README
1The GDTextUtil package contains text utilities for use with the GD
2drawing package.
3
4This package provides three modules that make it possible to work with
5internal GD fonts as well as TrueType fonts, without having to worry
6about different interface functions to call. Apart from an abstract
7interface to all font types and strings for GD, this library also
8provides some utility in aligning and wrapping your string.
9
10GD::Text:
11 Provides information about a font, irrespective of whether the font
12 is a TTF or builtin font.
13
14GD::Text::Align
15 Align a string around a coordinate, left, right, center, top, bottom
16 or center.
17
18GD::Text::Wrap
19 Wrap a long string between a right and left margin, starting at a
20 certain y coordinate. Layout the text flush left, flush right,
21 center, or justified.
22
23Requirements:
24
25 perl 5.005_03 or higher. It may (and probably will) work on older
26 versions, but it has not been tested, and I won't spend a lot of
27 time trying to support it.
28
29 GD 1.20 or up, if possible built with TTF (freetype) support.
30 GD 2.* has not been tested yet.
31
32 Please note that the freetype version 2 libraries should be at
33 the latest level. Especially version 2.0.3 has an annoying bug
34 that rotates text twice. Later versions of freetype (2.1.2
35 currently) don't render as nicely anymore as earlier ones.
36 Hopefully that will be fixed, because it is _ugly_ right now.
37
38 If you want 'make test' to do something useful, you will need
39 to have Test::More installed. If you don't, all tests will be
40 skipped.
41
42Installation:
43
44 perl Makefile.PL
45 make
46 make test
47 make demo
48 make install
49
50Demo(s) can be found in the demo directory.
51
52 DO NOT PANIC when the tests fail. The various Freetype libraries
53 often have a slightly different implementation of their rendering
54 algorithms, resulting in slightly different bounding boxes for
55 strings, and slightly different looking images. If your tests
56 fail, try a 'make demo', and visually compare demo/GDWrap.png
57 (freshly generated image) and demo/GDWrap.ref.png (reference
58 image). If they look reasonably similar, you can call the tests
59 successful. Even if they don't look entirely similar, it may
60 simply be because your font files are different from the ones I
61 used to create GDWrap.ref.png. Please see the sources.
62
63 Currently, some of the TTF tests in t/* are disabled, specifically
64 because every version of the freetype library seems to render
65 differently enough for sizing to be wrong all the time. I don't
66 think I'll ever re-enable them anymore.
67
68Bug Reports:
69
70 When you report a bug, please include as much information as
71 possible (unless you also supply a patch :)).
72 The minimum set of information I need to be able to correctly
73 assess a bug is:
74
75 GD::Text version
76 Perl version and OS
77 GD version
78
79 If the bug relates to TrueType font rendering, I'll also need to
80 know which version freetype library you linked in.
81
82 If at all possible, submit a small program that demonstrates the
83 problem, together with the output _you_ get on your system
84 (remember that it all works fine on mine).
85
86 If you're using Redhat, and have their freetype 2.0.3 library RPM
87 installed, do not report bugs until you have upgraded to a later
88 version.
89
90 CYGWIN
91
92 If you try to install the GD::Text modules on cygwin, you may see
93 error messages like the following:
94
95 C:\cygwin\bin\cygperl.exe: *** unable to remap
96 C:\cygwin\usr\X11R6\bin\libfreetype.dll to same address as
97 parent(0x720000) != 0x74000064 [main] cygperl 4296 sync_with_child:
98 child 4364(0xFC) died before initialization with status code 0x1
99
100 It has been brought to my attention (by Michael West) that in this
101 case it is necessary to "rebase" the used libraries (Don't ask me,
102 I don't know what that means). There is some more info on the
103 cygwin mailing list:
104
105 http://sources.redhat.com/ml/cygwin/2003-02/msg01484.html
106 http://sources.redhat.com/ml/cygwin/2003-02/msg01789.html
107 http://sources.redhat.com/ml/cygwin/2003-02/msg01833.html
108
109Todo:
110
111 - Make the interface more flexible
112 - Alignment for the wrap boxes as a whole
113 - More demo code
114
115COPYRIGHT
116
117 Copyright (c) 1999 Martien Verbruggen
118 mgjv@comdyn.com.au
119
120 This package is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
121 modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.
122
123Enclosed fonts:
124
125 Dustismo Sans and Dustismo Roman
126 http://www.cheapskatefonts.com/
127 see Dustismo,LICENSE for original (GPL) license
128
129 Cetus by Greg Meronek is no longer enclosed, since its copyright
130 status has become unclear (the status is simply not known).
131 http://fontastic.i-n.net/fontastic/greg.htm
132
133
