defoma

defoma(1)                   General Commands Manual                  defoma(1)

NAME
       defoma - Debian Font Manager, a framework for automatic font configura-
       tion.

SYNOPSIS
       defoma-font [options] command args..
       defoma-app [options] command args..
       defoma-subst [options] command args..

DESCRIPTION
       Defoma stands for Debian Font Manager. It provides a framework for  au-
       tomatic font configuration. This manpage introduces general Defoma con-
       cepts, please refer the manpage of defoma-font, defoma-app, or  defoma-
       subst for the detailed information of each command.

       Fonts  are used by numerous applications, but generally need to be con-
       figured separately for each application. Defoma solves this problem  by
       calling  configuration  scripts to update the font configuration of ap-
       plications whenever a font is installed or removed.

       A Defoma-configuration script is a perl library that  each  application
       should       install       as       application-name.defoma       under
       /usr/share/defoma/scripts and which configures a font for that applica-
       tion. The following is an example of a script named foo.defoma.

       @ACCEPT_CATEGORIES = qw(type1 truetype);

       package foo;

       sub type1 {
         my $com = shift;
         ...
       }

       sub truetype {
         my $com = shift;
         ...
       }

       1;

       This  example  represents  an  application  foo that wants to configure
       truetype and type1 category fonts. A function by the same name  as  the
       relevant category is called by Defoma with a command as the first argu-
       ment, and then additional arguments depending on the command.  The fol-
       lowing is a list of commands.

       * register
       * unregister
       * do-install-real do-install-alias do-install-subst
       * do-remove-real do-remove-alias do-remove-subst
       * init
       * term
       * purge

       do-install-*  and  do-remove-*  commands are only called from Id cache.
       init and term are called at the start and end (respectively) of the en-
       tire process.

       Id cache is another feature of Defoma. A common problem during automat-
       ic configuration is name space conflicts. Usually  applications  access
       fonts through logical font names (like XLFDs and PostScript font names)
       rather than the fonts themselves  (as  font  filenames).  Logical  font
       names,  called  identifiers  in  Defoma, can easily conflict especially
       when font aliases are permitted. Through the Id cache  mechanism,  only
       one  font  is actually installed for each identifier even if it is pro-
       vided by several fonts.

       Id Substitution is an additional feature of Id  cache.   It  selects  a
       font  to provide an id specified by a rulefile.  The rulefile describes
       rules giving required ids and their hints.  A rule is used to have more
       similar-looking  fonts  with  the  same characters substitute for a re-
       quired id. This feature can also be used for the  purpose  of  grouping
       fonts into different categories.

       A  category  represents  a type of font. Generally fonts that belong to
       the same category are configured the same way.

       Hints represent essential font  information  and  typeface  information
       about  the font.  They consist of some HintTypes and their values. They
       can be specified from the  command  line  options  of  defoma-font,  or
       through a hintfile.

       Hintfile  describes one or more fonts and their hints in a single file.
       It is supposed to be put under /etc/defoma/hints as a conffile, so that
       users can modify the hints.
       Below  is an example hintfile.  defoma-hints is a tool to help generat-
       ing hints as well as the hintfile, so you do not  have  to  create  one
       from scratch.

       category type1
       begin /usr/share/fonts/type1/foo.pfa
         FontName = Helvetica
         Charset = ISO8859-1
         Family = Helvetica
         Weight = Medium
         Shape = Upright NoSerif
         GeneralFamily = SansSerif
         X-FontName = -urw-helvetica-medium-r-noraml--0-0-0-0-p-iso8859-1
       end
       begin /usr/share/fonts/type1/foob.pfa
         FontName = Helvetica-Bold
         Charset = ISO8859-1
         Family = Helvetica
         Weight = Bold
         Shape = Upright NoSerif
         GeneralFamily = SansSerif
         X-FontName = -urw-helvetica-bold-r-noraml--0-0-0-0-p-iso8859-1
       end

SEE ALSO
       defoma-font(1).    defoma-app(1).   defoma-subst(1).   defoma-hints(1).
       defoma-psfont-installer(1).  defoma-reconfigure(1).  Defoma::Font(3pm).
       Defoma::Id(3pm).        Defoma::Subst(3pm).        Defoma::Common(3pm).
       /usr/share/doc/defoma-doc/developers.html/index.html
       /usr/share/doc/defoma-doc/defoma-script.html/index.html

                                March  4, 2001                       defoma(1)