[vlc-devel] [RFC PATCH] freetype: using Pango for text layout

[Salah-Eddin Shaban]

On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 11:15 AM, Rémi Denis-Courmont <remi at remlab.net> wrote:
>    Hello,
>
> Le 2015-01-21 04:31, Salah-Eddin Shaban a écrit :
>>
>> So what do you guys think? Should we go with PangoFT2 or PangoCairo?
>
>
> It boils down to two things:
>
> Q1) Which one is easiest to write and maintain, considering that the
> remaining bugs and missing features (embedded fonts?) need to be implemented
> eventually?
>
> Q2) Does one present dependency problems (license, further libraries) worse
> than the other?
>
> I am not very familiar with those, but I'd hazard:
>
> A1) Cairo is easier and less buggy.
>
> A2) Pango depends on glib regardless of the back-end. Cairo depends on more
> stuff, since it depends on FreeType anyway, but Cairo's presence is pretty
> much a given on desktop Unices. On MacOS/Windows (assuming Pango and glib),
> Cairo could use native font rendering instead of FreeType so it might
> actually be better.

Thanks. That clarified a lot for me.

>> Same module or a separate one?
>
>
> As I already wrote, a separate module is necessary anyway to remove the
> direct dependency on Fribidi, and if possible FontConfig too - especially if
> HarfBuzz is going to replace Fribidi and/or FontConfig down the line.

I think you meant Pango here. Pango replaces Fribidi and FontConfig so
it had better go in a separate module. HarfBuzz, as far as I know,
replaces neither so it can go in the same freetype module, which is
what jb suggested. And of course it can be isolated in its own source
files.