[tex-live] Metafont fonts and X (font server?)

[James Cloos]

>>>>> "Frederik" == Frederik Hohlfeld <frederik.hohlfeld at gmail.com> writes:

Frederik> Is there a way to use Metafont fonts with X? ...  I'm thinking
Frederik> about some way to generate them as needed from the Metafont
Frederik> source, maybe using a font server.

Yes, but you'll have to write the code.

The X Font Server wire protocol is relatively simple.  It would not be
too dificult to write a server which serves the mf fonts.

Choose a mode from modes.mf and a dpi, have the server call mf to
generate pk fonts in the standard location for that mode/dpi tuple.

You font server would advertize and serve any such fonts.

I'd strongly suggest having it support only the mf fonts; xfs(1x)
from the Xorg dist can handle any fonts libXfont handles.  There is
no problem having multiple font servers, each on its own tcp port.

Note, however, that IME mf doesn't do so great a job with the CM
derrived fonts at 100dpi or less.  I tried it out for that some
time back and gave up given the lack of legibility.

Good luck and Happy Coding!

-JimC
-- 
James Cloos <cloos at jhcloos.com>         OpenPGP: 1024D/ED7DAEA6