[HarfBuzz] Using HarfBuzz to get final glyphs

[Pierre Marchand]

Vous (Ed Trager) avez écrit :
> Hi, Pierre,
>
> One part of the problem here may be that the core HarfBuzz developers
> in the beginning anticipated that HarfBuzz's
> only role would be to serve as the future unified shaping engine for
> Pango and QT -- and so they
> incorrectly assumed that documentation of HarfBuzz --especially of
> HarfBuzz internals-- was not really needed
> because in their view everybody would only access HarfBuzz indirectly
> via higher-level Pango or QT API
> constructs.
>
It makes sense.

> But as your case and the case of others illustrate, there is a need
> for an Open Source library that makes it easy to process
> OpenType features  -- and possibly do so in a manner quite independent
> from the usual high-level Pango/Gnome or QT/KDE
> APIs.  Ideally, such a library would have been fleshed out completely
> several years ago as part of FreeType, but that obviously did not
> happen.
>
To be honest, I first worked with libotf from m17n project and would have 
continued if Scribus team would not has stated that  they want to use 
Harfbuzz. So we can say there is at least one free OpenType library out there 
even if, from my point of view, raw OpenType processing could be done in 
Freetype directly.

> The HarfBuzz development trajectory so far may represent the rather
> common case of people inventing or creating something to fill one need
> --the need that they themselves perceive it to be-- but actually not
> perceiving, at least initially, the broader needs of the rest of the
> world.  (For example, Edison's initial work on the phonograph was
> motivated by a desire to record telephone messages,  and so the
> recording of music, although a fairly obvious possibility, was
> initially only a secondary or tertiary consideration).
>
I didn’t know that.

> The other possibility may be that the core HB developers feel
> HarfBuzz's API is still too fluid and not yet finalized and so for
> this reason have avoided documenting much of anything.  Unfortunately,
> HarfBuzz has now been around for a good length of time and people are
> wanting to use it.
>
I also think that time is the problem here. From some years now, major vendors 
release all their fonts as OTF and we, layouters & graphic designers, want to 
take advantage of these products under Linux. But three major free softwares 
do not handle these fonts properly, namely Latex, OpenOffice and last but not 
least Scribus. For myself I’m just cocerned by the latter.

> A third possibility is that the core HB developers are just too busy
> to do what needs to be done.
>
In that case, they might say what can be done in the corners by less skilled 
developers whose want to help, or badly need Harfbuzz to work :)

> It would be really nice if the
> http://freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/HarfBuzz page documented what is
> actually going on here.  For example, are HarfBuzz internal and public
> APIs finalized and stable, or are the developers still toying with new
> visionary thinking and re-thinking?
>
> I have no objection if Behdad Esfahbod and Simon Hausmann, inter alia,
> are hacking away with great new ideas for revising and improving
> HarfBuzz -- which of course might result in radical changes in HB
> internals over time.  But if that is so, it would be ever so nice of
> them to just SAY THAT on the wiki page.
>
> Alternatively, if a good portion of the HarfBuzz internals and public
> API are now felt to be stable, then what is the excuse for not having
> all that stuff documented?  For example, if DOxygen comments exist in
> some parts of the code base --or even if they don't-- why isn't there
> DOxygen-generated documentation present on the web somewhere?
>
I would say it’s not even necessary that Harfbuzz be stable as the criteria 
could just be that people use it or want to use it.

> Just my 2 cents -- Ed Trager
>
> On Thu, Mar 20, 2008 at 4:35 AM, Pierre Marchand <capparis at free.fr> wrote:
> > Vous (Ed Trager) avez écrit :
> > > It's true that Harfbuzz is not well-documented in its current state,
> > >
> >  > but I think there are some example code files that show you most of
> >  > what you need to do to use HarfBuzz with FreeType.  I'm sure the
> >  > example files are included in the git repository.
> >
> >  Because I would have been really disappointed to have missed an example
> > which would have saved me a lot of time, I just re-checked in a fresh
> > clone of the GIT repository. There is a test program for shaping and
> > that's it. I do understand that Harfbuzz is expected to be used through
> > its shaper and thus does not need to document its "internals" (ie
> > HB_Buffer). But some of us just want to process OpenType features and
> > come to Harfbuzz because Freetype does not offer this possibility.
> >
> >  « Tu causes, tu causes Pierre »
> >  Ok, I'll try to write some short introduction to the use of Harfbuzz as
> > an OpenType processor soon, hope it will hlep. :-)
> >
> >  --
> >  Pierre Marchand
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> >  HarfBuzz at lists.freedesktop.org
> >  http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/harfbuzz



-- 
Pierre Marchand