Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!EXPO.LCS.MIT.EDU!rws
From: rws@EXPO.LCS.MIT.EDU (Bob Scheifler)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: More Re: Re default font id
Message-ID: <8901031630.AA01349@EXPIRE.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: 3 Jan 89 16:30:56 GMT
References: <521@ztivax.UUCP>
Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 31


    Even
    more, why do we bind the encoding to the font? The same set of character 
    shapes, character metrics, general font attributes, etc. should be 
    available for several encodings.

Right.  With the R3 font naming scheme, it is certainly possible for
a server to synthesize fonts on the fly based on the character set
part of the name, taking a base set of glyphs and constructing an
appropriate index array.

    Anyway, I is worthwhile to 
    compare them with the ongoing work for an ISO standard in that area
    (ISO 9541, Font and Character Information Interchange).

We are definitely aware of 9541.  Jim Flowers of DEC, who authored the
X font naming proposal, is actively involved in the 9541 work.

    It is currently at a state of a Draft International Standard.

It was rejected as an IS in summer 1988, but is being reworked.  Part of
it has been split off as a separate DIS, 10036.

    In particular,
    part 5 `Font attributes and character' model may be very interesting, when 
    looking at the set of standardized font properties.

Jim Flowers has been making recommendations in this area, so that 9541 provides
reasonable support in the X (or other bitmap font) environment.  To the extent
that a real encoding comes out of this work, we will consider making it a
supported format in our distribution.