From 071ad3b4cb371e864316a821120ea1b63e6bf213 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Akshay Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2020 19:16:36 +0530 Subject: site layout; use esh --- docs/posts/bye_bye_BDFs.html | 51 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 51 insertions(+) create mode 100644 docs/posts/bye_bye_BDFs.html (limited to 'docs/posts/bye_bye_BDFs.html') diff --git a/docs/posts/bye_bye_BDFs.html b/docs/posts/bye_bye_BDFs.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e323c9d --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/posts/bye_bye_BDFs.html @@ -0,0 +1,51 @@ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
+
07/08 2019
+ + Bye Bye BDFs + +
+

Glyph Bitmap Distribution Format is no more, as the creators of +Pango, one of the most widely used text rendering +libraries, +announced +their plans for Pango 1.44.

+ +

Until recently, Pango used FreeType to draw fonts. They will be moving over +to Harfbuzz, an evolution of FreeType.

+ +

Why?

+ +

In short, FreeType was hard to work with. It required complex logic, and +provided no advantage over Harfbuzz (other than being able to fetch +opentype metrics with ease).

+ +

Upgrading to Pango v1.44 will break your GTK applications (if you use a +bdf/pcf bitmap font). Harfbuzz does support bitmap-only OpenType fonts, +otbs. Convert your existing fonts over to otbs using +FontForge. It is to be noted that applications +such as xterm and rxvt use xft (X FreeType) to render fonts, and will +remain unaffected by the update.

+ +

Both scientifica and +curie will soon ship with bitmap-only +OpenType font formats.

+ +
+ ‹ Back +
+
+ + -- cgit v1.2.3