README revision 61b3db43 
1libXfont provides the core of the legacy X11 font system, handling the
2index files (fonts.dir, fonts.alias, fonts.scale), the various font file
3formats, and rasterizing them.   It is used by the X servers, the
4X Font Server (xfs), and some font utilities (bdftopcf for instance),
5but should not be used by normal X11 clients.  X11 clients access fonts
6via either the new API's in libXft, or the legacy API's in libX11.
7
8libXfont supports a number of compression and font formats, and the
9configure script takes various options to enable or disable them:
10
11 -- Compression types:
12
13    gzip - always enabled, no option to disable, requires libz
14
15    bzip2 - disabled by default, enable via --with-bzip2, requires libbz2
16
17 -- Font formats:
18
19    builtins - copies of the "fixed" & "cursor" fonts required by the
20            X protocol are built into the library so the X server always
21            has the fonts it requires to start up.   Accessed via the
22            special 'built-ins' entry in the X server font path.
23            Enabled by default, disable via --disable-builtins.
24
25    freetype - handles scalable font formats including OpenType, FreeType,
26            and PostScript formats.  Requires FreeType2 library.
27            Can also be used to handle bdf & bitmap pcf font formats.
28            Enabled by default, disable via --disable-freetype.
29
30    bdf bitmap fonts - text file format for distributing fonts, described
31            in http://www.x.org/docs/BDF/bdf.pdf specification.  Normally
32            not used by the X server at runtime, as the fonts distributed
33            by X.Org in bdf format are compiled with bdftopcf when
34            installing/packaging them.
35            Enabled by default, disable via --disable-bdfformat.
36
37    pcf bitmap fonts - standard bitmap font format since X11R5 in 1991,
38            used for all bitmap fonts installed from X.Org packages.
39            Compiled format is architecture independent.
40            As noted above, usually produced by bdftopcf.
41            Enabled by default, disable via --disable-pcfformat.
42
43    snf bitmap fonts - standard bitmap font format prior to X11R5 in 1991,
44            remains only for backwards compatibility.  Unlike pcf, snf files
45            are architecture specific, and contain less font information
46            than pcf files.  snf fonts are deprecated and may be disabled
47            by default in future libXfont releases.
48            Enabled by default, disable via --disable-snfformat.
49
50 -- Font services:
51
52    xfs font servers - allows retreiving fonts as a client of an xfs server.
53            Enabled by default, disable via --disable-fc (font client).
54
55            If enabled, you can also use the standard libxtrans flags to
56            configure which transports can be used to connect to xfs:
57              --enable-unix-transport Enable UNIX domain socket transport
58              --enable-tcp-transport  Enable TCP socket transport (IPv4)
59              --enable-ipv6           Enable IPv6 support for tcp-transport
60              --enable-local-transport Enable os-specific local transport
61            (Change --enable to --disable to force disabling support.)
62            The default setting is to enable all of the transports the
63            configure script can find OS support for.
64
65--------------------------------------------------------------------------
66
67Please submit bugs & patches to the Xorg bugzilla:
68
69	https://bugs.freedesktop.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=xorg
70
71All questions regarding this software should be directed at the
72Xorg mailing list:
73
74	http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xorg
75
76The master development code repository can be found at:
77
78	git://anongit.freedesktop.org/git/xorg/lib/libXfont
79
80	http://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/lib/libXfont
81
82For more information on the git code manager, see:
83
84	http://wiki.x.org/wiki/GitPage
85