X-Authentication-Warning: delorie.com: mail set sender to geda-user-bounces using -f X-Recipient: geda-user AT delorie DOT com Date: Mon, 21 May 2012 12:53:01 -0700 From: Colin D Bennett To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com Subject: Re: [geda-user] PCB fonts - more besides default?? Message-ID: <20120521125301.51f6cf5b@svelte> In-Reply-To: <4FB922A1.3050703@innocent.com> References: <1337529438 DOT 79129 DOT YahooMailNeo AT web65902 DOT mail DOT ac4 DOT yahoo DOT com> <4FB922A1 DOT 3050703 AT innocent DOT com> X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.8.0 (GTK+ 2.24.10; x86_64-pc-linux-gnu) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 X-AntiAbuse: This header was added to track abuse, please include it with any abuse report X-AntiAbuse: Primary Hostname - gator297.hostgator.com X-AntiAbuse: Original Domain - delorie.com X-AntiAbuse: Originator/Caller UID/GID - [47 12] / [47 12] X-AntiAbuse: Sender Address Domain - gibibit.com X-BWhitelist: no X-Source: X-Source-Args: X-Source-Dir: X-Source-Sender: spk.venturedesignservices.com (svelte) [65.61.115.34]:48275 X-Source-Auth: colin AT gibibit DOT com X-Email-Count: 4 X-Source-Cap: c2t5bGVuO3NreWxlbjtnYXRvcjI5Ny5ob3N0Z2F0b3IuY29t Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by delorie.com id q4LKsPcX031006 Reply-To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com Errors-To: nobody AT delorie DOT com X-Mailing-List: geda-user AT delorie DOT com X-Unsubscribes-To: listserv AT delorie DOT com Precedence: bulk On Sun, 20 May 2012 12:58:09 -0400 Gus Fantanas wrote: > On 05/20/2012 11:57 AM, Edward Comer wrote: > > Curious about alternative fonts in PCB, I looked at the > > default_font (and apparently only font) in PCB. It is located > > (in my installation) at /usr/share/pcb/default_font > > > > The font is composed of line drawing commands. For example, the > > letter "A" is: > > > > Symbol('A' 12) > > ( > > SymbolLine(0 5 0 40 8) > > SymbolLine(0 5 5 0 8) > > SymbolLine(5 0 20 0 8) > > SymbolLine(20 0 25 5 8) > > SymbolLine(25 5 25 40 8) > > SymbolLine(0 20 25 20 8) > > ) > > > > Do any other fonts exist? If so, where are they and how to you > > install/name them in, I assume the same directory as the > > default_font file. > > > --Wouldn't using a program such as Inkscape to create more > æsthetically-pleasing text and graphics and then importing them > to PCB be a good solution for you? I do this occasionally, and YES it does produce a much more readable and beautiful result on the PCB. Real fonts seem to scale much more gracefully and produce more readable text at smallish sizes than the default pcb font. ----- PROBLEMS ----- However, it is very painful to maintain such text on the PCB (imported into the pcb program from a vector graphics file): (1) If you want to move it, you must manually select all the polygons composing the text, you can't just click and drag the entire thing to reposition it. This is really painful when you have a lot of other stuff on the board since you might not be able to do a quick rectangle-select without turning off many other layers temporarily, and if there are other silk entities in the bounding box, it's super tricky. (2) If you want to change it, you have to go back to Inkscape, edit, export, pstoedit, load into pcb, reposition, etc. (3) The import process is tricky and buggy due to a combination of pstoedit issues and pcb polygon issues to support 'cutouts' in polygons. I've tried many tricks and I can't even remember which one I used last time... I think it was DJ's "polystitch" plugin, which works well, but it is manual effort intensive (you have to point to each overlapping polygon that should be cut out) and you would NOT want to use this for more than a few words of text. Also, you have to re-do this work if you modify your text in Inkscape!! ----- SOLUTIONS ----- There are several things that would significantly improve this situation: (1) Support grouping entities in pcb. Ctrl+g to group, Ctrl+Shift+g to ungroup. Bob's your uncle. (2) Implement actual font rendering in pcb as in the patch you can find on Ineiev's FreeType2 patch . (3) Improve the ability to import arbitrary vector graphics into pcb without overlapping polygon/cutout issues. Regards, Colin