Problem with fonts in different width

Problem with fonts in different width

[Bean]

Hi,

Unicode characters are split into two sizes, 16x16 and 16x8, and are
stored in different files, for example:

f16.pcf.gz
-efont-fixed-medium-r-normal--16-160-75-75-c-160-iso10646-1

h16.pcf.gz
-efont-fixed-medium-r-normal--16-160-75-75-c-80-iso10646-1

They can be converted to f16.pf2 and h16.pf2. However, only one font
can be active at at time. So if we use both full and half width
characters, some of them is not displayed properly. The pf2 format
seems to allow different font widths. Perhaps the converter should
allow multiple input, so that we can merge the two fonts into one pf2
?

-- 
Bean

Re: Problem with fonts in different width

[Colin D Bennett]

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On Sun, 4 Jan 2009 01:53:16 +0800
Bean <bean123ch@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> Unicode characters are split into two sizes, 16x16 and 16x8, and are
> stored in different files, for example:
> 
> f16.pcf.gz
> -efont-fixed-medium-r-normal--16-160-75-75-c-160-iso10646-1
> 
> h16.pcf.gz
> -efont-fixed-medium-r-normal--16-160-75-75-c-80-iso10646-1
> 
> They can be converted to f16.pf2 and h16.pf2. However, only one font
> can be active at at time. So if we use both full and half width
> characters, some of them is not displayed properly. The pf2 format
> seems to allow different font widths. Perhaps the converter should
> allow multiple input, so that we can merge the two fonts into one pf2
> ?

This would be fairly simple to do.  The font would then effectively be
a proportional-width font since the new font engine+gfxterm does not
handle "bi-width" fonts in a character-cell environment.

I try adding the multiple font input feature when I have a chance.
Vesa wants the convert re-implemented in C, though, which will take
some time.

Regards,
Colin

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Re: Problem with fonts in different width

[Vesa Jääskeläinen]

Colin D Bennett wrote:
> This would be fairly simple to do.  The font would then effectively be
> a proportional-width font since the new font engine+gfxterm does not
> handle "bi-width" fonts in a character-cell environment.

Actually it does :)... In a way at least.

If you have lets say Hiragana glyphs which take 2 cells space will be
displayed and acted like taking two normal characters.

Basically the algorithm is:

// determine normal cell width by analyzing ASCII character dimensions
normal_cell_width = max_width(glyphs[32..127]);

glyph_chars = (glyph.width + normal_cell_width - 1) / normal_cell_width;

Re: Problem with fonts in different width

[Vesa Jääskeläinen]

Bean wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Unicode characters are split into two sizes, 16x16 and 16x8, and are
> stored in different files, for example:
> 
> f16.pcf.gz
> -efont-fixed-medium-r-normal--16-160-75-75-c-160-iso10646-1
> 
> h16.pcf.gz
> -efont-fixed-medium-r-normal--16-160-75-75-c-80-iso10646-1
> 
> They can be converted to f16.pf2 and h16.pf2. However, only one font
> can be active at at time. So if we use both full and half width
> characters, some of them is not displayed properly. The pf2 format
> seems to allow different font widths. Perhaps the converter should
> allow multiple input, so that we can merge the two fonts into one pf2
> ?

At least unifont.bdf file contains different size glyphs. I tried with
multiple different glyph formats and it seems to include all glyphs I
have tried. It is supposed that font file itself has every font needed.

If your distribution does not feature unifont you can grab one from here:

http://unifoundry.com/unifont-5.1.20080820.bdf.gz