Re: gEDA-user: PCB: simple FreeType fonts implementation

[Dan McMahill <dan@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ineiev wrote:
> This subject has been discussed many times on this list.
> 
> Recently, I tested ideas from
> http://archives.seul.org/geda/user/Jan-2009/msg00869.html
> and this resulted in a patchset 2684726 at
> https://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=2684726&group_id=73743&atid=538813
> 
> Of course, this is of very limited use, but somebody
> may be interested.
> 
>   General features
> 
> First patches introduce multiple fonts per board; every text
> has a pointer to it's font; the font for a new text
> is selected in the text input window; I also added a field
> for the font scale.
> 
> Then different text layouts are introduced.
> Texts may be vertical or horizontal; the layout also may be
> `reverse': for horizontal layouts this means right-to-left;
> for vertical --- donwside-up.
> (http://ineiev.users.sourceforge.net/pcb/graph/layout.png)
> (the figure shows an optimistic case for a horizontal font turned
> vertically: in general, the letters are not adjusted horizontally).
> 
> A new font type added, based on FreeType2 library. TTF and Type1
> fonts seem to work, PCF don't (most probably, I load them
> incorrectly).


This is all pretty cool.

One thing I'm wondering though is if we'll ever have issues with fonts
being different on different systems.  Where I'm headed with that is
what if user A designs a board and the text is all ok (no DRC violations
like silk on pads, etc).  Then user A gives the design in .pcb format to
user B who has a different set of fonts installed.  It seems like user B
may now not be able to produce the same physical circuit board.  Perhaps
this is not a big concern and I think I am ok with this situation as
long as the capability of using an embedded font still exists.  That way
users who care about the nice looking fonts can get that and users who
care about every tiny detail of the design being encapsulated in the
.pcb file can have that.

Neat stuff and it seems that a real benefit here is in supporting silk
screen in languages other than english.  I wonder if any other board
layout tool can do this.

-Dan




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