from here? You tell me.
> 
> Given that you're going to have to fix the applications, you might as well
> just switch them to Xft and be done with it.  The development version of
> Xft supports client-side fonts on all X servers so there's no reason to
> continue using core text support at all.

We cannot fix every application, obviously. But what we can do, is do our best
to ensure that the options are there. We simply want the option. Option ;)

> 
> We'll still need fonts with all of the appropriate glyphs; if we can't get 
> outline versions, the bitmapped ones will still be quite useful.
> 

The 10x20 font (in its complete form) has all the necessary glyphs.

On another note, is there any better documentation on Xft than the man(3)
page?

Thanks.
-- 
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| Mohammed Elzubeir    | Visit us at:                 |
|                      |  http://www.arabeyes.org/    |
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| Unix the 'right' way |  http://fakkir.net/~elzubeir/|
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