[Freeglut-developer] Windows font support.

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(Sorry, I cannot directly reply to John's message, but I've read it.  (^&)

You can implement custom fonts in WIN32 without breaking binary
compatibility.

What freeglut does (I have not checked old GLUT)---and what OpenGLUT
does on WIN32 and UNIX_X11---is, schematically:

  real_pointer =3D translate_supplied_font (font);

=2E..if the translation fails, then the font-related activity fails.
GLUT (apparently), and freeglut on UNIX_X11, can just return the
user-supplied {font} as the {real_pointer}.

There is nothing stopping one from saying, schematically:

   real_pointer =3D translate_supplied_font (font);
   if (!real_pointer)
       real_pointer =3D font;

I find that a bit icky, but from a pragmatic point of view it does
let you get away with it.

(The real names of variables and functions may have been changed
to protect the innocent.  (^&)

The problems:

Nigel has pointed out that doing it that way may not be friendly
to other languages.  (So you may have to use C or C++ or assembly
in order to take advantage of this.)  I'd add that some compilers,
or compile-time options may also break attempts to use it, because
the freeglut/OpenGLUT internal font structure may be padded or
packed differently for speed vs. space.

It also exhibits a UNIX-ish bias: The only way to generate the
font structures (if you don't like a *lot* of typing; (^&) at this
time is to use a tool.  GLUT used and provided one.  freeglut had
another.  I updated that tool substantially in OpenGLUT when
fixing the missing glyphs for OpenGLUT.  In all cases, the tools
directly talk to X to render the fonts to bitmaps.

You could, of course, adapt or recreate the tool for WIN32 or
other systems.

Finally, the structure is not a documented part of the API.  I do
not know if the freeglut version is binary-compatible with the old
GLUT version, with any compiler options or targets.  (Does anyone
know?)

--=20
  "I probably don't know what I'm talking about."  http://www.olib.org/~rkr/