Non scalable fonts

[Manuel Mall <mm...@arcus.com.au>]

This is mainly a question for Vincent.

Just came across a scenario (AFP Renderer) where I need to support non 
scalable fonts. The current FOP trunk font system is not very good at 
this as it does font selection purely based on (name, style, weight).

Does FOray font support non scalable fonts (raster / bitmap fonts)?

Is font size a possible font selection criteria in FOray?

Does FOray support adding new types of fonts, i.e. is its font support 
extensible?

How is the FOray font integration coming along? The reason behind this 
question is simply - do I waste my time in modifying the current FOP 
font system to somehow support non scalable fonts because FOray font is 
imminent and I better wait for it or is it a fair way (months) down the 
track and I have to find a workable intermediate solution for the 
problem at hand?

Cheers

Manuel

Re: Non scalable fonts

[Vincent Hennebert <vi...@enseeiht.fr>]

Hi Manuel,

 > Just came across a scenario (AFP Renderer) where I need to support non
 > scalable fonts. The current FOP trunk font system is not very good at
 > this as it does font selection purely based on (name, style, weight).
 >
 > Does FOray font support non scalable fonts (raster / bitmap fonts)?

Theoretically yes, but this is not implemented.


 > Is font size a possible font selection criteria in FOray?

Yes. When requesting a font, the size must always be
provided.


 > Does FOray support adding new types of fonts, i.e. is its font support
 > extensible?

Yes. FOrayFont was designed with extensibility in mind [1].

There are two main types of fonts in FOrayFont: system fonts
i.e., fonts registered by the Java awt system; and
free-standing fonts, which are directly handled by FOray and
for which a font file is available. For now the only
supported free-standing fonts are Type1 and TrueType fonts.
You typically need a third type of FreeStandingFont, a kind
of BitmapFont.

Victor will be more able than me to evaluate the feasibility
of such a thing. I suggest you subscribe to the
foray-developer mailing list [2] and ask your question
there.


 > How is the FOray font integration coming along? The reason behind this
 > question is simply - do I waste my time in modifying the current FOP
 > font system to somehow support non scalable fonts because FOray font is
 > imminent and I better wait for it or is it a fair way (months) down the
 > track and I have to find a workable intermediate solution for the
 > problem at hand?

If all goes well, I should have a ready patch in 2 weeks. If
you want I can post an updated pre-patch on Bugzilla,
although I'm a bit ashamed of all the awful things I've put
in the code and that I must correct... But don't hesitate to
ask.

Cheers,
Vincent


[1] http://foray.sourceforge.net/dev/font/planning.html
[2] http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=109663