Re: [Plplot-general] Another way to change the plotting font

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

On 2017-10-19 15:55+0100 p.d...@gm... wrote:

>
>
> From: Alan W. Irwin
> Sent: 19 October 2017 09:40
> To: p.d...@gm...
> Cc: Frédéric; plp...@li...
> Subject: RE: [Plplot-general] Another way to change the plotting font
>
> On 2017-10-19 08:33+0100 p.d...@gm... wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Sent from my Windows 10 phone
>>
>> From: Alan W. Irwin
>> Sent: 19 October 2017 03:01
>> To: Frédéric
>> Cc: plp...@li...
>>
>>> what do you mean by "set up fontconf"? isn't fontconfig just for
>>> POSIX?
>>
>> No.  For example, the Windows version of GTK+ depends on fontconfig.
>>
>>
>> We have had this discussion before. It is practically impossible for a mere mortal to build the gtk stack on Windows. I have tried and failed more than once. Gimp uses it, so it must be possible, but I have no idea how. Maybe using mingw?
>
> For your information, there is at least two well-known native Windows
> binary downloads for fontconfig, and also a variant
> of fontconfig that works on Windows with the aid of the cygwin dll.

> That's interesting to know. So if fontconfig were available on a
Windows system can it be set up so that when a font is created on
wxWidgets with a particular style but blank typeface it will select a
specific font? I would have suspected wxWidgets would be using the
windows native font system?

> If someone writes software using plplot and distributes it, do they
need he user to install fontconfig too?

> Can the setup be performed on an application basis or is it global?

Hi Phil:

Let's back up a bit.  The first thing you should do is to ask on the
wxwidgets list how users can specify the specific fonts corresponding
to the wxwidgets generic fonts on both Linux and Windows.  If the
answer is not fontconfig, then you should evaluate the convenience of
this non-fontconfig method compared to directly supporting specific fonts within the
wxwidgets-related PLplot code.

However, if the answer is fontconfig (which I think is likely the case
since that is such useful cross-platform software for this very
purpose) read on.

I have read sufficiently to know in general what fontconfig is capable
of, but I am typically quite content with its default choices so I
have never learned fontconfig details.  So to answer your specific
fontconfig questions above I suggest you look at a tutorial such as
<https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/font_configuration> which shows
how to do user-specific (as opposed to system-wide) fontconfig changes
and also shows how to override the default fontconfig choices for
requested generic fonts.  Once you have gained the necessary
fontconfig knowledge from such reading, I think the method should
"just work" to achieve specific font choices for our "cairo" device
driver results on MinGW-w64/MSYS2 since fontconfig is such an integral
cross-platform part of the GTK+ stack of libraries.

After you have achieved specific font success with the cairo devices
in the above way, it is, of course, only a tiny step further to do the
same thing for -dev wxwidgets assuming the answer on the wxwidgets
mailing list is indeed fontconfig.  And in this case as well, you
should evaluate the convenience of this fontconfig method compared to
directly supporting specific fonts within the wxwidgets-related PLplot
code.

Alan
__________________________
Alan W. Irwin

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); the Time
Ephemerides project (timeephem.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting
software package (plplot.sf.net); the libLASi project
(unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net);
and the Linux Brochure Project (lbproject.sf.net).
__________________________

Linux-powered Science
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