OpenRA/SharpFont

Name: SharpFont

Owner: OpenRA

Description: Cross-platform FreeType bindings for .NET

Created: 2015-04-14 19:34:05.0

Updated: 2016-11-29 22:55:26.0

Pushed: 2015-04-13 15:52:20.0

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Size: 5414

Language: C#

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README

SharpFont

Cross-platform FreeType bindings for .NET

SharpFont is a library that provides FreeType bindings for .NET. It's MIT licensed to make sure licensing doesn't get in the way of using the library in your own projects. Unlike Tao.FreeType, SharpFont provides the full public API and not just the basic methods needed to render simple text. Everything from format-specific APIs to the caching subsystem are included.

SharpFont simplifies the FreeType API in a few ways:

• The error codes that most FreeType methods return are converted to exceptions.
• Since the return values are no longer error codes, methods with a single out parameter are returned instead.
• Most methods are instance methods instead of static methods. This avoids unnecessary redundancy in method calls and creates an API with a .NET look-and-feel.

For example, a regular FreeType method looks like this:

 face;
err = FT_New_Face(library, "./myfont.ttf", 0, &face);

The equivalent code in C# with SharpFont is:

 face = new Face(library, "./myfont.ttf");

Quick Start

NuGet

SharpFont is available on NuGet. It can be installed by issuing the following command in the package manager console:

Install-Package SharpFont

From Source

Clone the repository and compile the solution. Copy SharpFont.dll to your project and include it as a reference. On Windows, you must include a compiled copy of FreeType2 as freetype6.dll in the project's output directory. It is possible to rename the file by changing the filename constant in FT.Internal.cs and recompile. On Linux and OSX (and any other Mono supported platform), you must also copy SharpFont.dll.config to the project's output directory.

Mono

With the removal of the WIN64 configurations, the included Makefile is effectively redundant. However, you can still build SharpFont by calling make while in the root directory of this project.

FreeType

A large number of FreeType builds for Windows are now available in the SharpFont.Dependencies repository.

Compiling FreeType on Windows

The copies of freetype6.dll that the Examples project uses by default are chosen based on what works on my machine, and I will probably update it as soon as a new version of FreeType is released. This means that it may not work on older versions of Windows. If this is the case, you can either modify the project file to point to another included version of freetype or you can compile FreeType yourself from source.

Note: Any copy of freetype6.dll can work as a drop-in replacement, including this copy from the GnuWin32 project. Older versions such as that one may crash with a EntryPointException when using newer APIs. If on a 64-bit machine not patching the source code will cause SharpFont to crash in weird places.

Thanks to this StackOverflow answer for the directions:

1. Download the latest FreeType source code.
2. Open builds\win32\vc2010\freetype.sln (or whatever version of Visual Studio you have) in Visual Studio.
3. Change the compile configuration from Debug to Release.
4. Open the project properties window through Project -> Properties.
5. In the General selection, change the Target Name to freetype6 and the Configuration Type to Dynamic Library (.dll).
6. If compiling for 64-bit
7. Apply a patch to the source code (see Known Issues).
8. Open up Configuration Manager (the last option in the dropdown menu when changing your compile configuration) and change Platform to x64.
9. Open up ftoption.h (in the project's Header Files section) and add the following three lines near the DLL export compilation section:

ine FT_EXPORT(x) __declspec(dllexport) x
ine FT_EXPORT_DEF(x) __declspec(dllexport) x
ine FT_BASE(x) __declspec(dllexport) x

Finally, complile the project (F6 or Build -> Build Solution). freetype6.dll will be output to objs\win32\vc2010. If this is a build that isn't included in Dependencies, consider forking and submitting a pull request with your new build.

Known Issues

The biggest currently known issue is the Windows 64-bit incompatibility. A patch must be applied to FreeType before it will work properly with SharpFont.

TODO: make a .patch file

License

As metioned earlier, SharpFont is licensed under the MIT License. The terms of the MIT license are included in both the LICENSE file and below:

right (c) 2012-2013 Robert Rouhani <robert.rouhani@gmail.com>

pFont based on Tao.FreeType, Copyright (c) 2003-2007 Tao Framework Team

ission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
his software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
he Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
se, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
es of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
ished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
es or substantial portions of the Software.

SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
ESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
ORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
ILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
WARE.

The Windows binary of FreeType that is included in the Examples project and in the NuGet package is redistributed under the FreeType License (FTL).

ions of this software are copyright (c) 2015 The FreeType Project
.freetype.org). All rights reserved.