Re: true type fonts fixed...
Unfortunately, I have no great wisdom, just some clarifications and
speculations below.
Ross
On Mon, Jul 14, 2003 at 05:57:46PM -0600, Bruce Sass wrote:
> Sorry 'bout the delay.
>
> On Fri, 11 Jul 2003, Ross Boylan wrote:
> > On Thu, Jul 10, 2003 at 03:21:15PM -0600, Bruce Sass wrote:
> > > On Wed, 9 Jul 2003, Ross Boylan wrote:
> > > > On Wed, Jul 09, 2003 at 01:41:26AM -0600, Bruce Sass wrote:
> > > > > scenario:
> > > > > sid, kde-3.1.2, xserver-svga (v3.3.6), X-4.2.1, xfstt
> > > >
> > > > Huh? Are you combining parts of X from 3.3 (xserver) and 4.2 (the
> > > > rest)? I'd be surprised if that worked out.
> > >
> > > Why is that? Would you be surprised if a v3 remote X-terminal could
> > > connect to machine with XFree-4?
> >
> > Well, you're right that it should work, but whether it actually works
> > is a different matter. It probably didn't get much testing.
>
> Ya, too bad considering the number of unsupported in XF4 graphics
> cards.
>
> > It also might be particularly problematic in the case of fonts, since
> > as far as I can tell some of the font functionality is migrating to
> > the client (while perhaps also remaining on the server) with v 4. I'm
> > not sure exactly what's where. Further study in this area seems to
> > produce further confusion, at least sometimes!
>
> Too many cooks; clients should use what fonts are available through
> the underlying operating system, not try to do it themselves (imo).
Fonts are tough, because there are so many, particularly in a
distributed environment like X. If stuff is for the screen, you need
the screen fonts on the X server system. If you're printing them, you
want the fonts on the printer--unless they are being rasterized
somewhere else (potentially a 3rd system), in which case you need the
fonts from there. And then, if you're sending the document to someone
else, you need all the fonts for the target.
Maybe we should be surprised when it works!
For these reasons, I understand in professional typesetting you always
include your fonts with the document.
I have seen some discussion that client side (in the X sense)
knowledge of fonts is helpful because it lets the client have better
control over the layout. I don't really understand this point; I
would have thought the X client could just ask the X server for info
on available fonts and find out all it needs.
>
> > > > > - KDE knows about the fonts but they are not rendered
> > > > How do you know it knows?
> > >
> > > ...on a per-user basis: fonts were copied into ~/.kde, had a green
> > > checkmark, appeared in the font selector dialogs, but were always
> > > rendered as helvetica
> > >
> > > ...in admin mode: .afm's were created (iirc) under X11R6 when the
> > > fonts were in /usr/share/fonts (no surprise, eh)... green blah blah
> > > helvetica
> >
> > Well, that's an interesting variation on my problem. Mostly, I don't
> > see anything at all, whereas you get some default font (maybe my
> > default font is invisible?).
>
> I've never had a system wide `all characters are boxes' problem; maybe
> with one or two non-KDE apps, quite awhile ago, and definately
> not related to the current font problems.
My characters don't appear as boxes; they are simply blank or, (I
think) sometimes horizontal lines. And they aren't all affected. For
example, in my current KDE2 environment I see what I'm typing emacs
now; I see stuff in Mozilla; but I don't see the text of KDE help
(though I see the table of contents).
>
> > My symptoms:
> > 1) Some text doesn't appear at all in Konqueror, or only as lines.
> > For example, I only see the graphics on my KDE help pages (even in my
> > vanilla Debian KDE 2.2 installation).
>
> never seen that
>
> > 2) Some apps have drop down lists of styled texts. Some of the
> > entries are blank.
> > 3) Some apps give you a font chooser which lets you pick style, size,
> > etc and shows a preview pane. When I pick some fonts, the preview
> > pane is blank.
>
> seen these with specialized symbol fonts, but chaulked it up to a lack
> of anything to render (i.e., blanks at those `character codes')
>
> > > > > Hmmm, could having ttf available through both fontconfig (via
> > > > > x-ttfcidfont-config) and xfs-ttf be a problem...
> > >
> > > s/b xfs-xtt :-/
> > >
> > > > Well, I've been more thinking that not having fonts available through
> > > > fontconfig is the problem. Someone recommended to me to make sure the
> > > > TT fonts were in fontconfig.
> > >
> > > sounds reasonable
> > > except the v3 xservers don't know about fontconfig (???)
> > >
> > > I think there are too many cooks <shrug>,
> > > and am not sure why KDE is doing low level mucking about with fonts
> > > (especially at the system level).
> >
> > KDE apparently uses Qt to handle fonts. I'm not sure if the stuff in
> > the control center is a straight interface to Qt or if KDE is adding
> > something extra on top.
>
> I can understand Qt (needs to run under three different OSes) wanting
> to go low-level with font set up, but what is KDE's excuse.
>
KDE uses Qt to handle fonts.
[snip]
>
> I have had "export QT_XFT=0" in .bashrc for awhile and have been
> starting KDE from the commandline, so I shouldn't have to worry about
> XftConfig making a contribution. (right?)
What is QT_XFT supposed to do? I've never heard of it.
>
> XF86Config-4 is not used by the v3 servers so I haven't touched it
> (looks ok, afaict, has the /var/lib/defoma/x-ttf... lines and correct
> ttf server port reference in the Files section).
>
> The only font infrastructure related pkgs I have sought out are ttf
> servers, anything else has been pulled in via dependencies (e.g.,
> fontconfig, freetype v2.1.4-4, x-ttcidfont-conf) and configured
> however Debian defaults to doing it.
>
>
> Remember I said I managed to get ttf via xfs-xtt... well, the
> ttf-larabie pkgs got installed but the fonts didn't appear in KDE so I
> went into the kcm font installer to see what would happen --- now I'm
> back to no tt fonts (tried both administrator and user mode, *.afm
> created in same dir as the *.ttf files this time).
>
> So, Arial and the rest of the ms core fonts have disappeared from the
> KDE font selectors and the only thing touched was the KDE font
> installer (which shows the tt fonts as installed and enabled)...
Two more ideas about your problem:
Since it appears that KDE can only handle fonts in one directory
hierarchy, perhaps the installation of fonts in new places (assuming
larabie and mscore fonts are in different directories) confused it.
Could anything be broken in the utility programs (e.g., ttmkfontdir,
or something like that) that set up the index files?
>
> ...how do I disable KDE's font installer subsystem,
> it appears to be broken.
>
Don't know. And do you want to? I though this was the only way that
KDE became aware of fonts.
Reply to: