SharpFont

Cross-platform FreeType bindings for .NET

SharpFont is a library that provides FreeType bindings for .NET. It's MIT licensed to make sure licensing doesn't get in the way of using the library in your own projects. Unlike Tao.FreeType, SharpFont provides the full public API and not just the basic methods needed to render simple text. Everything from format-specific APIs to the caching subsystem are included.

SharpFont simplifies the FreeType API in a few ways:

The error codes that most FreeType methods return are converted to exceptions.
Since the return values are no longer error codes, methods with a single out parameter are returned instead.
Most methods are instance methods instead of static methods. This avoids unnecessary redundancy in method calls and creates an API with a .NET look-and-feel.

For example, a regular FreeType method looks like this:

Face face;
int err = FT_New_Face(library, "./myfont.ttf", 0, &face);

The equivalent code in C# with SharpFont is:

Face face = new Face(library, "./myfont.ttf");

##Quick Start

Clone the repository and compile the solution. Copy SharpFont.dll to your project and include it as a reference. On Windows, you must include a compiled copy of FreeType2 as freetype.dll in the project's output directory. It is possible to rename the file by changing the filename constant in FT.Internal.cs and recompile. On Linux and OSX (and any other Mono-supported platform), you must also copy SharpFont.dll.config to the project's output directory.

A 32-bit copy of freetype.dll is included in the Examples project.

Currently, Windows 64-bit systems require you to either compile SharpFont under the WIN64 configurations and include a 64-bit copy of freetype.dll or to compile your project as an x86 project (instead of Any CPU). I describe this issue in further detail in the Known Issues section.

##Compiling FreeType on Windows

Thanks to this StackOverflow answer for the directions:

Download the latest FreeType source code.
Open builds\win32\vc2010\freetype.sln (or whatever version of Visual Studio you have) in Visual Studio.
Change the compile configuration from Debug to Release.
Open the project properties window through Project -> Properties.
In the General selection, change the Target Name to freetype and the Configuration Type to Dynamic Library (.dll).
Open up ftoption.h (in the project's Header Files section) and add the following two lines near the DLL export compilation section:

#define FT_EXPORT(x) __declspec(dllexport) x
#define FT_BASE(x) __declspec(dllexport) x

Finally, complile the project (F6 or Build -> Build Solution). freetype.dll will be output to objs\win32\vc2010.

##Known Issues

The biggest currently known issue is the Windows 64-bit incompatibility. This is a three part issue:

Windows uses the LLP64 data model while most other operating systems (including Linux and OSX) use the LP64 data model. This means that on Windows, only long longs and pointers are 64 bits long and everything else remains 32 bits long. On LP64 systems, longs are also 64 bits long. This creates a discrepancy between the length of the long type on different operating systems.
FreeType makes heavy use of the long type, specifically their FT_Long, FT_ULong, FT_Fixed, FT_Pos, and FT_F26Dot6 typedefs. This makes the size of FreeType structs different on Windows 64-bit systems and other 64-bit systems.
The C# long type is always 64 bits long, which doesn't always match the length of the native long type. For all LP64 systems, the IntPtr type works because it's length matches the length of a pointer on that system. For LLP64 systems, this doesn't work because long is 32 bits long while a pointer is 64 bits long.

The simplest solution is to compile your project as x86 because all systems will default on the 32 bit FreeType binary. However, this can be restrictive to some applications. The best solution is to compile a version of FreeType with 64-bit longs, which I will look into and test in the near future.

##License

As metioned earlier, SharpFont is licensed under the MIT License. The terms of the MIT license are included in both the LICENSE file and below:

Copyright (c) 2012 Robert Rouhani <robert.rouhani@gmail.com>

SharpFont based on Tao.FreeType, Copyright (c) 2003-2007 Tao Framework Team

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of
this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in
the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to
use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies
of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do
so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
SOFTWARE.

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