Extending X client protocol to carry font services(client and proxy/exporting/server).

Mike Mestnik cheako at visi.com
Wed Jun 3 01:57:47 PDT 2009


I'm sure that adding a new extension to the X client/server protocol
is not trivial, however I believe there are several areas where this
would indeed be useful.  As I understand getting fonts from a font
server is best handled with the X server acting as a client, so this
extension would not likely be well suited to replacing any existing
functionality.  However it would solve a handful of other X related
problems and case some(read as less) new problems.
1. Application availability of fonts, browsers/PDFs and wine.
Allowing clients to offer a font server should solve most of these
problems.
2. Areas where clients need a concise set of fonts, Xmove/DMX like
applications.  Allowing clients to fetch fonts from the server could
offer a much broader set of usage cases, like a alternative xfs that
is little more then an X client.

Currently xset is able to alter fp and add a remote font server,
however this can be difficult to setup in cases where ssh or port
forwarding is used.  Applications should need to make use of xset's
ability to alter the path in order to add *this client* to maintain
security.


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