Re: System fonts

[MJ Ray]

Fred Kiefer <fredkiefer@gmx.de> wrote:
> MJ Ray wrote:
> > Are you sure about this? I think it's my situation. If I set NSFont to
> > "sans" (an alias defined in fonts.conf) then it just can't be found. Why?
> > How can I debug this?
> My feeling here is that some of the discussion on NSFont implementations 
> here is caused by wrong expectations. [...]

Why is it wrong of us to expect font combination/substitution to work
when the functions are offered by the underlying system we're using?
Other systems appear to have that working, but they're no GNUstep.

> The other functionality seems to be overlooked here, it is that every 
> font is able to provide some information about itself, that includes for 
> example  the font name, the family, the weight and traits, ascender, 
> descender and so on.
> 
> The later is only possible if the font restricts itself to a specific 
> set of glyphs it is able to display. [...]

Why is this not true for aliases? At any point in time, a given alias
resolves to a particular set of glyphs.

> If 
> you really need this functionality don't complain about the NSFont 
> implementations, sit down and write this missing code.

I think we don't really understand why there is a problem yet and
many of the people who do need this functionality have English as a
second language and not always a particularly strong one.

It's all well and good saying "write this missing code" but as far as I
can tell, the code about this in back-xlib isn't very commented, so it
feels like coding in the dark with one hand tied. :-( Can't even tell
what the code needs to do yet, let alone try to write it.