[ANNOUNCEMENT] Updated: mscgen-0.20-2

[David Stacey]

On 26/02/2015 11:58, Thomas Wolff wrote:
> On 25.02.2015 21:34, David Stacey wrote:
>> On 25/02/2015 07:27, Thomas Wolff wrote:
>>> Am 19.02.2015 um 00:05 schrieb David Stacey:
>>>> The following package has been updated in the Cygwin distribution:
>>>>
>>>> * mscgen-0.20-2
>>>>
>>>> Mscgen is a small programme that parses Message Sequence Chart
>>>> descriptions and produces PNG, SVG, EPS or server side image maps
>>>> (ismaps) as the output.
>>>>
>>>> This release has been built with libgd3 and three patches from Fedora.
>>> Please rebuild the package with
>>>         configure --with-freetype
>>> so the font selection option -F can be used.
>>
>> I tried rebuilding with '--with-freetype'. mscgen builds but always 
>> exits with an error code. This is because gdImageStringFT() always 
>> returns the string 'Could not set character size'. By default, the 
>> code is trying to use the 'helvetica' font. I have a goodly selection 
>> of font packages installed. Any ideas?
> I had similar problems until I found out how to configure fonts. This 
> is very poorly documented.
> With /etc/fonts/fonts.conf pointing to ~/.fonts, it is actually 
> sufficient to link your font directory to ~/.fonts
> and you can address all fonts contained therein (including subfolders) 
> by their name like in
> mscgen -T png -F "Droid Sans"

I'm not sure you need to edit /etc/fonts/fonts.conf. By default, this 
includes /usr/share/fonts, so any font therein should be accessible to 
mscgen. You would only need to do this if you wanted to use fonts in 
non-standard locations - such as those from texlive-collection-fontsextra.

I wonder if this is a problem with font types? 'fc-match helvetica' 
matches a PCF font, and that might explain the error, if libgd3 is 
trying to scale a bitmap font. But a TrueType Font such as 'Luxi Sans' 
works. Should I just patch mscgen so that the default font is a TrueType 
font?

Dave.