Re: Long delay in first use of fontconfig features in gd terminal in my MinGW build

[Mojca M. <moj...@gm...>]

On 15 February 2016 at 09:24, Tatsuro MATSUOKA wrote:
> Hello
>
> This is not a bug but a slightly annoying matter.
>
> For the gnuplot binaries for windows built by me,
> If I use fontconfig features in gd terminal for example
>
> gnuplot> set term png font 'Times New Roman'
>
> If it is used for the first time, a long delay happes in first use.
> (depending on environment. ca. several ten seconds).
>
> However, once the fontconfig features is used, delay does not occur.
>
> For cairo based terminal, this delay does not occur.
>
> For the binary provided by Bastian, this delay does not occur.
>
> Have anyone seen the similar issue?

On all systems with libraries that use fontconfig, fontconfig has to
scan all system fonts occasionally. On Linux that most likely happens
semi-automatically somewhere in the background and only once for all
applications. On Mac and Windows this is a bit more tricky because
every single piece of software uses its own copy of fontconfig and its
own database. The described behaviour is a well known "problem". On OS
X many software packages like MPlayer, VNC, Gimp, ... would display a
notice when I start them, letting me know that I have to wait until
the font database gets rebuilt/updated.

I don't believe that you can entirely avoid that. You can probably
influence the frequency of updates and location of the database. Maybe
your build of fontconfig creates a font database at some temporary
location that Windows deletes when you shut down the computer (that is
pure guessing). In any case you should not get delays every time you
start gnuplot.

I don't understand why the delay happens with gd, but not with cairo
though (if both use fontconfig). I would expect a delay with every
terminal that depends on fontconfig, but only once in a while (maybe
once per month or when you try to use a font that's not in the
database).

Mojca