Fonts, antialiasing, perl-tk and Debian
January Weiner
I spent some time on figuring that one out, so I will just write a few
words here in case anyone else has the same problem.
In a standard Debian or Ubuntu installation, perl-tk programs look awful.
All fonts are scaled bitmaps, and it looks terribly. Most of the "normal"
fonts accessible in other program groups are not available. Using Canvas
is a pain in the neck, because many fonts (like Helvetica or Arial) are
substituted with Nimbus Sans. In short, it doesn't look serious and is on
the verge of not being usable for anyone but the perl-tk program author.
For a long while, I thought that this is just the way it is. I am one of
those people who will never compile things on their own if a package is
available. However, I recently found that Tk can be compiled with XFT
(font manager) support, which gives perl-tk programs the ability to use
all fonts accessible from XFT and antialiasing.
Using CPAN, I have downloaded the most recent perl-tk sources and
recompiled it with the XFT=1 option (perl Makefile.PL XFT=1). It is
necessary, though, to install libxft2-dev and libxrender-dev packages.
Everything seems to work, anti aliasing and all the different fonts are now
accessible, it is stable and looks very, very good.
--
Uskadara is a little town in Turkey
And in the old days, many women had male secretaries
Oh, well, that's Turkey!
Colin Tuckley
> Using CPAN, I have downloaded the most recent perl-tk sources and
> recompiled it with the XFT=1 option (perl Makefile.PL XFT=1). It is
> necessary, though, to install libxft2-dev and libxrender-dev packages.
Those are only build-depends though and wouldn't be needed on every Debian
system if the package was built with XFT=1.
I'd be keen to see the Debian Package built that way. Maybe you should email
Michael Schultheiss the Debian maintainer of Perl-Tk and suggest it.
Posting your message to the Perl-Tk list would also be a good idea.
> Everything seems to work, anti aliasing and all the different fonts are now
> accessible, it is stable and looks very, very good.
I'd certainly like to see my Perl-Tk applications look better.
regards,
Colin
--
Colin Tuckley | co...@tuckley.org | PGP/GnuPG Key Id
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Experience is the hardest kind of teacher. It gives you the test first, and
the lesson afterwards. - Anonymous
January Weiner
> I'd be keen to see the Debian Package built that way. Maybe you should email
> Michael Schultheiss the Debian maintainer of Perl-Tk and suggest it.
Yes, I have already done that, Michael was very reactive and said he would
prepare a new package shortly.
> > Everything seems to work, anti aliasing and all the different fonts are now
> > accessible, it is stable and looks very, very good.
> I'd certainly like to see my Perl-Tk applications look better.
It makes a huge difference, believe me. Not only it becomes more usable --
the fonts that are used for menus when launching a perl-tk program on a
default Debian are barely readable -- it also matters if you want anyone
else to use your program.
Cheers,
j
wooden...@hotmail.com
> Colin Tuckley <c...@tuckley.org> wrote:
> > I'd be keen to see the Debian Package built that way. Maybe you should email
> > Michael Schultheiss the Debian maintainer of Perl-Tk and suggest it.
>
> Yes, I have already done that, Michael was very reactive and said he would
> prepare a new package shortly.
>
> > > Everything seems to work, anti aliasing and all the different fonts are now
> > > accessible, it is stable and looks very, very good.
> > I'd certainly like to see my Perl-Tk applications look better.
>
> It makes a huge difference, believe me. Not only it becomes more usable --
> the fonts that are used for menus when launching a perl-tk program on a
> default Debian are barely readable -- it also matters if you want anyone
> else to use your program.
Does anyone know if the Debian Perl-Tk packages have been modernized
with the anti-aliased text features discussed here? I, too, would
enjoy the benefits of anti-aliased text in my Perl-Tk programs. I,
too, would prefer to download ready-to-use packages, than to compile
these softwares myself.
Colin Tuckley
> Does anyone know if the Debian Perl-Tk packages have been modernized
> with the anti-aliased text features discussed here? I, too, would
> enjoy the benefits of anti-aliased text in my Perl-Tk programs. I,
> too, would prefer to download ready-to-use packages, than to compile
> these softwares myself.
The changes won't make it into Etch, it's too late for that. I suspect that
once Etch is released we will see a new Perl/Tk package for Debian testing
(Lenny)
regards,
Colin
--
Colin Tuckley | co...@tuckley.org | PGP/GnuPG Key Id
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A. Because it breaks the logical sequence of discussion Q. Why is top
posting bad?