[Bug 18928] New: RFE: add a gfx preview to font packages

http://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=18928

Summary: RFE: add a gfx preview to font packages
           Product: PackageKit
           Version: unspecified
          Platform: Other
        OS/Version: All
            Status: NEW
          Severity: normal
          Priority: medium
         Component: General
        AssignedTo: [e-mail]
        ReportedBy: [e-mail]
                CC: [e-mail]

The best way for a user to select a font is to show it to him.

For this reason font sites commonly provide bitmap preview images or so-called
specimen files (typically in PDF form) that showcase the font capabilities.
http://gonzo.uni-weimar.de/~gerner/fonts/YanoneKaffeesatz.pdf
http://www.ascendercorp.com/pdf/Droid_fonts.pdf

Packagekit should do the same.

The image should be a pangram
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pangrams

in the main unicode blocks the font supports

The specimen may include unicode coverage info, glyph table, etc

For more info ask on fedora-fonts-list at redhat.com

[Bug 18928] RFE: add a gfx preview to font packages

http://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=18928

--- Comment #1 from Nicolas Mailhot   2008-12-07 11:53:48 PST ---
Thinking about it some more a complete glyph table is probably too much, and a
bitmap preview won't work too well depending on the target system dpi, to the
best thing is probably a pdf with the embedded glyphs necessary for a few
pangrams, and a list of unicode blocks/scripts with complete coverage

Eugeniy Meshcheryakov has a written a little tool to generate complete PDF
glyphs tables with embedded fonts, it can probably serve as inspiration to do
the same for pangrams

http://sourceforge.net/projects/fntsample

[Bug 18928] RFE: add a gfx preview to font packages

http://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=18928

Behdad Esfahbod  changed:

What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 CC|                            |[e-mail]

--- Comment #2 from Behdad Esfahbod   2008-12-09 13:29:13 PST ---
Sounds like fun.  I can do everything up to generating the PDF.  What should we
do with it then?

[Bug 18928] RFE: add a gfx preview to font packages

http://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=18928

--- Comment #3 from Nicolas Mailhot   2008-12-09 13:30:52 PST ---
Thinking about it a bit more, PDF with embedded glyphs would probably run afoul
of no-embedding restrictions in some font licenses (including GPL fonts), so a
SVG pangram preview is probably a better solution.

[Bug 18928] RFE: add a gfx preview to font packages

http://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=18928

--- Comment #4 from Nicolas Mailhot   2008-12-09 13:42:26 PST ---
I think that if you can generate the preview stuff, Richard just has to define
where to install it on the filesystem and how to name it so packagekit can
scrape it and display it in its GUI (like it does for desktop icons for
example)

[Bug 18928] RFE: add a gfx preview to font packages

http://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=18928

--- Comment #5 from Behdad Esfahbod   2008-12-09 13:50:22 PST ---
If there's any embedding restrictions, the font is useless in Fedora.  That
happens every time you print anything.

We never embed full fonts though.  Neither do we embed OpenType tables, etc. 
We subset, and the subset is as useful as the outlines ending up in a SVG.  I
don't think there's any problem there.

[Bug 18928] RFE: add a gfx preview to font packages

http://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=18928

--- Comment #6 from Richard Hughes   2008-12-10 01:49:44 PST ---
Can we dump the file in /usr/share/fonts/preview/? I would prefer a svg from a
programming point of view.

[Bug 18928] RFE: add a gfx preview to font packages

http://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=18928

--- Comment #7 from Behdad Esfahbod   2008-12-10 15:25:26 PST ---
(In reply to comment #6)
> Can we dump the file in /usr/share/fonts/preview/? I would prefer a svg from a
> programming point of view.

We can.  Actually it occurred to me that I need to fix more infrastructure for
this to work...  Namely, this one:

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=347237

[Bug 18928] RFE: add a gfx preview to font packages

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=18928

Richard Hughes  changed:

What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Status|NEW                         |RESOLVED
         Resolution|---                         |NOTABUG

--- Comment #8 from Richard Hughes  ---
We moved the upstream bugtracker to GitHub a long time ago. If this issue still
affects you please re-create the issue here:
https://github.com/hughsie/PackageKit/issues

Sorry for the impersonal message, and fingers crossed your issue no longer
happens. Thanks.