Re: [Plplot-devel] Release issues related to unicode fonts

[Alan W. I. <ir...@be...>]

Two more postscript issues.

+ The overall size of the text is systematically smaller than for Hershey
of TrueType fonts whether plptex or plpoin is being used.

+ For Example 6 text the labels written with plptex seem to be positioned
correctly, but the symbols written with plpoin are  positioned
consistently too high.

For the latter issue, I am wondering if there may simply be a positioning
bug in the way that I have called the unicode array method for handling the
symbol font change plus a single character in plhrsh.  I was sometimes
guessing there, and somebody with a deeper understanding of PLplot
positioning should review the plhrsh code. plhrsh is the routine called by
plpoin.  For plptext, the setup of the unicode array method is done with
entirely different code which appears to be correct as far as position
information is concerned.

A similar problem used to occur for plfreetype although the issue was
complicated by plptex positioning problems as well which now seem perfectly
fixed by Rafael's changes.  But as I recall, some of Rafael's fixes were
specific to the plhrsh call in the sense that call was recognized by the
font change plus one character being sent. If a bug is found in the way
positions are set up in plhrsh so that the postscript positions come out
right, then you may be able to simply strip out all those special "plhrsh"
fixes in the plfreetype code, and have the png symbol positions come out
right as well.  The current set of "plhrsh" plfreetype fixes need to be
reviewed in any case, since the consistent symbol shift we used to have has
now been turned into a symbol shift that is correct for upper case letters
but which varies from character to character (compare "i" and "j") for lower
case characters.

Alan
__________________________ 
Alan W. Irwin 
email: ir...@be...
phone: 250-727-2902

Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).

Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation
for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software
package (plplot.org); the Yorick front-end to PLplot (yplot.sf.net); the
Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project
(lbproject.sf.net).
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