1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
|
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/style.css">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/syntax.css">
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<meta name="viewport" content="initial-scale=1">
<meta content="#ffffff" name="theme-color">
<meta name="HandheldFriendly" content="true">
<meta property="og:title" content="Bye Bye BDFs">
<meta property="og:type" content="website">
<meta property="og:description" content="a static site {for, by, about} me ">
<meta property="og:url" content="https://peppe.rs">
<link rel="icon" type="image/x-icon" href="/favicon.png">
<title>Bye Bye BDFs · peppe.rs</title>
<body>
<div class="posts">
<div class="post">
<a href="/" class="post-end-link">Home</a>
<span>/</span>
<a href="/posts" class="post-end-link">Posts</a>
<span>/</span>
<a class="post-end-link">Bye Bye BDFs</a>
<a class="stats post-end-link" href="https://git.peppe.rs/web/site/plain/posts/bye_bye_BDFs.md
">View Raw</a>
<div class="separator"></div>
<div class="date">
07/08 — 2019
<div class="stats">
<span class="stats-number">
9.99
</span>
<span class="stats-unit">cm</span>
 
<span class="stats-number">
1.0
</span>
<span class="stats-unit">min</span>
</div>
</div>
<h1>
Bye Bye BDFs
</h1>
<div class="post-text">
<p>Glyph Bitmap Distribution Format is no more, as the creators of <a href="https://pango.org">Pango</a>, one of the most widely used text rendering libraries, <a href="https://blogs.gnome.org/mclasen/2019/05/25/pango-future-directions/">announced</a> their plans for Pango 1.44.</p>
<p>Until recently, Pango used FreeType to draw fonts. They will be moving over to <a href="https://harfbuzz.org">Harfbuzz</a>, an evolution of FreeType.</p>
<p><em>Why?</em></p>
<p>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).</p>
<p>Upgrading to Pango v1.44 will break your GTK applications (if you use a <code>bdf</code>/<code>pcf</code> bitmap font). Harfbuzz <em>does</em> support bitmap-only OpenType fonts, <code>otb</code>s. Convert your existing fonts over to <code>otb</code>s using <a href="https://fontforge.github.io">FontForge</a>. It is to be noted that applications such as <code>xterm</code> and <code>rxvt</code> use <code>xft</code> (X FreeType) to render fonts, and will remain unaffected by the update.</p>
<p>Both <a href="https://github.com/nerdypepper/scientifica">scientifica</a> and <a href="https://github.com/nerdypepper/curie">curie</a> will soon ship with bitmap-only OpenType font formats.</p>
</div>
<div class="intro">
Hi.
<div class="hot-links">
<a href="https://peppe.rs/index.xml" class="feed-button">Subscribe</a>
<a href="https://liberapay.com/nerdypepper/donate" class="donate-button">Donate</a>
</div>
<p>I'm Akshay, I go by nerd or nerdypepper on the internet.</p>
<p>
I am a compsci undergrad, Rust programmer and an enthusiastic Vimmer.
I write <a href="https://git.peppe.rs">open-source stuff</a> to pass time.
I also design fonts:
<a href="https://git.peppe.rs/fonts/scientifica">scientifica</a>,
<a href="https://git.peppe.rs/fonts/curie">curie</a>.
</p>
<p>Send me a mail at [email protected] or a message at [email protected].</p>
</div>
<a href="/" class="post-end-link">Home</a>
<span>/</span>
<a href="/posts" class="post-end-link">Posts</a>
<span>/</span>
<a class="post-end-link">Bye Bye BDFs</a>
<a class="stats post-end-link" href="https://git.peppe.rs/web/site/plain/posts/bye_bye_BDFs.md
">View Raw</a>
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>
|
