Fontconfig - Feb 2008 - code coverage problem when using fontconfig/freetype

Hi,

 I am curious about a problem of code coverage and font using
 fontconfig. I know in fontconfig you can specify many font file of one
 ''family'', take a example of Chinese, I see many internet
articles to
 tell people to configure their fonts using two or more fonts for a
 family, usually the first one is only cover the English characters,
 and the second can cover both English and Chinese characters.

 It seems that program(not sure the fontconfig or the user application)
 can use the English font first if it only display English, but will
 change to Chinese font once the English font can''t have enough
 coverage...

 Can anyone tell me how to do this? Personally I wrote a program but
 can''t do this, I don''t know whats the problem.

 Thanks.
 Bin

Bin Chen wrote:
>  It seems that program(not sure the fontconfig or the user application)
>  can use the English font first if it only display English, but will
>  change to Chinese font once the English font can''t have enough
>  coverage...
Typically, the font doesn''t "change" over, but uses the
characters out
of a different font. For example, if a Chinese font is added to the 
"Sans" match, then a Chinese web page will latin characters from
DejaVu,
and Chinese characters from whatever font was added.

For programs that don''t use the functionality properly (like IceWM),
you
have to specify the entire list of fonts that it should try.

If you''re writing the program, I believe it''s up to your
program to keep
trying to match fonts until a character is found.

--Pat

On Tue, Feb 19, 2008 at 4:49 AM, Pat Suwalski <pat at suwalski.net>
wrote:
> Bin Chen wrote:
>  >  It seems that program(not sure the fontconfig or the user
application)
>  >  can use the English font first if it only display English, but will
>  >  change to Chinese font once the English font can''t have
enough
>  >  coverage...
>
>  Typically, the font doesn''t "change" over, but uses the
characters out
>  of a different font. For example, if a Chinese font is added to the
>  "Sans" match, then a Chinese web page will latin characters from
DejaVu,
>  and Chinese characters from whatever font was added.
>
>  For programs that don''t use the functionality properly (like
IceWM), you
>  have to specify the entire list of fonts that it should try.
>
>  If you''re writing the program, I believe it''s up to your
program to keep
>  trying to match fonts until a character is found.
Thanks Pat, Can you point me to some sample code that I can modify the
program then fix this?

Bin