[Freeciv-Dev] (PR#2414) tileset font problems

["Jason Short via RT" <rt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Tilesets are allowed to specify fonts, but this system is broken in two 
ways.

1. The fonts are specified as X fonts, which many clients cannot 
understand (and currently ignore).

2. There are just a few fonts, and they are hard-coded into the GUI code 
and use automatically by the GUI in many places.  For instance the "city 
productions font" may be used on the radar screen for the intro freeciv 
text, just for lack of anything better.

Vasco had some ideas for solutions to #1: use CSS-style font 
descriptions, or .ini-style font descriptions, which hopefully can be 
interpreted by all clients.  I know little about this.

For #2, I think we need a font system similar to the current sprite 
system.  The GUI should provide a "struct font" and functions such as 
load_font().  The core code (not the GUI!) can then track these font 
structures and pass around the font that should be used in each situation.

A patch to do any of this would be welcome.  I suspect it will not be 
easy, since it touches all GUIs in a large way.

jason