[ft-announce] FreeType 2.5.2 has been released.

[Werner LEMBERG]

FreeType 2.5.3 has been released.

It is available from

    http://savannah.nongnu.org/download/freetype/

or

    http://sourceforge.net/projects/freetype/files/

The latter site also holds older versions of the FreeType library.

See below for the relevant snippet from the CHANGES file; all users
should upgrade.

Enjoy!


   Werner


PS: Downloads from savannah.nongnu.org will redirect to your nearest
    mirror site.  Files on mirrors may be subject to a replication
    delay of up to 24 hours.  In case of problems use
    http://download-mirror.savannah.gnu.org/releases/


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FreeType 2  is a software  font engine that  is designed to  be small,
efficient,  highly   customizable,  and  portable   while  capable  of
producing high-quality output (glyph images) of most vector and bitmap
font formats.

Note that  FreeType 2 is  a font service  and doesn't provide  APIs to
perform higher-level features, like text layout or graphics processing
(e.g.,  colored  text  rendering,  `hollowing',  etc.).   However,  it
greatly simplifies these tasks by providing a simple, easy to use, and
uniform interface to access the content of font files.

FreeType  2  is  released  under  two open-source  licenses:  our  own
BSD-like FreeType  License and the  GPL.  It can  thus be used  by any
kind of projects, be they proprietary or not.


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CHANGES BETWEEN 2.5.2 and 2.5.3

  I. IMPORTANT BUG FIXES

    - A vulnerability was  identified and fixed in the  new CFF driver
      (cf. http://savannah.nongnu.org/bugs/?41697;  it doesn't  have a
      CVE number yet).  All users should upgrade.

    - More  bug  fixes related  to  correct  positioning of  composite
      glyphs.

    - Many fixes to better protect against malformed input.


  II. IMPORTANT CHANGES

    - FreeType can now use the HarfBuzz library to greatly improve the
      auto-hinting of  fonts that  use OpenType features:  Many glyphs
      that are part  of such features but don't have  cmap entries are
      now handled  properly, for  example small caps  or superscripts.
      Define the configuration  macro FT_CONFIG_OPTION_USE_HARFBUZZ to
      activate HarfBuzz support.

      You need HarfBuzz version 0.9.19 or newer.

      Note that HarfBuzz depends on  FreeType; this currently causes a
      chicken-and-egg problem  that can be  solved as follows  in case
      HarfBuzz is not yet installed on your system.

        1. Compile  and  install  FreeType without  the  configuration
           macro FT_CONFIG_OPTION_USE_HARFBUZZ.

        2. Compile and install HarfBuzz.

        3. Define  macro  FT_CONFIG_OPTION_USE_HARFBUZZ, then  compile
           and install FreeType again.

      With FreeType's  `configure' script the procedure  boils down to
      configure, build, and install Freetype, then configure, compile,
      and  install  HarfBuzz,  then configure,  compile,  and  install
      FreeType again (after executing `make distclean').

    - All  libraries FreeType  depends on  are now  checked using  the
      `pkg-config' configuration files  first, followed by alternative
      methods.

    - The  new  value  `auto'  for the  various  `--with-XXX'  library
      options   (for   example   `--with-harfbuzz=auto')   makes   the
      `configure' script automatically link to the libraries it finds.
      This is now the default.

    - In case FreeType's `configure' script  can't find a library, you
      can  pass environment  variables to  circumvent pkg-config,  and
      those variables  have been  harmonized as  a consequence  of the
      changes mentioned above:

        LIBZ           -> removed; use LIBZ_CFLAGS and LIBZ_LIBS
        LIBBZ2         -> removed; use BZIP2_CFLAGS and BZIP2_LIBS
        LIBPNG_LDFLAGS -> LIBPNG_LIBS

      `./configure --help' shows all available environment variables.

    - The `freetype-config'  script now understands  option `--static'
      to emit static linking information.