[Fontconfig] Documentation feedback / getting started

[Staffan Gimåker]

Hello list!

I'm trying to use fontconfig in a 3D robotics visualization tool where I 
recently added support for text rendering. Fontconfig seems like a really 
nice library/utility to help me out in finding the right fonts -- but 
unfortunately reading the fontconfig developer manual is like banging your 
head against a brick wall :(

The documentation is skimpy at best ("FcConfigSubstitute -- Execute 
substitutions", um, ok...) or wrong/outdated (e.g. 
http://fontconfig.org/fontconfig-devel/r2842.html, which I believe describes 
a set of parameters different from the parameters the function accepts).


Is there a tutorial of some kind available anywhere? Gooling only came up with 
some slides by Keith P. 
(http://dev.gentoo.org/~dberkholz/tutorials/fontconfig/fontconfig-tutorial.pdf), 
which helped a little but still left me very confused.

What would be really helpful is if there were step-by-step instructions 
available for accomplishing common tasks, or similar examples (and maybe 
there are?).
For example, how to query fontconfig for a Times font and extract the path to 
it -- I have come to the conclusion that this somehow involves creating a 
FcPattern (seems pretty clear) and calling FcFontMatch, but alas I cannot 
figure out how to actually get the path to the font...

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Sincerely,
Staffan Gimåker