Another F11 feature worth testing

[Matthias Clasen]

Here is another F11 feature that will become complete enough to warrant
testing in the next few days: 

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/AutoFontsAndMimeInstaller

The mass rebuild that is currently underway will make sure that the
font- and mimehandler-installing packages gain the Provides that are
necessary to make this work. 

Please give it a try once the mass rebuild lands in rawhide.



Matthias

[Caolán McNamara]

On Tue, 2009-02-24 at 14:26 -0500, Matthias Clasen wrote:
>  Here is another F11 feature that will become complete enough to
> warrant
>  testing in the next few days: 
>  
>  https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/AutoFontsAndMimeInstaller 
What's the technical kung-foo behind the auto-font stuff ? Might be good
if OOo did it too, though sort of late now to do anything about it for
F-11 if its intricate.

C.

[Matthias Clasen]

On Tue, 2009-02-24 at 23:34 +0000, Caolán McNamara wrote:
>  On Tue, 2009-02-24 at 14:26 -0500, Matthias Clasen wrote:
>  > Here is another F11 feature that will become complete enough to warrant
>  > testing in the next few days: 
>  > 
>  > https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/AutoFontsAndMimeInstaller
>  
>  What's the technical kung-foo behind the auto-font stuff ? Might be good
>  if OOo did it too, though sort of late now to do anything about it for
>  F-11 if its intricate. 
There is a loadable GTK+ module that hooks into the Pango fontmap to do
the magic: /usr/lib/gtk-2.0/modules/libpk-gtk-module.so

> From the README in PackageKit-0.4.0/contrib/gtk-module: 
The GTK+ module is designed to be loaded using gnome-settings-daemon by
the gnome-packagekit package.

It can however be launched for testing using:

GTK_MODULES="$GTK_MODULES:/usr/lib/gtk-2.0/modules/pk-gtk-module.so"
application

The module installs a custom default pangocairo font map during
gtk_init(). Pango will then call back with any languages which need
installing, and these are queued up. In an idle callback these are
emitted as an asyncronous D-BUS method to the session PackageKit
InstallFonts() method.

If configured to do so, this will prompt the user to install new fonts.



So, if you are loading GTK+ modules and are using Pango to render fonts,
you may be good already (of course, that would be too easy...).

[Caolán McNamara]

On Tue, 2009-02-24 at 18:48 -0500, Matthias Clasen wrote:
>  On Tue, 2009-02-24 at 23:34 +0000, Caolán McNamara wrote:
>  > On Tue, 2009-02-24 at 14:26 -0500, Matthias Clasen wrote:
>  > > Here is another F11 feature that will become complete enough to warrant
>  > > testing in the next few days: 
>  > > 
>  > > https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/AutoFontsAndMimeInstaller
>  > 
>  > What's the technical kung-foo behind the auto-font stuff ? Might be good
>  > if OOo did it too, though sort of late now to do anything about it for
>  > F-11 if its intricate.
>  
>  There is a loadable GTK+ module that hooks into the Pango fontmap to do
>  the magic: /usr/lib/gtk-2.0/modules/libpk-gtk-module.so 
>  Pango will then call back with any languages which need
>  installing,  
Are we talking less "Automatic Font Installation" in a "you don't
Liberation Serif which this document wants to use, want to install it"
kind of a way but more "Automatic code-point coverage font installation"
in a "to display this text you need a font that contains the requested
glyphs".

C.

[Richard Hughes]

On Wed, 2009-02-25 at 09:16 +0000, Caolán McNamara wrote:
>  Are we talking less "Automatic Font Installation" in a
> "you don't
>  Liberation Serif which this document wants to use, want to install it"
>  kind of a way but more "Automatic code-point coverage font installation"
>  in a "to display this text you need a font that contains the requested
>  glyphs". 
Yes. You can use PackageKit if you want a specific font name, although
that's not covered in this feature. The abiword guys were interested in
using PackageKit to install fonts and dictionaries at one point,
although I don't think there is any code yet.

Richard.

[Caolán McNamara]

On Wed, 2009-02-25 at 09:51 +0000, Richard Hughes wrote:
>  On Wed, 2009-02-25 at 09:16 +0000, Caolán McNamara wrote:
>  > Are we talking less "Automatic Font Installation" in a "you
> don't
>  > Liberation Serif which this document wants to use, want to install it"
>  > kind of a way but more "Automatic code-point coverage font installation"
>  > in a "to display this text you need a font that contains the requested
>  > glyphs".
>  
>  Yes. You can use PackageKit if you want a specific font name, although
>  that's not covered in this feature.  
Righeo then, so collect up failed glyph replacement attempts, massage
the data and bang them out every now and then. Sounds doable.

C.

[Behdad Esfahbod]

Caolán McNamara wrote:
>  On Tue, 2009-02-24 at 18:48 -0500, Matthias Clasen wrote:
> > On Tue, 2009-02-24 at 23:34 +0000, Caolán McNamara wrote:
> >> On Tue, 2009-02-24 at 14:26 -0500, Matthias Clasen wrote:
> >>> Here is another F11 feature that will become complete enough to warrant
> >>> testing in the next few days: 
> >>>
> >>> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/AutoFontsAndMimeInstaller
> >> What's the technical kung-foo behind the auto-font stuff ? Might be good
> >> if OOo did it too, though sort of late now to do anything about it for
> >> F-11 if its intricate.
> > There is a loadable GTK+ module that hooks into the Pango fontmap to do
> > the magic: /usr/lib/gtk-2.0/modules/libpk-gtk-module.so
>  
> > Pango will then call back with any languages which need
> > installing, 
>  
>  Are we talking less "Automatic Font Installation" in a "you don't
>  Liberation Serif which this document wants to use, want to install it"
>  kind of a way but more "Automatic code-point coverage font installation"
>  in a "to display this text you need a font that contains the requested
>  glyphs". 
The font packages are tagged with languages they support as well as the
families they provide.  For now, Pango+PackageKit only detect the missing
language support case and offer installing fonts for the language.

The PackageKit API supports suggesting installing families too.  Apps like
OO.o can use that.  The problem however is how to detect a missing font, given
all the aliasing that goes on.  For example, if the document asks for Arial,
and user has Liberation installed, the requirement is satisfied, but it's hard
to detect.  On the other hand, if Liberation is not installed, PackageKit
currently has no way to know that the liberation-fonts package provides Arial
compat fonts.  Those kind of aliases need to be added manually on a per
package basis.

All in all, family-based autoinstallation is planned, but not fully fleshed
out yet.

behdad

>  C.
>

[Paul W. Frields]

On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 02:26:06PM -0500, Matthias Clasen wrote:
>  Here is another F11 feature that will become complete enough to
> warrant
>  testing in the next few days: 
>  
>  https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/AutoFontsAndMimeInstaller
>  
>  The mass rebuild that is currently underway will make sure that the
>  font- and mimehandler-installing packages gain the Provides that are
>  necessary to make this work. 
>  
>  Please give it a try once the mass rebuild lands in rawhide. 
Just a note FWIW -- this was a future feature to which I made frequent
reference in interviews and other press hoo-ha for the F10 release.
It would be great to point to this as part of the F11 press push, and
clearly indicate how we deliver on the tech promises made earlier.

Thank you to the Desktop and RPM developers who made this possible!
This is an area where the free software desktop shows its stuff as a
truly user-friendly environment.

-- 
Paul W. Frields                                http://paul.frields.org/
  gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233  5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717
  http://redhat.com/   -  -  -  -   http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/
  irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug