oppi.li
the ugly ocaml monstrosity powering my site
oppi.li
new post - bye bye bdfs
did:plc:euzt5vtazmgditz7i47t4i…
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<div class="post">
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<div class="date">07/08 2019</div>
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<a id="post-bye_bye_BDFs.md" href="#bye_bye_BDFs.md" class="post-link" onClick="showPost('bye_bye_BDFs.md')" >Bye Bye BDFs</a>
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<div id="bye_bye_BDFs.md" class="post-text" style="display: none">
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<p>Glyph Bitmap Distribution Format is no more, as the creators of
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<a href="https://pango.org">Pango</a>, one of the largest text rendering libraries,
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<a href="https://blogs.gnome.org/mclasen/2019/05/25/pango-future-directions/">announced</a>
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a few months back.</p>
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<p>Until recently, Pango used FreeType to draw fonts. They will be moving over
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to <a href="https://harfbuzz.org">Harfbuzz</a>, an evolution of FreeType.</p>
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<p><em>Why?</em></p>
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<p>In short, FreeType was hard to work with. It required complex logic, and
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provided no advantage over Harfbuzz (other than being able to fetch
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opentype metrics with ease).</p>
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<p>Upgrading to Pango v1.44 will break your GTK applications (if you use a
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<code>bdf</code>/<code>pcf</code> bitmap font). Harfbuzz <em>does</em> support bitmap-only OpenType fonts
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though, <code>otb</code>s. Convert your existing fonts over to <code>otb</code>s using
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<a href="https://fontforge.github.io">FontForge</a>. It is to be noted that applications
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such as <code>xterm</code> and <code>rxvt</code> use <code>xft</code> (X FreeType) to render fonts, and will
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remain unaffected by the update.</p>
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<p>Both <a href="https://github.com/nerdypepper/scientifica">scientifica</a> and
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<a href="https://github.com/nerdypepper/curie">curie</a> will soon ship with bitmap-only
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OpenType font formats.</p>
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<a href="#bye_bye_BDFs.md" class="post-end-link" onClick="showPost('bye_bye_BDFs.md')">↑ Collapse</a>
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<div class=separator></div>
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</div>
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</div>
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<div class="post">
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<div class="date">02/08 2019</div>
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<a id="post-onivim_sucks.md" href="#onivim_sucks.md" class="post-link" onClick="showPost('onivim_sucks.md')" >Onivim Sucks</a>
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<div id="onivim_sucks.md" class="post-text" style="display: none">
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posts/bye_bye_BDFs.md
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posts/bye_bye_BDFs.md
···
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Glyph Bitmap Distribution Format is no more, as the creators of
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[Pango](https://pango.org), one of the most widely used text rendering
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libraries,
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[announced](https://blogs.gnome.org/mclasen/2019/05/25/pango-future-directions/)
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their plans for Pango 1.44.
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Until recently, Pango used FreeType to draw fonts. They will be moving over
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to [Harfbuzz](https://harfbuzz.org), an evolution of FreeType.
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*Why?*
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In short, FreeType was hard to work with. It required complex logic, and
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provided no advantage over Harfbuzz (other than being able to fetch
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opentype metrics with ease).
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Upgrading to Pango v1.44 will break your GTK applications (if you use a
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`bdf`/`pcf` bitmap font). Harfbuzz *does* support bitmap-only OpenType fonts,
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`otb`s. Convert your existing fonts over to `otb`s using
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[FontForge](https://fontforge.github.io). It is to be noted that applications
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such as `xterm` and `rxvt` use `xft` (X FreeType) to render fonts, and will
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remain unaffected by the update.
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Both [scientifica](https://github.com/nerdypepper/scientifica) and
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[curie](https://github.com/nerdypepper/curie) will soon ship with bitmap-only
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OpenType font formats.