Hi, Robert, I don't understand *why* you would want to integrate fontconfig into VTK. I assume that VTK only really needs access to high-level string layout functionality, such as that provided by the Pango, Pango+Cairo, or Pango+FreeType2 libraries. So why don't you just go one of those routes and let Pango/FreeType deal with fontconfig under the hood somewhere? - Ed Trager On Wed, Jan 7, 2009 at 11:16 AM, Robert Kerr <rakerr@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Hi all, > > First, let me introduce myself. My name is Bob Kerr, and I'm > investigating the possibility of involving fontconfig into VTK. It seems > like this would be a good match, and there's some good excitement on the > vtk side for this. > > Now, I've got fontconfig 2.6.0 installed, and it seems that everything is > working correctly, as far as I can tell. But, there doesn't seem to be > any way to get from where I am to where I want to go. I firmly believe > that fontconfig is useful, and viable, and valuable, but I can't find any > type of documentation or tutorial or guide as to how to put fontconfig > into my application. There's the developers' guide, which is just a list > of functions and a brief description. There's the users' guide, which > describe how to add fonts to fontconfig and then use an application that > uses fontconfig. There's some slides that Keith has posted (from years > ago) about the reasons for fontconfig. But there's nothing out there that > tells me how to integrate it. > > After some lengthy searching, I've found a few items that make me somewhat > concerned--requests for help from other people in my position, which have > gone unanswered, both to this list and in other forums. I took the > initiative to email one of those requestors, and they responded that they > had received no help from the fontconfig community, and had decided that > fontconfig wasn't important for their application, since it looked to be > too high of a cost to try to integrate it, since there was no help > available. > > So, in a perhaps futile gesture, I'm asking once again if there is some > sort of Newbie Guide to Integrating fontconfig into an Application. Or, > failing that, is there an application that uses fontconfig and is > well-structured, such that I can learn from it? Or, failing that, is > there anyone in the fontconfig community that is willing to mentor > someone? > > I realize that this is something that isn't fun to do--the mentoring of > new people, but if the goal of fontconfig is to provide a standard > interface and mechanism for handling fonts across a wide variety of > platforms and applications, then it behooves the community to provide some > way to get more people using it, rather than just ignoring requests for > guidance. > > Thanks in advance for any answers you might be able to provide. > > -- > -bob > > Bad Performance Evaluations: "This employee is depriving a village > somewhere of an idiot." > ********************************************************************** > * Robert Kerr, Member of the Cubit Mesh Generation Team * > * and the Titan Informatics Toolkit Development Team * > * rakerr@xxxxxxxxxx | PO Box 5800, MS 0376 * > * Phone: (505) 844-8606 | Sandia National Labs * > * Fax: (505) 284-0140 | Albuquerque, NM 87185-0376 * > ********************************************************************** > > _______________________________________________ > Fontconfig mailing list > Fontconfig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/fontconfig > _______________________________________________ Fontconfig mailing list Fontconfig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/fontconfig
