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	 <de9eeab5c353876db234bcd9bf17f190@quanstro.net>
Date: Wed,  8 Jul 2009 22:25:17 -0700
Message-ID: <dd6fe68a0907082225n36438db5r8a8e7dbf4a249e5f@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [9fans] Fonts
From: Russ Cox <rsc@swtch.com>
To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@9fans.net>
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This conversation reminded me that I have been
meaning to clean up a program I wrote a while back
and integrate it into plan9port.  It generates Plan 9
bitmap fonts on demand using the native window
system fonts.  Right now it only works on OS X.
I would gladly accept X11 support and OS X bug fixes.


     FONTSRV(4)                                             FONTSRV(4)

     NAME
          fontsrv - file system access to host fonts

     SYNOPSIS
          fontsrv [ -m mtpt ] [ -s srvname ]

          fontsrv -p path

     DESCRIPTION
          Fontsrv presents the host window system's fonts in the stan-
          dard Plan 9 format (see font(7)). It serves a virtual direc-
          tory tree mounted at mtpt (if the -m option is given) and
          posted at srvname (default font).

          The -p option changes fontsrv's behavior: rather than serve
          a file system, fontsrv prints to standard output the con-
          tents of the named path. If path names a directory in the
          served file system, fontsrv lists the directory's contents.

          The fonts are arranged in a two-level tree.  The root con-
          tains directories named for each system font.  Each font
          directory contains subdirectories named for a point size and
          whether the subfonts are anti-aliased: 10 (bitmap) 10a
          (anti-aliased greyscale) 12, 12a, and so on.  The font
          directory will synthesize additional sizes on demand: look-
          ing up 19a will synthesize the 19-point anti-aliased size if
          possible.  Each size directory contains a font file and sub-
          font files named x0000.bit, x0100.bit, and so on represent-
          ing 256-character Unicode ranges.

          Openfont (see graphics(3)) recognizes font paths beginning
          with /mnt/font and implements them by invoking fontsrv; it
          need not be running already.

     EXAMPLES
          List the fonts on the system:

               % fontsrv &
               % 9p ls font

          or:

               % fontsrv -p .

          Run acme(1) using the operating system's Monaco as the
          fixed-width font:

               % acme -F /mnt/font/Monaco/13a/font

          Run sam(1) using the same font:

               % font=/mnt/font/Monaco/13a/font sam

     SOURCE
          /usr/local/plan9/src/cmd/fontsrv

     SEE ALSO
          font(7)

     BUGS
          Due to OS X restrictions, fontsrv does not fork itself into
          the background when serving a user-level file system.

          Fontsrv has no support for X11 fonts; on X11 systems, it
          will serve an empty top-level directory.

          On OS X, the anti-aliased bitmaps are not perfect.  For
          example, the lower case r in the subfont
          Times-Roman/14a/x0000.bit appears truncated on the right and
          too light overall.