grunwald@m.cs.uiuc.edu (12/30/88)
After looking through the documentation, I couldn't find a way to down-load a font from a client to the server. Am I correct in thinking that the fonts have to live on the server? Do you have to package the fonts as pixmaps & have two display routines, one for when you have SNF fonts and one when you have to use pixmaps? Enquiring minds want to know. Dirk Grunwald Univ. of Illinois grunwald@m.cs.uiuc.edu
rws@EXPO.LCS.MIT.EDU (Bob Scheifler) (01/01/89)
I couldn't find a way to down-load
a font from a client to the server.
Correct, the core protocol does not provide a mechanism for this.
Am I correct in thinking that the fonts have to live on the server?
Yes.
Do you have to package the fonts as pixmaps & have two display routines,
one for when you have SNF fonts and one when you have to use pixmaps?
You should be constructing your fonts in BDF format, which is an X standard.
Server vendors will provide compilers to translate BDF to whatever internal
format their particular server desires.grunwald@M.CS.UIUC.EDU (Dirk Grunwald) (01/01/89)
Hi, The reason I was asking was that I'm re-vamping TeXx, and wanted to cache the shrunken glyphs. This would make things faster, and it also allows me to rationalize the cost of an anti-aliasing method. Right now, I have a program that converts a PXL/GF/PK font to SNF format, modelled after the code in `bdftosnf'. I wasn't certain about the cost of Metafont -> BDF -> SNF. Perhaps that's a better way to do it. The intent is that these fonts get generated `on the fly', and stored somewhere (/tmp, /usr/tmp) where they occasionally get cleaned up. The first time you use one, it's slower than the method, but once fonts are generated, it should be much faster. I wanted to use fonts because this can greatly reduce the number of server calls (because I'll be able to use ``drawstring'' a lot of the time). Dirk Grunwald Univ. of Illinois grunwald@m.cs.uiuc.edu
rws@EXPO.LCS.MIT.EDU (Bob Scheifler) (01/01/89)
I wasn't certain about the cost of Metafont -> BDF -> SNF.
Perhaps that's a better way to do it.
Yes, it is, and it won't cost you that much. Not everybody uses MIT's SNF
(e.g. I don't think the DEC product will), but they will provide a compiler,
so allow your users to specify a compiler.
The intent is that these fonts get generated `on the fly', and stored
somewhere (/tmp, /usr/tmp) where they occasionally get cleaned up.
Yup, I did the same thing when redirecting a Symbolics console to X. Note
that just creating the font file in the directory won't suffice, you'll also
need to provide a hook for running an "install" (mkfontdir in MIT's case).
And, you'll also need to update the servers font path (to the same value) to
ensure that all server's notice the new fonts.