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D-Type Font Engine Overview

D-Type Font Engine is by far the most complex component of D-Type Engine. Its function is to manage fonts and font instances, provide applications with font information in a manner that is independent of the underlying font format, and render glyphs within the fonts to the output surface of the application's choice. In this process, colors and, optionally, advanced style effects are applied.

D-Type Font Engine consists of the following main components:

How It Works

The visual appearance of any glyph rendered by D-Type Font Engine depends on several parameters. The most important ones are described below:

Life Cycle

A typical life cycle of an application that relies on D-Type Font Engine is briefly summarized in the following table:

Step Function
1. Initialize D-Type Engine dtEngineIniViaStream
2. Add (additional) font(s) to the Font Catalog dtFontAddViaStream, dtFontAddViaStreams
3. Obtain font information (optional) dtFontGetSysStatus, dtFontGetMetrics, dtFontGetMMAxisInfo, dtFontGetStringValue, dtFontGetNumericValue
4. Add additional font instances to the Font Catalog (optional for multiple-master and variable fonts) dtFontAddAsMMInstance
5. Set destination surface (D-Type's Memory Surface or Windows Device Context) and its clipping region to the Output dtOutputSetAsMDC, dtOutputSetAsHDC
6. Select a style to the Output. dtOutputSetStyleAttribs or dtOutputSetStyleEffects
7. Select a type to the Typesetter. dtTypesetterSetTypeAttribs or dtTypesetterSetTypeEffects
8. Draw glyphs or text dtGlyphDoOutput, dtCharDoOutput
dtxGlyphsDoOutput, dtxCharsDoOutput, dtxGlyphsDoOutput_Arc, dtxCharsDoOutput_Arc
9. Deinitialize D-Type Engine dtEngineExt

Please note that the above table only identifies the most important steps and functions. Your application might need additional steps and/or functions.

 

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