[Fontconfig] Re: [Cairo] Text API proposal

[Keith Packard]

Around 1 o'clock on Aug 12, Hans Breuer wrote:

> The funtion to use is GetFontData, but I'm not sure if this (producing
> PS files) is really that useful on win32. Remember there is already an 
> almost working Device Context abstraction in the platform for a 
> long time. 

True; I don't know what kind of printing infrastructure cairo should use 
on Win32.  I know we'll still need to get font outlines to use internally, 
and that is essentially the same functionality that is required to embed 
glyphs in a PostScript file.

> My main problem with fontconfig on win32 is perfectly described by 
> Owen in the previous mail. The only thing I like to add is that 
> I still doubt it's useful to have two independent font rendering 
> machineries in one process - but if there is : they need to interact
> sane, have the same names and properties for the same fonts, etc.

If we can get the outlines from the native API, then we don't need to use 
fontconfig/FreeType.  But, we do need to figure out how to provide enough 
of an abstract interface for some level of application portability between 
the various operating systems.  I don't know how much we need here, but it 
would be nice to support layout-free applications like Mozilla at least.

-keith