No bitmap font support since pango 1.44

[dnkl]

Since version 1.44, pango no longer supports bitmap fonts: https://blogs.gnome.org/mclasen/2019/05/25/pango-future-directions/

Since sway uses pango, this also means no more bitmap fonts in sway. I just wanted to a) make you aware of this, and b) ask what your thoughts on this are?

I for one cannot live without bitmap fonts. At least not on non-high-DPI monitors.

If sway wants to continue supporting bitmap fonts, what kind of solutions would you find acceptable? I'm asking since it would seem this requires either moving away from pango, or at least add support for more font rendering backends?

[emersion]

I don't care a lot about these personally.

In case you missed it:

Note that Harfbuzz does support loading bitmap-only OpenType fonts.

[progandy]

Some useful links for font conversions. It should be possible to convert Type1 fonts to OTF (CFF) fonts and bitmap fonts to bitmap-only TTF/OTF fonts (optionally with a vectorized variant).

https://fontforge.github.io/scripting-tutorial.html
https://github.com/kreativekorp/bitsnpicas
https://github.com/koron/bdf2ttf
https://github.com/dse/bdf2ttf
https://github.com/Tblue/mkttf

[DmitryHetman]

Why use ttf fonts in console? Bitmaps looks much better.

[DmitryHetman]

you dont have to smooth them etc.

[Architector4]

Why use ttf fonts in console? Bitmaps looks much better.

Subjective, though. I, for one, don't like bitmap fonts, and prefer smooth monospace vector based fonts.

[hissssst]

Got my bitmap font fucked up broken today, any fix/branch ?

[emersion]

Use OpenType bitmap fonts.

[dnkl]

@hissssst: since re-packaging all my fonts in TTF/OTF isn't really something I wanted to do, I opted to: a) limit my usage of GTK/pango based programs as much as possible, b) use titlebar-less windows in Sway, and instead display the active window's title in the bar (not swaybar though, my own bar), and c) use qt or terminal based applications whenever possible.

Might write a dunst/mako-replacement just for fun as well...

Yeah, I'm not happy, but life goes on.

[parkerlreed]

RIP Terminus. Glad I'm still on KDE. Sad to bear.

[dnkl]

@parkerlreed @hissssst @DmitryHetman
I've created a fork/PR-that-will-never-be-merged at https://gitlab.com/dnkl/sway. It replaces pango with fontconfig+cairo, which still support bitmap fonts. It's a huge hack, with lots of limitations. See README.md in the fontconfig branch for details and instructions.

I guess it's also a good idea to not comment here anymore - don't beat the dead horse.