lubuntu font installer (just an idea)

Karl Anliot kanliot at gmail.com
Sat Aug 25 12:26:12 UTC 2012


On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 1:10 PM, Stephen Smally <eco.stefi at fastwebnet.it> wrote:
> Il 16/07/2012 18:00, Stephen Smally ha scritto:
>
>> Il 16/07/2012 16:19, Jean-Pierre Vidal Piesset ha scritto:
>>>
>>> 2012/7/16 PCMan <pcman.tw at gmail.com <mailto:pcman.tw at gmail.com>>
>>>
>>>     I really think that it's a good idea.
>>>     KDE supports this IIRC.
>>>     Installing a font in Linux should be easy and just involves copy &
>>>     paste or drag & drop
>>>     It's not difficult to implement at all.
>>>     For example, a user bought some commercial true type fonts for use
>>>     in Windows.
>>>     The fonts sit happily in C:\windows\fonts.
>>>     Someday he started using Lubuntu.
>>>     Then he needs to generate deb packages for each of them and submit
>>> bug
>>>     reports in the tracker of lubuntu to have them packaged.
>>>     Then, he needs to wait for the next iteration of Lubuntu release to
>>>     get these packages.
>>>     If the fonts are not free fonts, there is no way to have them
>>> packaged
>>>     by Lubuntu team.
>>>     So, packaging everything apparently does not work in this case.
>>>     Just having a tool to copy the *.ttf files to the font dir and calls
>>>     fc-cache update is enough.
>>>     The main UI can be simple, and the "sudo fc-cache" call can be
>>>     replaced with a policykit action, I think.
>>>     However we should only install the fonts to some restricted place
>>> like
>>>     /usr/share/fonts/<our_own_folder> and not mixed with others installed
>>>     by the packaging system.
>>>
>>>     Just my two cents.
>>>
>>>     On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 10:51 AM, Jonathan Marsden
>>>     <jmarsden at fastmail.fm <mailto:jmarsden at fastmail.fm>> wrote:
>>>      > Karl,
>>>      >
>>>      > On 07/15/2012 03:36 PM, Karl Anliot wrote:
>>>      >
>>>      >> Lubuntu doesn't have an automatic way to install font files. I
>>>      >> noticed a user asking how to do this in lubuntu, he must have
>>> had a
>>>      >> font he needed to use.
>>>      >
>>>      >> A new program could list fonts to remove, and install fonts from
>>>      >> font files, and launch a font viewer if the user wants to look
>>> at a
>>>      >> font. Someone could code this?
>>>      >
>>>      > Perhaps, but is there a good reason to do so?  Fonts can and (IMO)
>>>      > should be packaged, just like other installable software.  They
>>>     can then
>>>      > be installed using existing package management tools (dpkg,
>>> apt-get,
>>>      > synaptic, lsc, software center, ...), and updated automatically
>>>     that way
>>>      > as needed.
>>>      >
>>>      > Creating and maintaining a new "special" application just to
>>> install
>>>      > fonts does not seem to me to have significant benefits, when
>>> packages
>>>      > and all their associated software tools and infrastructure
>>>     already exist.
>>>      >
>>>      > Worst case, if a user is willing to "go around" the package
>>>     management
>>>      > system to install an unpackaged font, they can use pcmanfm or any
>>>     other
>>>      > file management tool to create a directory under
>>>      > /usr/share/fonts/truetype/ , copy their *.ttf files in there, and
>>>     then run
>>>      >
>>>      >   sudo fc-cache -f -v
>>>      >
>>>      > This is the exact same approach described for Ubuntu at
>>>      >
>>>      > https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Fonts
>>>      >
>>>      > As far as I can see, Lubuntu is no better and no worse than
>>> Ubuntu in
>>>      > this respect.  When a user asks how to install an unpackaged
>>>     font, and
>>>      > they are unwilling to package it, I suggest we can direct them to
>>>     that
>>>      > wiki page.
>>>      >
>>>      > Jonathan
>>>      >
>>>      > --
>>>      > Lubuntu-users mailing list
>>>      > Lubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com
>>>     <mailto:Lubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com>
>>>      > Modify settings or unsubscribe at:
>>>     https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/lubuntu-users
>>>
>>>     --
>>>     Lubuntu-users mailing list
>>>     Lubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com
>>> <mailto:Lubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com>
>>>     Modify settings or unsubscribe at:
>>>     https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/lubuntu-users
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Some time ago I went through the problem of installing fonts myself,
>>> since in my office I'm migrating (with quite succes I must say)
>>> everybody to Lubuntu. The problem was that I knew where to place fonts
>>> to install them, but for newbies or average users it was a pain.
>>> If I understand right, some functionality could be implemented within
>>> pcmanfm to right click font files and install them? This would be a
>>> great behaviour!!
>>>
>>> -- jpxsat
>>>
>>>
>>
>> What about a tiny app that open a font and ask for installation (and
>> perhaps show a preview)?
>> Maybe i will mockup something...
>>
>>
>
> Mockup!
> http://imagebin.org/index.php?mode=image&id=221005
>
>
>
> --
> Lubuntu-users mailing list
> Lubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com
> Modify settings or unsubscribe at:
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/lubuntu-users

There's a package called gnome-font-viewer in the repos.   I think
it's 119K.  Works well, looks good, etc.
IMHO the idea of creating a new app is obsolete, maybe we should talk
about including gnome-font-installer in Lubuntu.



More information about the Lubuntu-users mailing list