lubuntu font installer (just an idea)

[Stephen Smally]

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
>      >
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>
>
> 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...