Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ingr!b11!dwig
From: dwig@b11.ingr.com (David Wiggins)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: Banish 'font not found' errors forever!
Summary: sendfont discusstion
Message-ID: <6808@b11.ingr.com>
Date: 12 Dec 89 01:34:13 GMT
References: <8912070046.AA14873@kanga.lcs.mit.edu>
Organization: Intergraph Corp. Huntsville, AL
Lines: 56

In response to my posting about the sendfont extension, Jim Fulton says:

> ... Instead of having an explicit extension to download fonts, we hope to
>develop a font server next year.

Does this mean that the Consortium realizes there is no good, existing
workaround to the problems I've mentioned?  Is the Consortium committed
to developing the font server?  When will it be available? We had an
urgent need for a solution to font installation problems, and we can't
wait another year.  Are we the only ones who feel this way?  My email
shows people from at least 5 other organizations that see the sendfont
extension as a possible solution to their font installation troubles.

The sendfont extension provides a low-level font transport mechanism
upon which fancier services, like the font server, could be built. 
Since the lower layer is ready now, we'd like to promote it to avoid
duplication of effort and so that work can progress on higher layers. 

  [description of how the font server might work...]

> %  xset fp+ `hostname`:appfonts

This method of telling the X server about the font server will be
vulnerable to server resets.  It's a minor point, but we do get support
calls asking why xhost doesn't work, or why does the picture on my
root window spontaneously disappear?  Server reset strikes again...

>In addition to greatly relieving some of the administration burden, the font
>server can be made arbitrarily smart about rasterizing various types of fonts,
>allowing different input (e.g. scaled) and output (hardware-specific) formats.

These are very sexy capabilities; unfortunately, it won't solve the
problems we faced.  Quoting myself:

>It is extremely frustrating to our users when, after successfully
>installing and running an application on one machine, it fails when they
>run it remotely.  We agree with them - it is cumbersome to have to
>install the application's fonts on every server machine.

Now replace the word "server" with "font server" and the problem
reappears.  The user must know ahead of time which machines will act as
font servers, so that the fonts can be installed on those machines, or
be willing to manually install fonts on the font server when a client
asks for a font it doesn't have.  The sendfont extension allows clients to
propogate fonts on demand with no intervention by the user. 

Also, applications may want to create fonts on the fly.  Can you do this
using the font server?

We would like to have some kind of support from the Consortium for the
sendfont idea.  What avenues of cooperation are open?

>						Jim

David P. Wiggins			uunet!ingr!dwig or dwig@ingr.com
Software Analyst, Intergraph X-Team