defoma(1)							     defoma(1)



NAME
       defoma - Debian Font Manager, a framework for automatic font configura
       tion.

SYNOPSIS
       defoma-font [options] command args..
       defoma-app [options] command args..
       defoma-subst [options] command args..

DESCRIPTION
       Defoma stands for Debian Font Manager.  It  provides  a	framework  for
       automatic  font	configuration.	This manpage introduces general Defoma
       concepts, please refer  the  manpage  of  defoma-font,  defoma-app,  or
       defoma-subst for the detailed information of each command.

       Fonts  are used by numerous applications, but generally need to be con
       figured separately for each application. Defoma solves this problem  by
       calling	configuration  scripts	to  update  the  font configuration of
       applications whenever a font is installed or removed.

       A Defoma-configuration script is a perl library that  each  application
       should	    install	  as	   application-name.defoma	 under
       /usr/share/defoma/scripts and which configures a font for that applica
       tion. The following is an example of a script named foo.defoma.

       @ACCEPT_CATEGORIES = qw(type1 truetype);

       package foo;

       sub type1 {
	 my $com = shift;
	 ...
       }

       sub truetype {
	 my $com = shift;
	 ...
       }

       1;

       This  example  represents  an  application  foo that wants to configure
       truetype and type1 category fonts. A function by the same name  as  the
       relevant category is called by Defoma with a command as the first argu
       ment, and then additional arguments depending on the command.  The fol
       lowing is a list of commands.

       * register
       * unregister
       * do-install-real do-install-alias do-install-subst
       * do-remove-real do-remove-alias do-remove-subst
       * init
       * term
       * purge

       do-install-*  and  do-remove-*  commands are only called from Id cache.
       init and term are called at the start and end (respectively) of the en
       tire process.

       Id cache is another feature of Defoma. A common problem during automat
       ic configuration is name space conflicts. Usually  applications	access
       fonts through logical font names (like XLFDs and PostScript font names)
       rather than the fonts themselves  (as  font  filenames).  Logical  font
       names,  called  identifiers  in	Defoma, can easily conflict especially
       when font aliases are permitted. Through the Id cache  mechanism,  only
       one  font  is actually installed for each identifier even if it is pro
       vided by several fonts.

       Id Substitution is an additional feature of Id  cache.	It  selects  a
       font  to provide an id specified by a rulefile.	The rulefile describes
       rules giving required ids and their hints.  A rule is used to have more
       similar-looking	fonts  with  the  same characters substitute for a re
       quired id. This feature can also be used for the  purpose  of  grouping
       fonts into different categories.

       A  category  represents	a type of font. Generally fonts that belong to
       the same category are configured the same way.

       Hints represent essential font  information  and  typeface  information
       about  the font.  They consist of some HintTypes and their values. They
       can be specified from the  command  line  options  of  defoma-font,  or
       through a hintfile.

       Hintfile  describes one or more fonts and their hints in a single file.
       It is supposed to be put under /etc/defoma/hints as a conffile, so that
       users can modify the hints.
       Below  is an example hintfile.  defoma-hints is a tool to help generat
       ing hints as well as the hintfile, so you do not  have  to  create  one
       from scratch.

       category type1
       begin /usr/share/fonts/type1/foo.pfa
	 FontName = Helvetica
	 Charset = ISO8859-1
	 Family = Helvetica
	 Weight = Medium
	 Shape = Upright NoSerif
	 GeneralFamily = SansSerif
	 X-FontName = -urw-helvetica-medium-r-noraml--0-0-0-0-p-iso8859-1
       end
       begin /usr/share/fonts/type1/foob.pfa
	 FontName = Helvetica-Bold
	 Charset = ISO8859-1
	 Family = Helvetica
	 Weight = Bold
	 Shape = Upright NoSerif
	 GeneralFamily = SansSerif
	 X-FontName = -urw-helvetica-bold-r-noraml--0-0-0-0-p-iso8859-1
       end


SEE ALSO
       defoma-font(1).	  defoma-app(1).   defoma-subst(1).   defoma-hints(1).
       defoma-psfont-installer(1).  defoma-reconfigure(1).  Defoma::Font(3pm).
       Defoma::Id(3pm).        Defoma::Subst(3pm).	  Defoma::Common(3pm).
       /usr/share/doc/defoma-doc/developers.html/index.html
       /usr/share/doc/defoma-doc/defoma-script.html/index.html



				March  4, 2001			     defoma(1)