Rev/Linux update - for Richmond

[Richmond]

  Here I am in London; just had time to sit down and look at this:

On 06/08/2010 15:23, Richard Gaskin wrote:
> I got another update this morning from the team on the progress of the 
> Rev engine for Linux, and this one's for Richmond:
>
> <http://fourthworldlabs.com/rev/fontimprove.PNG>
>
> With the screenshot Mark Waddingham noted:
>
> To be fair, the visual difference for roman text is mostly nil
> (or at least will be when I've fixed the slight difference in
> baselines that seems to have crept in).

Yer, but . . . the reall "fun" will be when I get home and try the 
Sanskrit2003 font on Linux . . .

err . . . wait a minute . . . no it won't as I have a Studio licence so 
no access to DP builds;
Heather very kindly extended my licence to Sept.; whether that will 
encompass the 4.5 release I don't know ????

>
> The linux engine now uses 'pango' to do all its text rendering
> and font selection/listing - this is the modern approach and
> means if you install fonts via GTK/Gnome/Fontconfig etc. you
> actually see them listed in Rev and will be used when requested.

Unfortunately I am using my niece's iMac and she will get narked if I 
put RevMedia on it;
also, as it is a Mac running MacOS (mind you, try installing RunRev for 
Linux on a Ma running
Linux PPC and you get a rude awakening) I cannot comment directly on 
what is happening
fontwise on Linux.

>
> In addition, all the font fallback and such works correctly
> both for unicode text and all the config that distros have
> invested in 'fontconfig'. The latter, in particular, means you
> get sensible default fonts for most common typefaces for other
> platforms (for example, there is rarely actually a 'Helvetica'
> installed any more, but there is pretty much always Nimbus Sans
> which is metric and look compatible).

Bye-the-bye; slightly OT trick for those who like Microsoft fonts with 
their Linux:

If you install WINE it also installs Times New Roman and so on, which 
show up in ALMOST ALL
Gnome and KDE compatible apps; mun be in RunRev allus!

>
> I'm not sure what the performance impact of this might be yet
> - I'm hoping it might fix some of the field performance problems
> that seem to plague some linux distributions since various
> things are cached now which weren't before. More testing will
> be needed to see if this is indeed the case.
>
>
> Kevin also noted that some progress has been made in diagnosing the 
> cause of the printPaperOrientation issue, but that the solution is 
> "not straightforward" so he doesn't have a fix in hand just yet and 
> will try to squeeze one in within the couple of weeks.
>
> Things are looking better each week for those of us enjoying Linux 
> deployments. :)

"enjoying linux deployments" . . . Um, chacun à son goût . . . :) à ce 
moment J'ai un "grosse durchfall"
avec този шрифтове и Линукс!

mind you, Unicode fonts that work would do my digestion no end of good.

As my "next trick" will be designing a Sanskrit2003 compatible font with 
the ancient,
southern Indian Grantha script it will cheer me up no end thinking that 
it will work with
RunRev on Linux.

sincerely, Richmond Mathewson.