Bug 210278

Created attachment 138229 [details]
Patch to fix Xfig's scalable fonts handling

Created attachment 138230 [details]
Patch to fix XFig's scalable font handling

*** Bug 56490 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Thanks for the patch! I've incorporated it into xfig-3.2.5-5, which should show
up in updates-testing for both F-7 and F-8 in the next couple of days.

When xfig-3.2.5-5 becomes available, the updates system will add a comment here
to notify you of this. Then you can install it with this command:
yum --enablerepo=updates-testing update xfig

Note when testing on F-8, that there might be a problem with your font
configuration there, do: "/usr/share/fonts/default/Type1" and if there is no
fonts.dir file there, run this as root:
mkfontdir /usr/share/fonts/default/Type1

And then do: "xset fp rehash" to reload X's font configuration.

xfig-3.2.5-5.fc7 has been pushed to the Fedora 7 testing repository.  If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.
 If you want to test the update, you can install it with 
 su -c 'yum --enablerepo=updates-testing update xfig'

xfig-3.2.5-5.fc8 has been pushed to the Fedora 8 testing repository.  If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.
 If you want to test the update, you can install it with 
 su -c 'yum --enablerepo=updates-testing update xfig'

Dear Hans & Co

The patch I submitted earlier was a dirty hack, designed to get XFig running on
my system as quickly as possible.  It's not a complete solution to the problem
at all.  For example, I don't expect the patched XFig to work on all other
distributions.  I'd like to get some ideas from you guys for a more civilized fix.

I REALLY don't like the fact that the fonts are hard-coded in as they are.  Here
are some suggestions for more civilized behaviour:

1.  we put a two-column text file somewhere that XFig can read, containing
    the names of the standard XFig fonts (say  Times-Roman, Times-Bold, ...)
    on the left and the URW font names (say 
    -urw-times-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1, etc.) on the right.
    Then struct _xfstruct x_fontinfo can be initialized from this file.
    This way, users have the option to specify different display fonts
    without having to recompile the program, and XFig would then be portable
    from one distro to another without the need to recompile.

    (Down side:  exposure to the nut behind the wheel)


2.  A configuration program, similar to the existing XFig font dialog might
    be provided to produce the text file in (1), perhaps using xfontsel to
    select the fonts.  So you might start this hypothetical XfigFontConf,
    click on the button that says "Helvetica Bold";  this brings up XFontSel,
    perhaps primed some of the relevant information via the -pattern option, 
    and allows the user to select the relevant font.

    (Down side:  Seems fool-proof, but they're sure to improve the fools.
     Also, now there are two programs to maintain...)

3.  As a further refinement, we might build this hypothetical XfigfontConf 
    into XFig, which can already detect missing scalable fonts (it gives error 
    messages, if I recall, if you select a missing font).

Of course, all of these have pitfalls.  Remember, these select DISPLAY fonts,
not the fonts that end up in PostScript files, etc., which are themselves also
hard-coded.  Does anybody have any better ideas?  I must say, the font-handling
in X does seem to be extremely complicated from the user's perspective, compared
to certain other operating $ystems...

Regards,

FN

(In reply to comment #7)
> Dear Hans & Co
> 
> The patch I submitted earlier was a dirty hack, designed to get XFig running on
> my system as quickly as possible.  It's not a complete solution to the problem
> at all.  For example, I don't expect the patched XFig to work on all other
> distributions.  I'd like to get some ideas from you guys for a more civilized fix.
> 

Well since this is the Fedora package its not meant to work on other distro's
OTOH, if they have the urw-fonts installed it should work fine. I've checked the
.fig files and they do not contain the font-names, so this will not cause import
/ export problems when moving to other versions / spins of xfig.

So while I agree this is not perfect, as long as we require urw-fonts (and we
do) this works just fine.

I've read your proposed solutions but they seem to cause more pain then they
fix. Our current fixed version "just works (tm)", without needing any tweaking,
I think that is as good as it gets, without getting unnecessary complicated.

xfig-3.2.5-5.fc8 has been pushed to the Fedora 8 stable repository.  If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.

It's a bug in urw-fonts which adds to the pain:  #401641.

A workaround until a update is released is the following:

# As root:

$ rpm -e --nodeps urw-fonts
# There must be two yum steps
$ yum install xorg-x11-font-utils
$ yum install urw-fonts

# X user
$ xset fp rehash


With this fix, and xfig-3.2.4-5 package thing works.

BTW: thanks for Xaw3d version, Hans!

xfig-3.2.5-5.fc7 has been pushed to the Fedora 7 stable repository.  If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.