Font installer re-design

[Waldo Bastian]

On Wednesday 24 April 2002 05:05 am, cpdrummond at freeuk.com wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Following the recent discussions about KControl modules, and the Font
> Installer in particular, I propose to make the following changes to
> K(cm)Fontinst:
>
>
> Settings Tab:
> ----------------
>
> See http://www.cpdrummond.uklinux.net/settings.png
>
> 1. Merge all sub-sections into just a single tab - i.e. remove the
> KJanusWidget

Good plan.

> 2. Remove completely the appearance section - switching between Advanced
> and Basic will be activated in the main tab.

Yes, please.

> 3. Folders & Files - remove the "Basic Mode Sub Folders" entry. Internally
> the separate TrueType and Type1 folder idea will still exist, so that
> existing users are unaffected.

Yes, I don't think this needs to be configured, it can just be hardcoded.

> 4. Remove "Install/Uninstall". The "Fix TrueType Postscript names table"
> will default to true, but this can be overridden using the rc file (i.e.
> the option is just removed from the GUI). Uninstall will always be delete.

Great.

> 5. "StarOffice" - seeing as OpenOffice is already very useable, should this
> remain? I haven't used StarOffice 5.x for over a year, its font handling is
> *horrible*. Maybe it should be kept as a ./configure option?

Config option might work.

> 6. System - Most of the functionality will be kept, apart from the
> "Overwite" AFM option.

I guess it's never necassery to overwrite?

> Anti-Alias Tab:
> -------------------
>
> This whole tab should be removed, and the functionality moved to the
> "fonts" control module - as discussed in a previous posting. However,
> KFontinst still needs to know which XftConfig file is being used - as it
> writes entries for font folders and patterns for symbol and monospaced
> fonts. Should this just be read in from kcmfontsrc (or whatever font's
> config file is called)? What if this is not set? The code needed to
> read/write XftConfig will need to be shared as well.

Could this be hardcoded at compile time? It's mostly distro specific isn't it?

> Fonts Tab:
> -------------
>
> See http://www.cpdrummond.uklinux.net/fonts.png

Minor nitpick: I would use an icon to indicate the "enabled/disabled" state. 
Do we have suitable icons for that somewhere already? I couldn't find them. 
(Something like a checkmark for enabled and a dash for disabled.)

> 1. Remove the "Install From:" section
> 2. Add the ability to enable/disable on a per-font basis. I suggest moving
> disabled fonts to a ".disabled" sub-folder
> 3. Add the ability to group fonts
>
> The enable/disable button will produce a dialog requesting if the action is
> for the selected font, or all fonts in the font's group.

I am not sure how to do the "group fonts" feature. Originally I thought to 
have "profiles" that store the "enable/disable" state of all fonts, but then 
someone mentioned that it was also usefull to be able to disable or enable 
certain groups of fonts independent of each other. Since the current code 
allows disabling/enabling on a per-directory basis maybe the profile-based 
approach isn't that bad after all, in advanced mode you could then still 
disable/enable fonts on a per-directory basis: disabling a directory disables 
all fonts in that directory.

> For the preview, I suggest changing this so that a generic FontPreview
> widget/class is created which can be shared between KFontinst, Konquerror,
> and the FileSelector dialog. Using this method there is no need for the
> "Install From" section, as fonts can be previewed in the FileSelector.
> (Hmm, where would the preview string be set/stored?)

I think this is a good idea for the Basic Mode. But as Thomas Diehl pointed 
out this, for the advanced mode having two listings side by side may indeed 
be more usefull. It's the difference between installing a single font that 
you just downloaded and selecting a few fonts from a font-CD.

Cheers,
Waldo