Hello, Jim,

> 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.

  Oh, yes.  Several years ago, the X-TT server was getting popular,
but if I remember correctly, it was a server side solution and just
provides additional XLFD handing, right?

> 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 may be over generalization, but most of people runs Squeak (an
X client) and the X server on the same computer.  The less network
usage is of course better, but it is not that important for this local
configuration.

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

  Yes.  You wrote "the X port needs work to take advantage of new X
technologies...", but I would imagine that platform agnostic approach
is preferable if possible.  Of course you can always hack the Squeak
code because the sourse is available, but for mainstream, Henrik's
FreeType plugin is nicer because it doesn't require the X, and pure
Squeak solution would be better (if the rendering quality matches the
FT's result) because it doesn't require anything.

  TrueTypeTextStyle isn't going to make it into the mainstream image,
I think, but it is on SqueakMap.  You can use it as the "system font"
if you want.

-- Yoshiki

  The performance fix for the MessageTally I posted should be in the
base image, I think.