Thanks for the update - wasn't aware a new xming version was available.

Eigi

I deleted all subfolders but "en_GB" in cygwin\usr\share\locale
Of course it could be DE, PL etc.
Best

Thanks. This is the first time I've succeeded in getting FontForge working under Windows.

JanekZ,
Thank you very much! Works for me too.
Best
Eigi

I'm glad FF works for you :)

@JanekZ

thanks for the solution.
I, too, had the language problem but hadn't gotten around to looking into it.
Thanks to eigi for asking, too.

rich

Update: http://old.nabble.com/Unofficial-Windows-MinGW-FontForge-2011-02-22-Buil...
"... this package aims to distribute user friendly FontForge binaries for Windows as well as the underlying build system itself."
Installer or 7z archive for download:
http://www.mpetroff.net/software/fontforge-windows/
Thank You very much, Matthew Petroff
Edit: the second link:
1. "copy link location"
2. paste in address field

JanekZ, the second link seems to be dead, is there an alternate?

Indeed the link http://www.mpetroff.net/software/fontforge-windows/ keeps redirecting me to the site http://69.170.135.91/ - very strange.

yes, strange indeed. Indirect access works.
Everything you need are archive and 25 MB of free space.
Best

update:
fontforge-cygwin_2012_04_11 available!
link: http://www.geocities.jp/meir000/fontforge/fontforge-cygwin_2012_04_11.zip
patch still needed: http://www.geocities.jp/meir000/fontforge/xming.html

yay!

hi all
i have been trying to start fontforge in Windows xp sp3; i initially tried the cygwin-fontforge package; it needs cygwin to be installed first;

then i came across Mathew Petroff's window (installable/ported) fontforge version; it works but with two limitations; i am not able to close it and re-run it without rebooting the pc; the second time if i run, it is shown in the task manager but the selection window doesnot appear;

i tried cvywin-mingw shown in this page; i downloaded both 2011 and 2012 versions and also xming.zip. After extracting and running the same i find it is starting; but with a hitch (see the image!) the selection window is present without "suitable fonts!"

also any suggestion how to make MathewPetroff's to work second time in the same session?
regards
rnkantan

hi all
i have been trying to start fontforge in Windows xp sp3; i initially tried the cygwin-fontforge package; it needs cygwin to be installed first;

then i came across Mathew Petroff's window (installable/ported) fontforge version; it works but with two limitations; i am not able to close it and re-run it without rebooting the pc; the second time if i run, it is shown in the task manager but the selection window doesnot appear;

i tried cvywin-mingw shown in this page; i downloaded both 2011 and 2012 versions and also xming.zip. After extracting and running the same i find it is starting; but with a hitch (see the image!) the selection window is present without "suitable fonts!"

also any suggestion how to make MathewPetroff's to work second time in the same session?
regards
rnkantan

I'm pretty sure the problem is in your system. FF works for me on 3 XP machines and 1 win2k.

yes it appears so;

it is a core2 duo machine (64 bit?) with win7 32 bit; i have win7 available as a dual boot; when i try to run cygwin in win 7 it crashes; simply crashes and a serious error dump happens; otherwise it is stable win7;

i have an acer 13 2nd generation with win7 64 bit; fontforge runs well there except the issue of inconsistent blinking;

i did onemore step to identify the issue; i redirected the bat output 2>errorlist (to catch the error starting; because the cmd window is splattered with pangocritical lines and the original output is lost)
=========
Copyright (c) 2000-2011 by George Williams.
Executable based on sources from 12:29 GMT 11-Feb-2011-ML-TtfDb.
Library based on sources from 01:16 GMT 11-Feb-2011.

(process:2756): Pango-WARNING **: failed to choose a font, expect ugly output. engine-type='PangoRenderFc', script='latin'
(process:2756): Pango-WARNING **: failed to choose a font, expect ugly output. engine-type='PangoRenderFc', script='common'

(process:2756): Pango-WARNING **: failed to choose a font, expect ugly output. engine-type='PangoRenderFc', script='katakana'
(process:2756): Pango-WARNING **: failed to choose a font, expect ugly output. engine-type='PangoRenderFc', script='han'
(process:2756): Pango-WARNING **: failed to choose a font, expect ugly output. engine-type='PangoRenderFc', script='hiragana'
(process:2756): Pango-WARNING **: failed to choose a font, expect ugly output. engine-type='PangoRenderFc', script='greek'
(process:2756): Pango-CRITICAL **: pango_xft_render: assertion `PANGO_XFT_IS_FONT (font)' failed
=====
i have made the susceptible lines in bold above; i think the engine is linked to (pango-basif-fc-dll); i think it should be PangoRenderFCwin32 (pango-basic-fc-win32.dll)?

i made Xwin to pass before starting Fontforge and captured its log! i am enclosing the errorlist for your reference; you can check /compare with yours;
===== the key points are:

. . . . . .
LoadPreferences: /c/FF2012/.XWinrc not found
LoadPreferences: Loading /etc/X11/system.XWinrc
. . . . .
[dix] Could not init font path element /usr/share/fonts/misc/, removing from list!
[dix] Could not init font path element /usr/share/fonts/TTF/, removing from list!
[dix] Could not init font path element /usr/share/fonts/OTF/, removing from list!
[dix] Could not init font path element /usr/share/fonts/Type1/, removing from list!
[dix] Could not init font path element /usr/share/fonts/100dpi/, removing from list!
[dix] Could not init font path element /usr/share/fonts/75dpi/, removing from list!
winPointerWarpCursor - Discarding first warp: 640 400
. . . . . .

=====
can you check if you have these font files? (i dont think they are essential; it is essentially an optional list); but what about system.Xwinrc; is your version using the same sample file or is there is XWinrc in the extracted folder?

regards
rnkantan

hi
cracked it; atleast partially!

in the cygwin/etc/fonts folder there is a fonts.conf (a configuration file); there is a reference to windows directory for caching;

==
!-- Font directory list -->

/usr/share/fonts
/c/WINDOWS/Fonts
/c/WINNT/Fonts
~/.fonts
=====

my windows directory doesnot have the default " c:/windows" path; as i am dual booting i have named them (XP and win7) while installing as winxppro and WIN7X64;
so i edited the file as:
==
!-- Font directory list -->

/usr/share/fonts
/c/WINXPPRO/Fonts
/c/WINNT/Fonts
~/.fonts
====

now it is showing the directory list; but the only hitch here is that when the cursor is moved on any glyph or menu, instead of the "explanation grid" it simply keeps fast blinking, though the program is functional; i am going to move the default fonts (GOTHIC and ARIAL etc) to the usr/share/fonts and see what happens

regards
rnkantan

Anyone know if it's possible to update this to the latest version of fforge (may 2012)? Or would I have to do it the hard way and build it from the source? (just looking at the instructions in the fforge page make my brain hurt)

*blink* *blink* Huh? There is a release later than 2011-02-02? Where? I sure can not find it in the tarballs on Sourceforge.

The tarball hasn't been updated, but the source code is available from the git repository. That has all the latest contributions and patches right up to the minute you call upon it. The instructions for downloading it are clear, but for compiling they are not. Some kind folks are hoping to fix that, among other things in the documentation.

Yuck. And pulling directly from version control always leaves me feeling I'm messing with Things Man Was Not Meant To Mess With.

I wonder why they don't release a new version when the current release is certainly buggy.

However, it should be noted that the Windows Cygwin version is based on source code of 2011-06-06 from SVN, not the tarball of 2011-02-02.

Jason Pagura asked on the FontForge-devel list for someone to comment on the state of FontForge.

The history page at http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/ff-history.html currently stops with my requests for a Cairo canvas, and Pango UI text, and then improvements to the themes code; that was in late 2008 as I recall.

Since then the main software developer, George Williams, took up running more seriously - he blogs at http://georgeruns.wordpress.com/ - and his interest in FontForge has waned considerably.

Today a small group of people contribute small improvements and you can see the changes at http://fontforge.git.sourceforge.net/git/gitweb.cgi?p=fontforge/fontforg...

My experience with FontForge over the last 6 years has been that George is interested in working on technically challenging features because those provide a fun way to spend his retirement, and he is not interested in non-technically-challenging features like improvements to the UI. He has designed the UI to make sense to him, and so he has no reason to change it :-)

Anyway, the points of this thread is about how to install FontForge. I think the best way to install FontForge is to do so directly from this daily Git source code repository. It is straightforward on GNU/Linux, and on Mac OS X with HomeBrew. For Windows, I haven't used it in 10 years and have no idea :-)

Thank you greatly for bringing us up-to-date, Dave. But when you say the installation process is straightforward on Mac and Linux, I found it to be far from it until I asked for instructions from the FontForge user community. The instructions on http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/source-build.html are both confusing and seriously outdated, as are the builds based on the 2011-02-02 tarball provided by the various package managers (e.g.: Homebrew, Fink, Macports, etc.).

Can the documentation be updated to reflect these new, straightforward installation methods? Is George the only one with the keys to this castle?

Update: (2012.07.26)
new
see below! (my fault, sorry)

As usual, copy/paste the link to your browser's address bar to avoid the Yahoo Japan error page (or download from the site itself).

"A new release, 20120731, is now available for download.
This time there is also a MS/Windows binary package available,
thanks to Matthew Petroff who provided it."
Brand new WIN installer.