[gentoo-desktop-research] One research problem we could research

[gentoo-desktop-research] One research problem we could research

[Paul de Vrieze]

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Hi all,

I have one thing we might opt to research (after we have the project 
procedures done). We might want to look into making good-looking fonts 
available standardly.

In a standard install esp. the helvetica and other adobe fonts are really 
ugly. This should not be needed. Also we could try to make sure that the 
fonts have exactly the same size as on windows in the browsers as there are 
still webdesigners that work with font size assumptions for their layout.

Also I read a report complaining about openoffice fonts being ugly esp. on 
gentoo (the only distro named). We should not just let that be, but try to 
improve, and also write up a good manual on how and why fonts are beautiful/
ugly.

Paul

- -- 
Paul de Vrieze
Gentoo Developer
Mail: pauldv@gentoo.org
Homepage: http://www.devrieze.net
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Re: [gentoo-desktop-research] One research problem we could research

[foser]

On Thu, 2003-10-09 at 11:21, Paul de Vrieze wrote:
> I have one thing we might opt to research (after we have the project 
> procedures done). We might want to look into making good-looking fonts 
> available standardly.

This is already being worked on, but we're waiting for some improvements
in the xfree/fontconfig area to make this happen. It just isn't powerful
enough at the moment.

Anyway, this suggestion is very western centered, if you mess with
defaults you might easily end up with weird results for non-western
users.

> In a standard install esp. the helvetica and other adobe fonts are really 
> ugly. This should not be needed. Also we could try to make sure that the 
> fonts have exactly the same size as on windows in the browsers as there are 
> still webdesigners that work with font size assumptions for their layout.

You should install exactly the same fonts to have the same effect and
thats also a question of installing windows fonts or not. KDE just has
bad font defaults, helvetica everywhere is just a bad choice. Current
fontconfig setups should solve most of these problems afaik.

> Also I read a report complaining about openoffice fonts being ugly esp. on 
> gentoo (the only distro named). We should not just let that be, but try to 
> improve, and also write up a good manual on how and why fonts are beautiful/
> ugly.

afaik OO uses its own (outdated?) freetype etc. Do from source ebuilds
have these problems too ? They could use the system libs and settings.

- foser


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Re: [gentoo-desktop-research] One research problem we could research

[Paul de Vrieze]

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On Thursday 09 October 2003 15:09, foser wrote:
> On Thu, 2003-10-09 at 11:21, Paul de Vrieze wrote:
> > I have one thing we might opt to research (after we have the project
> > procedures done). We might want to look into making good-looking fonts
> > available standardly.
>
> This is already being worked on, but we're waiting for some improvements
> in the xfree/fontconfig area to make this happen. It just isn't powerful
> enough at the moment.

If that is the only way then we might come to the conclusion that the best 
solution is to wait. I do think though that at least good documentation might 
be another solution.

> Anyway, this suggestion is very western centered, if you mess with
> defaults you might easily end up with weird results for non-western
> users.
>

I did not mean to be western-centered. I was suggesting that we look into 
improving the fonts. I don't want non-western fonts to be looking worse 
because of it. Actually did you try sometime to run konsole with 
LC_CTYPE="zh_CN", it is really ugly, and it should be possible to fix this.

> You should install exactly the same fonts to have the same effect and
> thats also a question of installing windows fonts or not. KDE just has
> bad font defaults, helvetica everywhere is just a bad choice. Current
> fontconfig setups should solve most of these problems afaik.
>

I agree that helvetica is a bad choice, but we might look into making 
helvetica look not too bad at least in some cases

> afaik OO uses its own (outdated?) freetype etc. Do from source ebuilds
> have these problems too ? They could use the system libs and settings.

I always use from source openoffice. I don't perceive any font problems. In 
the from-source version we do indeed use the latest freetype.

Paul

- -- 
Paul de Vrieze
Gentoo Developer
Mail: pauldv@gentoo.org
Homepage: http://www.devrieze.net
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Re: [gentoo-desktop-research] One research problem we could research

[foser]

On Thu, 2003-10-09 at 15:22, Paul de Vrieze wrote:
> If that is the only way then we might come to the conclusion that the best 
> solution is to wait. I do think though that at least good documentation might 
> be another solution.

Documenting fonts is like setting defaults : a disaster, what you like
on your monitor looks pretty bad on another persons LCD, etc. It's so
much a personal thing that setting up defaults will always upset some
users. And should such a document support legacy font support (xfs, xft1
etc. ?). I guess one could set up a document describing what is possible
in configuring xft2/fontconfig.

> > Anyway, this suggestion is very western centered, if you mess with
> > defaults you might easily end up with weird results for non-western
> > users.
> >
> 
> I did not mean to be western-centered. I was suggesting that we look into 
> improving the fonts. I don't want non-western fonts to be looking worse 
> because of it. Actually did you try sometime to run konsole with 
> LC_CTYPE="zh_CN", it is really ugly, and it should be possible to fix this.

My point more is that if you set it up for latin charset users (what we
obviously would do) you might make mistakes you aren't even aware of. It
needs to be coordinated with asian,arabic,hebrew devs/users for as far
we have them. There already has been some discussion on setting this up
in a configurable fashion for different charsets, but that needs the
improved fontconfig.

> > You should install exactly the same fonts to have the same effect and
> > thats also a question of installing windows fonts or not. KDE just has
> > bad font defaults, helvetica everywhere is just a bad choice. Current
> > fontconfig setups should solve most of these problems afaik.
> >
> 
> I agree that helvetica is a bad choice, but we might look into making 
> helvetica look not too bad at least in some cases

The problem usually is that it uses the the standard xfree bitmap stuff,
you can't make that look good. Just use fontconfig identifiers like
'sans' for fonts. That should also make the  looks of GTK+ and QT apps
more alike (for as far this doesn't happen already, been a while since i
did a KDE install).

> > afaik OO uses its own (outdated?) freetype etc. Do from source ebuilds
> > have these problems too ? They could use the system libs and settings.
> 
> I always use from source openoffice. I don't perceive any font problems. In 
> the from-source version we do indeed use the latest freetype.

But not the system one (yes im too lazy to look at ebuilds atm ;)) ? If
there's no real good reason for that, it should be changed.

- foser


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Re: [gentoo-desktop-research] One research problem we could research

[dams]

foser <foser@gentoo.org> said:

> On Thu, 2003-10-09 at 15:22, Paul de Vrieze wrote:
>> If that is the only way then we might come to the conclusion that the best 
>> solution is to wait. I do think though that at least good documentation might 
>> be another solution.
>
> Documenting fonts is like setting defaults : a disaster, what you like
> on your monitor looks pretty bad on another persons LCD, etc. It's so
> much a personal thing that setting up defaults will always upset some
> users. And should such a document support legacy font support (xfs, xft1
> etc. ?). I guess one could set up a document describing what is possible
> in configuring xft2/fontconfig.

If I see correctly, the things that makes ugly fonts :

- bad looking fonts
- missing fonts (so it uses not suited ones)
- badly configured xft*/fontconfig
- software not using last freetype/xft ...

( feel free to add reasons if I missed som)

So, to clarify, we could :
- run some test to see if fonts are ugly in common use in different languages
(I'll do some test cause I have a fresh gentoo)
- go through default available fonts (after having emerged kde and gnome), and
list the ugliest ones
- check the fontconfig, xft configurations
- list known software that doesn't use the good font systems.

Whith that done we'll be able to see where the problems are, wnd decide if we
want to :
- wait
- try to get new fonts (many additional set of fonts by default)
- change font configuration
- change software so that they use latest technology (I have seen in the past
some patchs to make this and that use freetype2, I think OpenOffice had such a
patch, but I thougt it was in the main now)

In addition, we can think of making font managment easy for the user. (I wrote
the font managment tool for mandrakeLinux, he had some working features, but
uses old font tools).

>> I did not mean to be western-centered. I was suggesting that we look into 
>> improving the fonts. I don't want non-western fonts to be looking worse 
>> because of it. Actually did you try sometime to run konsole with 
>> LC_CTYPE="zh_CN", it is really ugly, and it should be possible to fix this.
>
> My point more is that if you set it up for latin charset users (what we
> obviously would do) you might make mistakes you aren't even aware of. It
> needs to be coordinated with asian,arabic,hebrew devs/users for as far
> we have them. There already has been some discussion on setting this up
> in a configurable fashion for different charsets, but that needs the
> improved fontconfig.

btw do we have i18n/fonts gurus @ gentoo?

>
>> > You should install exactly the same fonts to have the same effect and
>> > thats also a question of installing windows fonts or not. KDE just has
>> > bad font defaults, helvetica everywhere is just a bad choice. Current
>> > fontconfig setups should solve most of these problems afaik.
>> >
>> 
>> I agree that helvetica is a bad choice, but we might look into making 
>> helvetica look not too bad at least in some cases
>
> The problem usually is that it uses the the standard xfree bitmap stuff,
> you can't make that look good. Just use fontconfig identifiers like
> 'sans' for fonts. That should also make the  looks of GTK+ and QT apps
> more alike (for as far this doesn't happen already, been a while since i
> did a KDE install).
>
>> > afaik OO uses its own (outdated?) freetype etc. Do from source ebuilds
>> > have these problems too ? They could use the system libs and settings.
>> 
>> I always use from source openoffice. I don't perceive any font problems. In 
>> the from-source version we do indeed use the latest freetype.
>
> But not the system one (yes im too lazy to look at ebuilds atm ;)) ? If
> there's no real good reason for that, it should be changed.

grepping the ebuild shows :

# Enable Bytecode Interpreter for freetype ...
append-flags "-DTT_CONFIG_OPTION_BYTECODE_INTERPRETER"

and in the SRC_URI there is a 
mirror://sourceforge/freetype/freetype-${FT_VER}.tar.bz2"

-- 
dams

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Re: [gentoo-desktop-research] One research problem we could research

[Paul de Vrieze]

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On Thursday 09 October 2003 16:09, dams@idm.fr wrote:
>
> If I see correctly, the things that makes ugly fonts :
>
> - bad looking fonts
> - missing fonts (so it uses not suited ones)
> - badly configured xft*/fontconfig
> - software not using last freetype/xft ...
- - bitmapped fonts that are inadvertently scaled (misconfiguration)

>
> btw do we have i18n/fonts gurus @ gentoo?

No idea.

Paul

- -- 
Paul de Vrieze
Gentoo Developer
Mail: pauldv@gentoo.org
Homepage: http://www.devrieze.net
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Re: [gentoo-desktop-research] One research problem we could research

[foser]

On Thu, 2003-10-09 at 16:09, dams@idm.fr wrote:
> If I see correctly, the things that makes ugly fonts :
> 
> - bad looking fonts
> - missing fonts (so it uses not suited ones)
> - badly configured xft*/fontconfig
> - software not using last freetype/xft ...
> 
> ( feel free to add reasons if I missed som)
> 
> So, to clarify, we could :
> - run some test to see if fonts are ugly in common use in different languages
> (I'll do some test cause I have a fresh gentoo)

Here you already have a problem, the perception of font quality differs
per-person and language. Some people really dislike AA (requires
different fonts to be good), others use different types of displays,
etc. And not latin language users usually know that they need extra
packs to have decent support, don't expect anything non-latin to look
good by default atm.

> - go through default available fonts (after having emerged kde and gnome), and
> list the ugliest ones

Again this is mostly a personal thing and it currently also depends on
how you install xfree (this is in flux).

> - check the fontconfig, xft configurations
> - list known software that doesn't use the good font systems.

That is not something up to us really, i don't feel it is our duty to
make legacy applications look good, what matters to me is to get a
current desktop (KDE/GNOME/XFCE4) reasonably ok/consistent looking
fontwise (for as far as it isn't).

> Whith that done we'll be able to see where the problems are, wnd decide if we
> want to :
> - wait
> - try to get new fonts (many additional set of fonts by default)
> - change font configuration
> - change software so that they use latest technology (I have seen in the past
> some patchs to make this and that use freetype2, I think OpenOffice had such a
> patch, but I thougt it was in the main now)

It uses freetype2 allright, but it's own copy.

> In addition, we can think of making font managment easy for the user. (I wrote
> the font managment tool for mandrakeLinux, he had some working features, but
> uses old font tools).

Ehm, no please. Config defaults should be good enough, users should not
be exposed to this via another GUI. Gnome already has a sufficient font
settings panel and ways to install fonts, so does KDE to my knowledge. I
don't like more ways to set the same thing on the same level (in this
case on GUI level), it is confusing.

> btw do we have i18n/fonts gurus @ gentoo?

a few i18n wannabees.. but they're not the most active devs. I'm
supposed to be the font guru cause i've handled bugs/updates in these
things for some time and did most of the xft2 move coordination/work.

Although they are connected, setting up fonts has little to do with
i18n.

- foser


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Re: [gentoo-desktop-research] One research problem we could research

[Paul de Vrieze]

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On Thursday 09 October 2003 16:31, foser wrote:
>
> Here you already have a problem, the perception of font quality differs
> per-person and language. Some people really dislike AA (requires
> different fonts to be good), others use different types of displays,
> etc. And not latin language users usually know that they need extra
> packs to have decent support, don't expect anything non-latin to look
> good by default atm.
>

I think that everyone agrees that ragged fonts are ugly (not rendered as 
intended). This happens mainly without aa. Personally I use aa for fonts that 
are outside the "normal range", so I would like that we try to make things 
look ok with both.

For non-latin, I think we should look into making clear what needs to be done 
for making it look good, which packages should be installed etc. Not all 
people who would use those fonts know that.

> Again this is mostly a personal thing and it currently also depends on
> how you install xfree (this is in flux).

We can at least identify the misrendered ones. (At least with -core, with qt, 
and with gtk2/pango). Those should render approximately the same, sometimes 
they don't. That might be fixable.

>
> > - check the fontconfig, xft configurations
> > - list known software that doesn't use the good font systems.
>
> That is not something up to us really, i don't feel it is our duty to
> make legacy applications look good, what matters to me is to get a
> current desktop (KDE/GNOME/XFCE4) reasonably ok/consistent looking
> fontwise (for as far as it isn't).
>

I agree, with the exception that I think that core fonts should be at least 
reasonable.

> > In addition, we can think of making font managment easy for the user. (I
> > wrote the font managment tool for mandrakeLinux, he had some working
> > features, but uses old font tools).
>
> Ehm, no please. Config defaults should be good enough, users should not
> be exposed to this via another GUI. Gnome already has a sufficient font
> settings panel and ways to install fonts, so does KDE to my knowledge. I
> don't like more ways to set the same thing on the same level (in this
> case on GUI level), it is confusing.
>

This should indeed not be a priority.

Paul


- -- 
Paul de Vrieze
Gentoo Developer
Mail: pauldv@gentoo.org
Homepage: http://www.devrieze.net
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Re: [gentoo-desktop-research] One research problem we could research

[foser]

On Thu, 2003-10-09 at 16:46, Paul de Vrieze wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
> 
> On Thursday 09 October 2003 16:31, foser wrote:
> >
> > Here you already have a problem, the perception of font quality differs
> > per-person and language. Some people really dislike AA (requires
> > different fonts to be good), others use different types of displays,
> > etc. And not latin language users usually know that they need extra
> > packs to have decent support, don't expect anything non-latin to look
> > good by default atm.
> >
> 
> I think that everyone agrees that ragged fonts are ugly (not rendered as 
> intended). This happens mainly without aa. Personally I use aa for fonts that 
> are outside the "normal range", so I would like that we try to make things 
> look ok with both.

If you don't use AA you shouldn't be using TTF fonts, it's a whole
different setup. In one way i agree with users that in essence good
bitmap fonts are better for the desktop, but good bitmap fonts cost $$$.

> For non-latin, I think we should look into making clear what needs to be done 
> for making it look good, which packages should be installed etc. Not all 
> people who would use those fonts know that.

I believe they do, otherwise they're stuck with incomplete charsets or
characters from different packs with different look. Anyway, this is all
part of a much bigger picture.

> > Again this is mostly a personal thing and it currently also depends on
> > how you install xfree (this is in flux).
> 
> We can at least identify the misrendered ones. (At least with -core, with qt, 
> and with gtk2/pango). Those should render approximately the same, sometimes 
> they don't. That might be fixable.

One and the same font renders the same everywhere, only config settings
influence this (well except for OO maybe).

- foser


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Re: [gentoo-desktop-research] One research problem we could research

[Paul de Vrieze]

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On Thursday 09 October 2003 17:37, foser wrote:
> >
> > I think that everyone agrees that ragged fonts are ugly (not rendered as
> > intended). This happens mainly without aa. Personally I use aa for fonts
> > that are outside the "normal range", so I would like that we try to make
> > things look ok with both.
>
> If you don't use AA you shouldn't be using TTF fonts, it's a whole
> different setup. In one way i agree with users that in essence good
> bitmap fonts are better for the desktop, but good bitmap fonts cost $$$.

Well, actually the ttf fonts are the best looking on my system (yes and non-AA 
in the sizes 8-17 as I don't like fuzzy fonts). I agree that bitmap fonts 
give better results, but only if they are not scaled. What also goes wrong 
sometimes is ps fonts.

>
> > For non-latin, I think we should look into making clear what needs to be
> > done for making it look good, which packages should be installed etc. Not
> > all people who would use those fonts know that.
>
> I believe they do, otherwise they're stuck with incomplete charsets or
> characters from different packs with different look. Anyway, this is all
> part of a much bigger picture.

They have to, if say, the desktop-guide would give that information it would 
save them (and me, as my girlfriend wants to be able to read and write 
Chinese (simplified)) a lot of headaches.

> >
> > We can at least identify the misrendered ones. (At least with -core, with
> > qt, and with gtk2/pango). Those should render approximately the same,
> > sometimes they don't. That might be fixable.
>
> One and the same font renders the same everywhere, only config settings
> influence this (well except for OO maybe).

And the same fonts are chosen for the same name. fontconfig plays it's own 
little role, just as the core font protocol does. And pango and qt as 
wrappers around the font system.

Paul

-- 
Paul de Vrieze
Researcher
Mail: pauldv@cs.kun.nl
Homepage: http://www.devrieze.net



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Re: [gentoo-desktop-research] One research problem we could research

[foser]

On Thu, 2003-10-09 at 20:00, Paul de Vrieze wrote:
> Well, actually the ttf fonts are the best looking on my system (yes and non-AA 
> in the sizes 8-17 as I don't like fuzzy fonts). I agree that bitmap fonts 
> give better results, but only if they are not scaled. What also goes wrong 
> sometimes is ps fonts.

You shouldn't scale bitmaps.. i mean _quality_ bitmaps, where there's
proper bitmaps for every size.

> They have to, if say, the desktop-guide would give that information it would 
> save them (and me, as my girlfriend wants to be able to read and write 
> Chinese (simplified)) a lot of headaches.

Nah, much to dense for a desktop-guide. An extra doc referenced ok i can
see that, but this should be optional info. For a normal user the
defaults should do. 

Documentation is only as good as it is thin, see the current install
docs for how it gets out of hand. In my opinion there's way too much
unneeded cruft in there, all these little notes and subsections make it
less and less usable. We should beware of that phenomenon in another
important user guide. 

> And the same fonts are chosen for the same name. fontconfig plays it's own 
> little role, just as the core font protocol does. And pango and qt as 
> wrappers around the font system.

Only fontconfig and freetype influence font rendering. And fontconfig
probably plays the major role in seting things up.

- foser


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Re: [gentoo-desktop-research] One research problem we could research

[Paul de Vrieze]

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On Thursday 09 October 2003 23:29, foser wrote:
>
> Only fontconfig and freetype influence font rendering. And fontconfig
> probably plays the major role in seting things up.
>
Did you ever see how earlier versions of qt misrendered things? The 3.2 
version is the first one that probably can use fontconfig fonts without them 
being available through the core protocol. In this respect pango/gtk/gnome 
are much better.

Paul

-- 
Paul de Vrieze
Gentoo Developer
Mail: pauldv@gentoo.org
Homepage: http://www.devrieze.net

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Re: [gentoo-desktop-research] One research problem we could research

[dams]

Paul de Vrieze <pauldv@gentoo.org> said:

> On Thursday 09 October 2003 23:29, foser wrote:
>>
>> Only fontconfig and freetype influence font rendering. And fontconfig
>> probably plays the major role in seting things up.
>>
> Did you ever see how earlier versions of qt misrendered things? The 3.2 
> version is the first one that probably can use fontconfig fonts without them 
> being available through the core protocol. In this respect pango/gtk/gnome 
> are much better.

Are now qt and gnome/pango technically ok to use correctly fontconfig fonts? If
yes, we can concentrate on this, because other technology qhould desappear in
middle/long term.


-- 
dams

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Re: [gentoo-desktop-research] One research problem we could research

[dams]

foser <foser@gentoo.org> said:

> On Thu, 2003-10-09 at 16:09, dams@idm.fr wrote:
>> If I see correctly, the things that makes ugly fonts :
>> 
>> - bad looking fonts
>> - missing fonts (so it uses not suited ones)
>> - badly configured xft*/fontconfig
>> - software not using last freetype/xft ...
>> 
>> ( feel free to add reasons if I missed som)
>> 
>> So, to clarify, we could :
>> - run some test to see if fonts are ugly in common use in different languages
>> (I'll do some test cause I have a fresh gentoo)
>
> Here you already have a problem, the perception of font quality differs
> per-person and language. Some people really dislike AA (requires
> different fonts to be good), others use different types of displays,
> etc. And not latin language users usually know that they need extra
> packs to have decent support, don't expect anything non-latin to look
> good by default atm.

yeah, that's a big issue actually, but that is related to the i18n problem.
That is, there is no step in the installation to choose your localization, so
that everything takes it in account. pauldv told me it requires changes in
portage.

For the subjective way of testing, of course you are right, but you can test
gentoo by default, then other distro by default, or windows or other OS by
default (for those who have them). So for the same person, you'll be able to
say : this is better than that...

That's only theoric, because that involve a lot of testing (test gentoo, 2
other distros, windows and macos) and multiple testers (from various
locations).

Maybe we could ask non western testers to help.

>
>> - go through default available fonts (after having emerged kde and gnome), and
>> list the ugliest ones
>
> Again this is mostly a personal thing and it currently also depends on
> how you install xfree (this is in flux).

in flux ?

>
>> - check the fontconfig, xft configurations
>> - list known software that doesn't use the good font systems.
>
> That is not something up to us really, i don't feel it is our duty to
> make legacy applications look good, what matters to me is to get a
> current desktop (KDE/GNOME/XFCE4) reasonably ok/consistent looking
> fontwise (for as far as it isn't).

hmm, what is our duty then? what are the applications that we should check the
look? In addition, I don't want us to correct them, but only to test them, see
if a problem is general or only on 3 ebuilds, sadly used by a big amount of
people.

>
>> Whith that done we'll be able to see where the problems are, wnd decide if we
>> want to :
>> - wait
>> - try to get new fonts (many additional set of fonts by default)
>> - change font configuration
>> - change software so that they use latest technology (I have seen in the past
>> some patchs to make this and that use freetype2, I think OpenOffice had such a
>> patch, but I thougt it was in the main now)
>
> It uses freetype2 allright, but it's own copy.
>

ok

>> In addition, we can think of making font managment easy for the user. (I wrote
>> the font managment tool for mandrakeLinux, he had some working features, but
>> uses old font tools).
>
> Ehm, no please. Config defaults should be good enough, users should not
> be exposed to this via another GUI. Gnome already has a sufficient font
> settings panel and ways to install fonts, so does KDE to my knowledge. I
> don't like more ways to set the same thing on the same level (in this
> case on GUI level), it is confusing.
>
>> btw do we have i18n/fonts gurus @ gentoo?
>
> a few i18n wannabees.. but they're not the most active devs. I'm
> supposed to be the font guru cause i've handled bugs/updates in these
> things for some time and did most of the xft2 move coordination/work.

good ! hello guru :)

>
> Although they are connected, setting up fonts has little to do with
> i18n.

well, I'm looking for the way to see if the fonts look right in various
language. We can ask volunteers to do that, but it'll take time. If one person
has good knowledge of i18n he might already cover 80% of validation

-- 
dams

--
gentoo-desktop-research@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-desktop-research] One research problem we could research

[foser]

On Thu, 2003-10-09 at 16:46, dams@idm.fr wrote:
> yeah, that's a big issue actually, but that is related to the i18n problem.
> That is, there is no step in the installation to choose your localization, so
> that everything takes it in account. pauldv told me it requires changes in
> portage.

Hardly, it needs a different approach in some cases. I could see font
setup happen all outside of portage, Portage changes take too long to be
taken into account and font configuration is pretty centralized these
days.

> For the subjective way of testing, of course you are right, but you can test
> gentoo by default, then other distro by default, or windows or other OS by
> default (for those who have them). So for the same person, you'll be able to
> say : this is better than that...

This is still subjective. Gentoo defaults should stay as close as
possible to upstream defaults in my opinion.

> That's only theoric, because that involve a lot of testing (test gentoo, 2
> other distros, windows and macos) and multiple testers (from various
> locations).
> 
> Maybe we could ask non western testers to help.

Yeah, when a framework is set up and it's about tweaking only. At the
moment it is not relevant.

> in flux ?

Things concerning this have been in the works. Actually it is waiting
for that until a next step is taken, although it could maybe use an
impulse, but this is not all on Gentoo level.

> hmm, what is our duty then? what are the applications that we should check the
> look? In addition, I don't want us to correct them, but only to test them, see
> if a problem is general or only on 3 ebuilds, sadly used by a big amount of
> people.

It's easy to figure out what GUI applications are affected, mostly
non-recent GTK/QT apps that use the old ways to handle fonts.

> > Although they are connected, setting up fonts has little to do with
> > i18n.
> 
> well, I'm looking for the way to see if the fonts look right in various
> language. We can ask volunteers to do that, but it'll take time. If one person
> has good knowledge of i18n he might already cover 80% of validation

Nah, as said i18n has little to do with fonts setup, it takes a native
reader to assess what fonts look best for a certain language or
preferably a lot of them to come to some good agreement.

- foser


--
gentoo-desktop-research@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-desktop-research] One research problem we could research

[Paul de Vrieze]

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On Thursday 09 October 2003 15:43, foser wrote:
>
> But not the system one (yes im too lazy to look at ebuilds atm ;)) ? If
> there's no real good reason for that, it should be changed.

No, doing that is next to impossible (except by using LD_PRELOAD) as it would 
require actually changing openoffice to do that. Openoffice basically runs in 
its own library environment. Probably they do that to make it run allways, 
while not needing to have a static binary.

Paul

- -- 
Paul de Vrieze
Gentoo Developer
Mail: pauldv@gentoo.org
Homepage: http://www.devrieze.net
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Re: [gentoo-desktop-research] One research problem we could research

[Paul de Vrieze]

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On Thursday 09 October 2003 15:43, foser wrote:
> On Thu, 2003-10-09 at 15:22, Paul de Vrieze wrote:
> > If that is the only way then we might come to the conclusion that the
> > best solution is to wait. I do think though that at least good
> > documentation might be another solution.
>
> Documenting fonts is like setting defaults : a disaster, what you like
> on your monitor looks pretty bad on another persons LCD, etc. It's so
> much a personal thing that setting up defaults will always upset some
> users. And should such a document support legacy font support (xfs, xft1
> etc. ?). I guess one could set up a document describing what is possible
> in configuring xft2/fontconfig.

I was thinking more like an updated font deuglyfication guide (http://
www.tldp.org/HOWTO/FDU/) but then specific for gentoo and without all the 
fontserver and netscape communicator crap, and with fontconfig etc. 

Paul

- -- 
Paul de Vrieze
Gentoo Developer
Mail: pauldv@gentoo.org
Homepage: http://www.devrieze.net
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Re: [gentoo-desktop-research] One research problem we could research

[foser]

On Thu, 2003-10-09 at 16:14, Paul de Vrieze wrote:
> I was thinking more like an updated font deuglyfication guide (http://
> www.tldp.org/HOWTO/FDU/) but then specific for gentoo and without all the 
> fontserver and netscape communicator crap, and with fontconfig etc. 

That is terribly complicated and outdated for a current setup, it should
only focus on xft2/fontconfig.

And i dislike the naming because it is suggestive, should be very
neutral named.

- foser


--
gentoo-desktop-research@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-desktop-research] One research problem we could research

[Paul de Vrieze]

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On Thursday 09 October 2003 16:33, foser wrote:
> On Thu, 2003-10-09 at 16:14, Paul de Vrieze wrote:
> > I was thinking more like an updated font deuglyfication guide (http://
> > www.tldp.org/HOWTO/FDU/) but then specific for gentoo and without all the
> > fontserver and netscape communicator crap, and with fontconfig etc.
>
> That is terribly complicated and outdated for a current setup, it should
> only focus on xft2/fontconfig.
>
I think a small section on making sure that core fonts are reasonable (for 
xterm, xedit, etc.) and most on xft2/fontconfig. The other things are the 
crap I was talking about.

> And i dislike the naming because it is suggestive, should be very
> neutral named.

I have no problem at all with that. Although at the time that doc was written, 
fonts (esp. netscape's) were indeed ugly.

Paul

-- 
Paul de Vrieze
Researcher
Mail: pauldv@cs.kun.nl
Homepage: http://www.devrieze.net



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Re: [gentoo-desktop-research] One research problem we could research

[Tiemo Kieft]

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> Documenting fonts is like setting defaults : a disaster, what you like
> on your monitor looks pretty bad on another persons LCD, etc. It's so
> much a personal thing that setting up defaults will always upset some
> users. And should such a document support legacy font support (xfs, xft1
> etc. ?). I guess one could set up a document describing what is possible
> in configuring xft2/fontconfig.

We could ask our users what they want instead of just deciding. If a
large majority hates KDE's default settings (for instance) why might as
well change them. The forums could be a good place to begin with, I
think the user is very important...

-- 
Gentoo developer (GDP & Desktop Research)
Tiemo Kieft <blubber@gentoo.org>
http://dev.gentoo.org/~blubber/

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Re: [gentoo-desktop-research] One research problem we could research

[foser]

On Thu, 2003-10-09 at 19:21, Tiemo Kieft wrote:
> We could ask our users what they want instead of just deciding. If a
> large majority hates KDE's default settings (for instance) why might as
> well change them. The forums could be a good place to begin with, I
> think the user is very important...

I personally don't see forum users (especially the noisy ones) as
representative for 'the Gentoo user'.

What would be better is to move changes into ~ and poll reactions on
forums/mailinglists/irc and use those different reactions as guidelines.

- foser


--
gentoo-desktop-research@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-desktop-research] One research problem we could research

[Tiemo Kieft]

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> I personally don't see forum users (especially the noisy ones) as
> representative for 'the Gentoo user'.

Your right

> What would be better is to move changes into ~ and poll reactions on
> forums/mailinglists/irc and use those different reactions as guidelines.

This would be better.

-- 
Gentoo developer (GDP & Desktop Research)
Tiemo Kieft <blubber@gentoo.org>
http://dev.gentoo.org/~blubber/

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Re: [gentoo-desktop-research] One research problem we could research

[dams]

Tiemo Kieft <blubber@gentoo.org> said:

>> Documenting fonts is like setting defaults : a disaster, what you like
>> on your monitor looks pretty bad on another persons LCD, etc. It's so
>> much a personal thing that setting up defaults will always upset some
>> users. And should such a document support legacy font support (xfs, xft1
>> etc. ?). I guess one could set up a document describing what is possible
>> in configuring xft2/fontconfig.
>
> We could ask our users what they want instead of just deciding. If a
> large majority hates KDE's default settings (for instance) why might as
> well change them. The forums could be a good place to begin with, I
> think the user is very important...

I prefer proposing things, then see reactions and feedbacks, instead of
starting endless discussions, especially in the gentoo community. If you come
with precise proposition, it's easy to say yes/no to it, and to make things
evolve quickly.

So of course users are the goal, but we want to propose things, not discuss 3
months long


-- 
dams

--
gentoo-desktop-research@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-desktop-research] One research problem we could research

[Paul de Vrieze]

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On Friday 10 October 2003 11:31, dams@idm.fr wrote:
>
> I prefer proposing things, then see reactions and feedbacks, instead of
> starting endless discussions, especially in the gentoo community. If you
> come with precise proposition, it's easy to say yes/no to it, and to make
> things evolve quickly.
>
> So of course users are the goal, but we want to propose things, not discuss
> 3 months long

I agree. From my experience asking the comunity about anything than a full 
plan does not get you far. The discussions tend to loose their point at some 
time. Of course you can at a point before implementation ask for opinions. 
But you will need to make the decision yourself in the end.

Paul

-- 
Paul de Vrieze
Gentoo Developer
Mail: pauldv@gentoo.org
Homepage: http://www.devrieze.net

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Re: [gentoo-desktop-research] Fonts rendering and configuration Was: One research problem we could research

[dams]

Paul de Vrieze <pauldv@gentoo.org> said:

> On Friday 10 October 2003 11:31, dams@idm.fr wrote:
>>
>> I prefer proposing things, then see reactions and feedbacks, instead of
>> starting endless discussions, especially in the gentoo community. If you
>> come with precise proposition, it's easy to say yes/no to it, and to make
>> things evolve quickly.
>>
>> So of course users are the goal, but we want to propose things, not discuss
>> 3 months long
>
> I agree. From my experience asking the comunity about anything than a full 
> plan does not get you far. The discussions tend to loose their point at some 
> time. Of course you can at a point before implementation ask for opinions. 
> But you will need to make the decision yourself in the end.

yep.

Do you have (foser and you) some kind of research directions for this font
problem?

I've noticed in the thread :

-changing default by configuring fontconfig better : be carefull of subjective
way of doing this, and avoid crashing non western font rendering

-writing documentation : what is the dubject : only fontconfig configuration?
 how to avoid transformation in long and useless doc?

btw I changed the subject. I hope I didn't break the thread for mail reader
that don't look at references

-- 
dams

--
gentoo-desktop-research@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-desktop-research] Fonts rendering and configuration Was: One research problem we could research

[Paul de Vrieze]

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On Friday 10 October 2003 11:46, dams@idm.fr wrote:
> Paul de Vrieze <pauldv@gentoo.org> said:
>
> yep.
>
> Do you have (foser and you) some kind of research directions for this font
> problem?
>
> I've noticed in the thread :
>
> -changing default by configuring fontconfig better : be carefull of
> subjective way of doing this, and avoid crashing non western font rendering
>
> -writing documentation : what is the dubject : only fontconfig
> configuration? how to avoid transformation in long and useless doc?
>

I think the documentation should also contain minimal corefonts docs (standard 
X font installation for apps that don't use Xft2/fontconfig (yet)). And how 
to best setup your X (For example if you make sure that the resolution that X 
reports is square, your fonts will look a lot better)

Paul

-- 
Paul de Vrieze
Gentoo Developer
Mail: pauldv@gentoo.org
Homepage: http://www.devrieze.net

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Re: [gentoo-desktop-research] Fonts rendering and configuration Was: One research problem we could research

[dams]

Paul de Vrieze <pauldv@gentoo.org> said:

> On Friday 10 October 2003 11:46, dams@idm.fr wrote:
>> Paul de Vrieze <pauldv@gentoo.org> said:
>>
>> yep.
>>
>> Do you have (foser and you) some kind of research directions for this font
>> problem?
>>
>> I've noticed in the thread :
>>
>> -changing default by configuring fontconfig better : be carefull of
>> subjective way of doing this, and avoid crashing non western font rendering
>>
>> -writing documentation : what is the dubject : only fontconfig
>> configuration? how to avoid transformation in long and useless doc?
>>
>
> I think the documentation should also contain minimal corefonts docs (standard 
> X font installation for apps that don't use Xft2/fontconfig (yet)).

Yes that's right

> And how 
> to best setup your X (For example if you make sure that the resolution that X 
> reports is square, your fonts will look a lot better)

oh that sounds good :)
Sure, a list of tricks to make it better would be great

-- 
dams

--
gentoo-desktop-research@gentoo.org mailing list

[gentoo-desktop-research] Dead?

[Gerald J. Normandin Jr.]

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Has the list died?
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Re: [gentoo-desktop-research] Dead?

[Tiemo Kieft]

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On Mon, 2003-10-20 at 05:52, Gerald J. Normandin Jr. wrote:
> Has the list died?
no :)

-- 
Gentoo developer (GDP & Desktop Research)
Tiemo Kieft <blubber@gentoo.org>
http://dev.gentoo.org/~blubber/

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[gentoo-desktop-research] desktop problems

[dams]

Here is a repetition of what could describe a desktop problem that fall into
our field of research. What do you think?


For me, a desktop problem is not always a problem wich involve window
managers, or graphical interface.

I would tend to say that desktop means workstation for private use, client
side. That is, everything UI oriented. That includes windows manager, but also
config programs, installation problems, software installations, and simple
(client-side personal use) system managment. By client side I mean everything
that does not use servers. So setting internet/lan connection is desktop, but
setting a ftp server is not.

In addition, bringing hardware to work for home user is also part of the
job.

-- 
dams

--
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Re: [gentoo-desktop-research] desktop problems

[Paul de Vrieze]

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On Monday 20 October 2003 12:47, dams@idm.fr wrote:
> Here is a repetition of what could describe a desktop problem that fall
> into our field of research. What do you think?
>
>
> For me, a desktop problem is not always a problem wich involve window
> managers, or graphical interface.
>
> I would tend to say that desktop means workstation for private use, client
> side. That is, everything UI oriented. That includes windows manager, but
> also config programs, installation problems, software installations, and
> simple (client-side personal use) system managment. By client side I mean
> everything that does not use servers. So setting internet/lan connection is
> desktop, but setting a ftp server is not.
>
> In addition, bringing hardware to work for home user is also part of the
> job.

I agree with this. Everything associated with a workstation is within the 
desktop focus. So setting up simple lan connections is related, multihomed 
machines not.

Paul

-- 
Paul de Vrieze
Gentoo Developer
Mail: pauldv@gentoo.org
Homepage: http://www.devrieze.net

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Re: [gentoo-desktop-research] desktop problems

[dams]

Paul de Vrieze <pauldv@gentoo.org> said:

> On Monday 20 October 2003 12:47, dams@idm.fr wrote:
>> Here is a repetition of what could describe a desktop problem that fall
>> into our field of research. What do you think?
>>
>>
>> For me, a desktop problem is not always a problem wich involve window
>> managers, or graphical interface.
>>
>> I would tend to say that desktop means workstation for private use, client
>> side. That is, everything UI oriented. That includes windows manager, but
>> also config programs, installation problems, software installations, and
>> simple (client-side personal use) system managment. By client side I mean
>> everything that does not use servers. So setting internet/lan connection is
>> desktop, but setting a ftp server is not.
>>
>> In addition, bringing hardware to work for home user is also part of the
>> job.
>
> I agree with this. Everything associated with a workstation is within the 
> desktop focus. So setting up simple lan connections is related, multihomed 
> machines not.

Ok, I think we can start something based on this.
so we have a first definition of problems that are handled by us, and some
basic descriptions of how to handle this (GLEP etc).

So the next step is to write this down, and refine/precise it. After that we'll
be able to work imo.

Is that ok with you?

-- 
dams

--
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Re: [gentoo-desktop-research] desktop problems

[Paul de Vrieze]

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On Tuesday 21 October 2003 11:37, dams@idm.fr wrote:
>
> Ok, I think we can start something based on this.
> so we have a first definition of problems that are handled by us, and some
> basic descriptions of how to handle this (GLEP etc).
>
> So the next step is to write this down, and refine/precise it. After that
> we'll be able to work imo.
>
> Is that ok with you?

It is ok with me. (others chime in)

Paul

- -- 
Paul de Vrieze
Gentoo Developer
Mail: pauldv@gentoo.org
Homepage: http://www.devrieze.net
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Re: [gentoo-desktop-research] desktop problems

[dams]

Paul de Vrieze <pauldv@gentoo.org> said:

> On Tuesday 21 October 2003 11:37, dams@idm.fr wrote:
>>
>> Ok, I think we can start something based on this.
>> so we have a first definition of problems that are handled by us, and some
>> basic descriptions of how to handle this (GLEP etc).
>>
>> So the next step is to write this down, and refine/precise it. After that
>> we'll be able to work imo.
>>
>> Is that ok with you?
>
> It is ok with me. (others chime in)

what does that mean, "chime in" ?

-- 
dams

--
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Re: [gentoo-desktop-research] desktop problems

[Paul de Vrieze]

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On Tuesday 21 October 2003 11:46, dams@idm.fr wrote:

> what does that mean, "chime in" ?

Chime in litterally means, join in with making the music. In this case it 
means, let us hear your opinion. (of course not directed to you (dams))

Paul

- -- 
Paul de Vrieze
Gentoo Developer
Mail: pauldv@gentoo.org
Homepage: http://www.devrieze.net
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Re: [gentoo-desktop-research] desktop problems

[dams]

Paul de Vrieze <pauldv@gentoo.org> said:

> On Tuesday 21 October 2003 11:46, dams@idm.fr wrote:
>
>> what does that mean, "chime in" ?
>
> Chime in litterally means, join in with making the music. In this case it 
> means, let us hear your opinion. (of course not directed to you (dams))

ok :) thx

-- 
dams

--
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Re: [gentoo-desktop-research] desktop problems

[Luca Barbato]

It's ok for me too.


-- 
Luca Barbato
Developer
Gentoo Linux				http://www.gentoo.org/~lu_zero




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Re: [gentoo-desktop-research] desktop problems

[Tiemo Kieft]

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On Tue, 2003-10-21 at 16:59, Luca Barbato wrote:
> It's ok for me too.

for me too
-- 
Gentoo developer (GDP & Desktop Research)
Tiemo Kieft <blubber@gentoo.org>
http://dev.gentoo.org/~blubber/

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[gentoo-desktop-research] IMPORTANT definitions draft

[dams]

yo, this is a first attempt to write definitions and rules. Please correct my
bad english, bring new ideas, precisions, and critics :) Thanks

* Problem that might be handled by desktop-research
 [anybody has a better title?]


A problem is in our field of action if it's about desktop, that is : client
side, end-user oriented workstation use. Basically, that's everything UI
oriented, plus hardware managment, installation problems, simple system
managment, as long as it is client-side oriented, that is, as long as it
doesn't use servers.

Examples:
setting internet/lan connection is desktop, but setting a ftp server is not.
setting sound card, graphic card is desktop, setting hardware RAID is not (well
actually it's becoming pretty widely used, so it might become shortly)


* Problem resolution

- throw a description here, verify validity
- preliminary discussion here
- add a new task : at least some time to research further (with a milestone),
  and some time to find a solution (with milestone).
- assign people tio the task, set up deadlines
- the thing shoul end up to a GLEP

ok this whole thing is not good enough, we need to make it better

-- 
dams

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Re: [gentoo-desktop-research] IMPORTANT definitions draft

[Gerald J. Normandin Jr.]

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Below you will find my fixes/spelling corrections

On Sun, 2003-10-26 at 07:53, dams@idm.fr wrote:
> yo, this is a first attempt to write definitions and rules. Please correct my
> bad english, bring new ideas, precisions, and critics :) Thanks
> 
> * Problem that might be handled by desktop-research
>  [anybody has a better title?]
> 
> 
> An issue is related to the desktop if it is : client
> side or end-user oriented workstation use. Basically, that's everything UI
> oriented, plus hardware management, installation problems as well as simple system
> management. Basically, if it is client side and doesn't use servers, it it our responsibility.

> Examples:
> setting up internet/lan connection is desktop, but setting up a ftp server is not.
> setting up sound card, graphic card is desktop, setting hardware RAID is not *I would say this is a desktop issue,
>  as it is very common nowadays, Linux software raid really isn't that difficult to set up* (well
> actually it's becoming pretty widely used, so it might become shortly)
> 
> 
> * Problem resolution
> 
> - throw a description here, verify validity
> - preliminary discussion here
> - add a new task : at least some time to research further (with a milestone),
>   and some time to find a solution (with milestone).
> - assign people to the task, set up deadlines
> - the proposal should end up in a GLEP
> 
> ok this whole thing is not good enough, we need to make it better

My enhancement will come at a later point, I have much schoolwork to do.
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Re: [gentoo-desktop-research] IMPORTANT definitions draft

[Luca Barbato]

dams@idm.fr wrote:
> yo, this is a first attempt to write definitions and rules. Please correct my
> bad english, bring new ideas, precisions, and critics :) Thanks
> 
> * Problem that might be handled by desktop-research
>  [anybody has a better title?]

Field[Issues] of Interest
> 
> 
> A problem is in our field of action if it's about desktop, that is : client
> side, end-user oriented workstation use. Basically, that's everything UI
> oriented, plus hardware managment, installation problems, simple system
> managment, as long as it is client-side oriented, that is, as long as it
> doesn't use servers.
> 
> Examples:
> setting internet/lan connection is desktop, but setting a ftp server is not.
> setting sound card, graphic card is desktop, setting hardware RAID is not (well
> actually it's becoming pretty widely used, so it might become shortly)
> 
> 
> * Problem resolution
> 

Discussion could take place both irc or ml, the irc discussion result 
should be mailed.

Timeline
#Discussion/planning phase
> - throw a description here, verify validity
> - preliminary discussion here
#Prototype phase [no strict deadlines/roadmap]
- Prepare a testcase or a little code snippet to let everybody play with 
possible solution.
- With the help of the other insterested in (small groups or everybody) 
let's try to get a fully working program.
#Revision phase [strict deadline]
> - add a new task : at least some time to research further (with a milestone),
>   and some time to find a solution (with milestone).
> - assign people tio the task, set up deadlines



#Project tracking
> - once the planning phase end with approval. the thing should end up to a GLEP
- the d-r site should host a little summary of every project with phases 
and timings once we are in the Proto phase.(refer to the openbeos.org 
taskchart to have an example).


> 



> ok this whole thing is not good enough, we need to make it better
Here my additions, please fix/extend it.
> 

lu

-- 
Luca Barbato
Developer
Gentoo Linux				http://www.gentoo.org/~lu_zero




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Re: [gentoo-desktop-research] Dead?

[dams]

"Gerald J. Normandin Jr." <gerrynjr@gentoo.org> said:

> Has the list died?

nope

sorry I have had a very hard week last week, couldn't be there :/

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dams

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