> From: Bert Freudenberg <bert at isg.cs.uni-magdeburg.de>
> Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 18:18:53 +0100 (CET)
> To: squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org
> Cc: Jim.Gettys at hp.com
> Subject: Re: Has anyone succesfully installed squeak on RH 8.0?
> -----
> On Fri, 10 Jan 2003 Jim.Gettys at hp.com wrote:
>
> >
> > >
> > > Another interesting name on the list. Your _X_Window_System_ (Scheifler &
> > > Gettys) is on the bookshelf near at hand.
> > >
> >
> >
> > Thanks.  I'm here having been impressed by a talk Alan Kay gave us here
> > recently on Squeak, and having a bright almost 8 year old, to see if it
> > is something she might enjoy.
>
> My 8 year old does, although not too often and not for too long - it's
> "hard fun" as Alan likes to put it ;-)
>
> > I do note that (in 3.2) the X port needs work to take advantage
> > of new X technologies (e.g. Xft2, fontconfig); Squeak 3.2 is ugly
> > relative to up to date X applications (that do high quality fonts and
> > AA imaging for flat panels).
>
> Squeak is intentionally agnostic of specific windowing system features. It
> basically just needs a fast path for pushing pixels to the screen and some
> way of getting input. Everything else we do ourselves, which serves the
> goal of running bit-identical across platforms well.
>
> On the other hand, we can't completely ignore the user ;-)
>
> So there is indeed a PlatformFonts plugin which noone has ported to X yet
> (http://marvin.bluefish.se:8000/sm/package/802d4df0-71b5-43c0-9ee6-26fdd9bb828
> e),
> and a TrueTypeTextStyle that is anti-aliased
> (http://marvin.bluefish.se:8000/sm/package/ab8088ce-4b01-4a15-bbff-82241d16205
> e).
> For another implementation of anti-aliased font support look here:
> http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/squeak/1225
>

Recent X servers have the X Render extension: this adds the ability to
cache glyphs in the X server and paint them (alpha composited, with
Porter-Duff sematics), rather than dealing with
the old, broken, core X fonts (in the new model, fonts are entirely
client side objects); we have a library to uses Freetype to do the rendering,
and which also does *very* nice subpixel decimation for flat panels (Xft2);
the results of this are cached at the X server and then painted.

So the painting and compositing work can go on with hardware assist
(or with much lower bandwidth usage).

But any other font rendering technology can be used, and the results
cached at the X server for fast painting.  Recent network tests show roughly
comparable bandwidth usage to the old core font mechanism, even though the
glyphs have to go over the wire.  Certainly much faster than pushing pixels
all the time (though Xft2 will do that as well, so that this all can be used
against old X servers).  The intent has been to get identical results
to the frame buffer whether or not X Render is present.

This, btw, represents the first fundamental design change in X since
1987.  Sometimes you discover you just did it wrong the first time, and
have to stop putting one's head in the sand.

Whether is solves anything for Squeak given the portability goals,
is a different question.

                                      - Jim