Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ucbvax!bloom-beacon!ZERMATT.LCS.MIT.EDU!RWS
From: RWS@ZERMATT.LCS.MIT.EDU (Robert Scheifler)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: fonts in X11
Message-ID: <19880707121730.7.RWS@KILLINGTON.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: 7 Jul 88 12:17:00 GMT
References: <23656@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 16

Don't confuse current implementation with specification.  (I know that
traditionally there is no distinction in Unix, but humor me.)

There is precious little in the X protocol spec that prohibits the use
of non-bitmap, scalable fonts.  It makes good sense to adopt a rational
font naming scheme, that includes some "size" metric in the name, and
have the server use (e.g.) an outline font internally and scale the font
instances appropriately.  From the application point of view, this isn't
much different from using findfont/scalefont in PostScript.  It doesn't
give you PostScript's further font scaling via CTMs, but for many
applications that kind of dynamics isn't essential.  There is a wrinkle
in deciding what ListFonts should return, but simple naming/property
conventions can solve that; return the name of an instance of the font
in some canonical unit, and identify (via the font name or a property of
the font) that the font is scalable.

If someone is interested in donating code ...