Subject: X 4.02 and Fonts
From: John L. Clark (jlc6@po.cwru.edu)
Date: Fri Jan 19 2001 - 18:09:03 CST
Ok, Dom and I were going over this last night, and it gave us both
headaches, so I just thought I would lay out the whole problem and see
if someone knows how to fix it. If not, looks like I have a new
project. ;-)
The situation:
X Server: XFree86 v. 4.02
Windowing System: KDE 2.01
Abi comes up with a creative error upon booting about not being able
to find Times New Roman, and won't run without it (more below).
Module line 'Load "Type1"' added to XF86Config file (thanks, Dom)
So, doing what I've always done (edit in ABI_OPT_DEBUG=1, make, make
install), and then trying to run abiword, I get the following error:
=====================================================================
AbiWord could not load the following font or fontset from the X Window
System display server: [-*-Times New Roman-regular-r-*-*-more stars-*]
This error could be the result of an incomplete AbiSuite installation,
an incompatibility with your X Window System display server, or a
problem communicating with a remote font server.
Often this error is the result of invoking AbiWord directly instead of
through its wrapper shell script {I am definitely using the script,
here} <rest of error message clipped>
======================================================================
So after conferring with Dom, I decided that it's probably the new X
server that's causing the problem, although I still don't know WHY. So,
next I took a guess and supposed that the format of the fonts.dir file
had changed, so removed the installed fonts.dir file (from
/usr/local/AbiSuite/fonts), ran type1inst followed by mkfontdir. Then,
trying to run Abi, I get the following (different) error:
=====================================================================
AbiWord could not find its default fallback font [Times New Roman], even
though it was listed in a valid font directory file ('fonts.dir') in a
vaid directory in the font path.
AbiWord cannot continue without this font.
=====================================================================
Next, not knowing whether it makes a difference or not, I ran xfs and
restarted Abi (do I need to restart X?), and I get the same errors as
above, depending respectively on the fonts.dir I use. I'm out of ideas.
So, I guess a couple things. Any thoughts on how to make Abi fonts work
under X 4.02? Second, is it about time to free AW from its font
bondage (in other words, when are we going to look at making AW work
naturally with system fonts under *nix)?
Sorry for the length of this beast. Take care, you guys. Time to start
digging at font code, I suppose.
John
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b25 : Fri Jan 19 2001 - 18:08:56 CST