Fontconfig - Oct 2007 - how to correctly set fontconfig on Windows

Hello,

I would like to install a library that uses fontconfig on Windows.

I have installed the true type fonts in:

c:\Program Files\CommonFiles\Efl\share\fonts

(Efl is the name of the package).

Of course, if I just do that, fontconfig can not find the fonts and I get 
the error:

Fontconfig error: Cannot load default config file

What I would like to know is how I can correctly set fontconfig on 
Windows. I know that if I install gtk runtime (for gimp) or Xchat2 on 
Windows (well, xchat uses gtk but install fontconfig in its own 
directory), fontconfig can detect the font files.

I know that I can use the environment variables

FONTCONFIG_FILE = fonts.conf
FONTCONFIG_PATH = $MY_PATH/fonts/conf
FC_CACHEDIR = $MY_PATH/fonts/cache

where MY_PATH is some dir. But I fear that it can create a conflict with 
the current fontconfig setup that gimp and/or xchat uses.

Can someone tell what I have to do during the installation of that library 
to set up correctly fontconfig ?

thank you

Vincent Torri

> I have installed the true type fonts in:
>
> c:\Program Files\CommonFiles\Efl\share\fonts
> (Efl is the name of the package).
Any particular reason why you don''t install them into Windows itself?
Are they strictly for use by Efl only from licensing or usefulness
point of view, and are there so many of them that having them visible
in the normal font selection of Windows apps would just cause lots of
clutter?

Presumably the Efl code really *does* require fontconfig, either by
using it directly or by using the pangoft2 library?
> Of course, if I just do that,
You didn''t tell where you installed fontconfig, and whether you used a
prebuilt package like mine at
http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/gnome/binaries/win32/dependencies/fontconfig-2.4.2-tml-20071015.zip
or from somewhere else, or whether you compiled fontconfig yourself?
> fontconfig can not find the fonts and I get
> the error:
>
> Fontconfig error: Cannot load default config file
Well, that message doesn''t say that it can''t find the fonts,
it says
that it can''t find the fonts.conf file. (But the end result of course
is that no fonts are found either, as it is the fonts.conf file which
tells where to look for fonts...)
> What I would like to know is how I can correctly set fontconfig on
> Windows.
I would unzip the above zip file (or a newer version if/when one is
available) into the c:\Program Files\CommonFiles\Efl folder, and not
move the files thus unzipped around after that. Then in c:\Program
Files\CommonFiles\Efl\etc\fonts\fonts.conf I would replace
"<dir>~/.fonts</dir>" with "<dir>c:/program
files/common
files/efl/share/fonts</dir>. (Hmm, I hope it works to have spaces in
there...)
> I know that if I install gtk runtime (for gimp) or Xchat2 on
> Windows (well, xchat uses gtk but install fontconfig in its own
> directory), fontconfig can detect the font files.
With "the" font files, do you mean the ones installed in the Windows
font folder, or the ones you installed into Efl\share\fonts ?

(Anyway, I wonder why Xchat2 comes bundled with fontconfig, does it
really need it? GIMP does, but not GTK+ applications in general.)
> I know that I can use the environment variables
Sorry, I have never played with those, can''t say anything about them.
> Can someone tell what I have to do during the installation of that library
> to set up correctly fontconfig ?
fontconfig as a concept is rather foreign to Windows, so using it on
Windows is not really "correct" (in a more philosophical sense)... One
should use fontconfig on Windows only if the code absolutely requires
fontconfig. At least, that''s what Owen always says unless I''m
mistaken. But anyway, hopefully the above should give you some help.

The key point is that the location of the default fonts.conf file is
constructed from the location of the fontconfig DLL. The DLlMain()
function in the DLL asks the system where it is located.

The DLL should be in "someprefix\bin" (or "someprefix\lib",
although
that is not really recommended), and the fonts.conf file then in
"someprefix\etc\fonts". If the DLL is in a folder whose last component
isn''t "bin" or "lib", then the fonts.conf file
should be in
"etc\fonts" directly under that folder.

This is the same logic that GTK+ and all other related stuff I have
ported to Windows use to find its installation location at run time.
As far as I know it works fine, although in fontconfig''s case the code
only uses the ANSI variants of the APIs so it won''t work if pathnames
with characters not in the system codepage are involved.

--tml

On Thu, 18 Oct 2007, Tor Lillqvist wrote:
>> I have installed the true type fonts in:
>>
>> c:\Program Files\CommonFiles\Efl\share\fonts
>> (Efl is the name of the package).
>
> Any particular reason why you don''t install them into Windows
itself?
> Are they strictly for use by Efl only from licensing or usefulness
> point of view, and are there so many of them that having them visible
> in the normal font selection of Windows apps would just cause lots of
> clutter?
About the licence, I don''t know. It''s the Vera (normal and
bold) font
files. I put them in a separate dir because i never liked programs that 
install everything in the c:\WINDOWS dir (dll, fonts, apps, etc...)

Also, I would like to remove them when the uninstaller is launched. What 
if another program uses those fonts in c:\windows\fonts and I want to 
remove them ? The solution would be to not remove them, of course.
> Presumably the Efl code really *does* require fontconfig, either by
> using it directly or by using the pangoft2 library?
I use it directly. I don''t use pangoft.
> You didn''t tell where you installed fontconfig, and whether you
used a
> prebuilt package like mine at
>
http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/gnome/binaries/win32/dependencies/fontconfig-2.4.2-tml-20071015.zip
> or from somewhere else, or whether you compiled fontconfig yourself?
I compiled fontconfig myself. Last time I checked fontconfig on your 
website, it was an old version. I remark that, now, you have a modified 
version of 2.4.2. Maybe I can use it.

Anyway, I installed the fontconfig dll in c:\program files\common 
files\efl\bin
>> fontconfig can not find the fonts and I get
>> the error:
>>
>> Fontconfig error: Cannot load default config file
>
> Well, that message doesn''t say that it can''t find the
fonts, it says
> that it can''t find the fonts.conf file. (But the end result of
course
> is that no fonts are found either, as it is the fonts.conf file which
> tells where to look for fonts...)
yes, I know :-)
>> What I would like to know is how I can correctly set fontconfig on
>> Windows.
>
> I would unzip the above zip file (or a newer version if/when one is
> available) into the c:\Program Files\CommonFiles\Efl folder, and not
> move the files thus unzipped around after that. Then in c:\Program
> Files\CommonFiles\Efl\etc\fonts\fonts.conf I would replace
> "<dir>~/.fonts</dir>" with
"<dir>c:/program files/common
> files/efl/share/fonts</dir>. (Hmm, I hope it works to have spaces in
> there...)
ha, the spaces... I''ll check. But actually, you gave the answer I
wanted
below.
>> I know that if I install gtk runtime (for gimp) or Xchat2 on
>> Windows (well, xchat uses gtk but install fontconfig in its own
>> directory), fontconfig can detect the font files.
>
> With "the" font files, do you mean the ones installed in the
Windows
> font folder, or the ones you installed into Efl\share\fonts ?
not those in Efl\share\fonts. I don''t know where xchat and gimp/gtk 
install the font files.
> (Anyway, I wonder why Xchat2 comes bundled with fontconfig, does it
> really need it? GIMP does, but not GTK+ applications in general.)
I use xchat 2 from silverex.org
>> I know that I can use the environment variables
>
> Sorry, I have never played with those, can''t say anything about
them.
ok
>> Can someone tell what I have to do during the installation of that
library
>> to set up correctly fontconfig ?
>
> fontconfig as a concept is rather foreign to Windows, so using it on
> Windows is not really "correct" (in a more philosophical
sense)... One
> should use fontconfig on Windows only if the code absolutely requires
> fontconfig. At least, that''s what Owen always says unless
I''m
> mistaken. But anyway, hopefully the above should give you some help.
>
> The key point is that the location of the default fonts.conf file is
> constructed from the location of the fontconfig DLL. The DLlMain()
> function in the DLL asks the system where it is located.
>
> The DLL should be in "someprefix\bin" (or
"someprefix\lib", although
> that is not really recommended), and the fonts.conf file then in
> "someprefix\etc\fonts". If the DLL is in a folder whose last
component
> isn''t "bin" or "lib", then the fonts.conf file
should be in
> "etc\fonts" directly under that folder.
haaaa, that''s exactly what I wanted to know ! So as the fontconfig dll
is
in c:\program files\common files\efl\bin, I have to put the fonts.conf 
file in c:\program files\common files\efl\etc\fonts

Also, it seems that I need to modify manually fonts.conf. I''ll check if
I
can do that automatically (I use nsis, and not inno)

About the fact that I need fontconfig, well, it seems so, as the program 
fails because of fontconfig (I have ported to Windows the evas library and 
its bechmark test suite named expedite. Those are linux code).

anyway, thank you very much for your useful answers !

regards

Vincent Torri