1.0 What is xfstt?
1.1 How do I test it?
1.2 How do I use it?
1.3 xfstt locks up my machine!
1.4 Where do I get *.ttf fonts?
1.5 How does one add fonts?
1.6 What are these weird fontnames displayed by xlsfonts when using xfstt?
1.7 Why doesn't xfstt follow XLFD guidelines for font naming?
1.8 Why can't I serve fonts via tcpip to my friends overseas?
1.9 Why does the program xxx not work with most *.ttf fonts?
1.10 Does xfstt have Anti-Aliasing/Grayscaling technology?
1.11 Big font sizes don't work!

2.0 I have problems to compile xfstt!
2.1 The source doesn't seem to be ready for prime time?
2.2 How does xfstt relate to the freetype project?
2.3 When will it be merged into the X server?


1.0 What is xfstt?

	xfstt is an abbreviation of X11 Font Server for TT fonts.
	It is not only a font server, the important part of is the TTF engine.

1.1 How do I test it?
	
	xfstt
	xset +fp unix/:7100
	xlsfonts
	xcoral -fn "TTM20_Times New Roman"
	xset -fp unix/:7100

1.2 How do I use it?

	add unix/:7100 to the fontpath in your XFConfig
	start xfstt before starting X11

	The fontname for a 24 point Arial font would be "TTM24_Arial".

1.3 xfstt locks up my machine!

	xfstt 0.0.1alpha is a developers release.
	It is definitely not for the faint of the heart!
	You might be happy to know that the machine still runs fine,
	X just doesn't respond to anything anymore.

1.4 Where do I get *.ttf fonts?

	http://home1.gte.net/tiaralyn/fontaholics_anonymous.htm
	http://www.microsoft.com/

	*.ttf fonts are often included as bonus for printers, word processors,
	graphics applications, operating systems,...

	There are a lot of cheap CDs with hundreds of *.ttf fonts.

1.5 How does one add fonts?

	If you already have *.ttf fonts on your computer do a softlink like
	ln -s /DOS/windows/fonts /etc/ttfonts/winfonts

	Otherwise you can copy them directly into the /etc/ttfonts directory.

	Now run "xfstt --sync"

1.6 What are these weird fontnames displayed by xlsfonts when using xfstt?

	xlsfonts results when running xfstt look like:
	TTUP020206030504050203040Times New Roman

	The reasoning is that the X Font Server protocol does not provide
	a way to query typographic information about fonts. So the only way
	to provide this information without changing this protocol is to
	"sideband" the typographic info into the fontname. The typographic
	info provided by xfstt is the panose information. For details of the
	panose specification have a look at
	http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Fonts/Panose/pan2.html

1.7 Why does xfstt not follow XLFD guidelines for font naming?

	In my opinion XLFD (X11 Logical Font Description) is not useful for
	scalable or parametric fonts. XLFD tries to merge three purposes:
	1) listing fonts with typographic properties
	2) specifing fonts with changable attributes
	3) specifing font name patterns
	into one naming convention.

	An example for the problems of XLFD is the pattern
	"*-Times New Roman-*85*"
	The "*85*" could be 85, 185, 285,...
	It could be the pointSize, the pixelSize, X resolution,
	Y resolution, average width, ...
	It could also be part of a matrix [123 234 -85 200].
	Or how about all the -iso8859-1 part of many font names?
	=> XLFD universality causes more trouble than it solves IMHO.

1.8 Why can't I serve fonts to my friends overseas via tcpip?

	In my opinion remote font serving is obsolete. xfstt is a local
	font server which uses the unix protocol only. The same is true
	for endianess or bitorder. xfstt assumes the target X Server has
	the same preferences the CPU architecture suggests.

1.9 Why does the program xxx not work with most *.ttf fonts?

	Most *.ttf fonts are non-proportional (i.e. 'w' is wider than 'i').
	Many X windows programs are not ready to handle non-proportional
	fonts.

1.10 Does xfstt have Anti-Aliasing/Grayscaling technology?

	The font engine in xfstt knows antialiasing. Unfortunately
	the X11 font server protocol provides no way to serve grayscaled
	fonts to the X server.

1.11 Big font sizes don't work!

	The X11 font server protocol limits replies to 256kB. If a font is
	scaled with a big size the glyph bitmaps may not fit into 256kB. One
	would have to split up the reply. XFree currently does not support
	split up replies yet.


2.0 I have problems to compile xfstt!

	xfstt 0.0.1alpha is a developers release. It is supposed to compile
	right out of the box. If it doesn't compile and you can't figure out
	why, this release is not for you. Sorry about that.

2.1 The source doesn't seem to be ready for prime time?

	Yes! It is under construction. The sceleton is ok, but
	there are blanks to be filled in and there are bugs to
	be fixed. Since this is a developer's release these
	statements should give you some appetite to work on it!
	Unfortunately I got too busy to do everything myself.

2.2 How does it relate to the freetype project?

	The source has been contributed to the freetype project, it has the
	same license. xfstt.freetype uses the freetype scan line converter.

2.3 When will it be merged into the X server?

	???

