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

[Dave McGuire <mcguire@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mar 16, 2009, at 8:13 AM, Dan McMahill wrote:
> This is all pretty cool.

   Yes.  I've messed with FreeType a bit and wanted to do this  
myself, but never found the time.  I'm glad someone else did. :)

> 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.

>
   Well, we can have FreeType render the font to some sort of  
storable-in-the-pcb-file format and keep it in there, rather than  
going out to the system each time.  Perhaps a separate "save" option,  
like "save self-contained" or something.

   Another way to address it might be to (transparently) do two  
separate DRC runs when the user chooses to run a DRC.  First, run DRC  
with the board as-designed, with the user-selected FreeType font,  
then (internally) replace the FreeType font with the standard PCB  
font and rerun DRC.  You could then tell the user something like "the  
board passes DRC as-is, but if the selected FreeType font isn't  
available in the future for whatever reason, it won't pass DRC.

              -Dave

-- 
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL




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