Re: Problem of Xft2

From: Pablo Saratxaga <pablo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [Fonts] Problem of Xft2
Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2003 18:32:34 +0200

> >   The right and wrong of a toolkit become clear when using 
> > Xft2.  For me, Qt is the only choice when using Xft2. So I do
> 
> I feel exactly the opposite: as Qt doesn't have automatic fontset mechanism,
> I very often end with characters displayed as empty white squares, giving
> unreadable text.

  When I used Qt version 3.0.x, I saw many empty white squares.
It was quite insufficient.  But in version 3.1.x, almost all 
problems are solved.  So the usefulness of Xft2 takes a step
forward.

> Gtk may choose automatically a font that looks funny, but at least a character
> is always displayed in a readable way, I prefer it that way.

  "Automatic only" is quite insufficient.  We do not want to
see mismatched glyphs.

> That being said, it would be nice to have the ability to do user-configuration
> of glyph substitutions in gtk2; eg telling that when a given font XXXX is
> choosen, then characters of range 0x00-0xff should be ignored, and taken
> from font YYYY instead. The ascii range of some CJK fonts is simply 
> too ugly... or even bugged in some cases. 

  Yes.  You know CJK environment very well.  In addition, there
are few CJK fonts which have PROPORTIONAL ascii glyphs.  But the
alphabet should be displayed by proportional except terminal and
editor.
  When I use Konqueror, I set "Nimbus Sans l" as default font.
Of course, "Nimbus Sans l" does not have CJK glyphs.  So I set
a CJK fonts which matchs it to Font Substitution.  Then characters
of the ascii range in CJK font are ignored, we can get the proper
style of pages.

  Perhaps the approach of "fontset" will become obsolete.
I cannot understand details, but I have a feeling that
the approach of "Font Substitution" simplifies the mechanism
of CJK support.  Therefore probably Qt introduced Font Substitution.

  Anyway, the combination of Xft2 and Gtk2 is the worst.
For me, the combination is "THE POOR THING".

  Doesn't XFree86 provide a Font Substitution mechanism for Xft2?
This will be a heavy weight for development of toolkit.  I think
that XFree86 should provide a standard library for it, or Xft2
will not advance.

------------------------------------------------------------
    Chisato Yamauchi