If the user can watch the font being rendered, there is an issue
somewhere else.  The speed at which modern rasterizers compose a
character is magnitudes faster than the first days.  Also, please
remember the character is not re-rasterized each time it is requested,
there is a 'bitmap cache' to store the results.

-----Original Message-----
From: Malte Mundt [mailto:community-noreply@qnx.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, July 01, 2009 5:46 AM
To: photon-graphics
Subject: scalable fonts vs. bitmap fonts

In the Photon docs, I read:

----

You should always use scalable font technology, unless you use a highly
contained system that only requires specific point sizes. Once you start
adding additional bitmap fonts for more point sizes, any benefits are
quickly lost due to large file sizes. Due to the flexibility and speed
of current scalable font technology, bitmap fonts are no longer
recommended.

----

Given the complexity of generating a visible character out of a scalable
font, I wonder if this is a good recommendation? Especially for non-x86,
e.g. ARM9 or small PPC systems, wouldn't it be better to use bitmap
fonts?

Also, file size and performance are deemed equally important here - but
what does a few 100k of saved space give me when my users can watch the
fonts being rendered?


- Malte


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Photon microGUI
http://community.qnx.com/sf/go/post32914