[gnome-print] Serializing a PangoFont

[Chema Celorio <chema ximian com>]

Hello Owen,

I worked a little bit more this weekend on the Pango API for
gnome-print. I still don't have a clear understanding of how the API is
going to look, since i don't know if the apps will give gnome-print a
PangoLayout, a PangoLayoutLine or a PangoLayoutRun, or if the API will
allow all of this to be printed. I'll think everything will fall into
its place as i continue with this, my current short term objective is
getting gedit to print the paps test utf8 file even if the code is in
the wrong place and ugly, this will allow me to better understand what
apps might need.

Anyway, I am currently stuck with trying to serialize a PangoFont. The
way things work right now inside gnome-print, all the drawing calls that
the application is sending gnome-print are recorded in a metafile and
played back later. However, I have not been able to figure out a nice
way of serializing a PangoFont. Right now I am converting the
PangoLayout into a list of a struct that contqains { glyph, x, y &
PangoFont} (the code is both in testprint and inside gnome-print).

The only viable alternative that i see right now is getting a
PangoFontDescription from the font and when playing back the stream
create a font from a description, however this is currently not possible
unless i create a PangoLayout again, but i already know the layout I
have the glyph and the position.

So my question is, given a specific PangoFont how could i serialize it
and de-serialize it later? 

When i first thought of this the obvious answer was to look at how other
apps are saving font configuration, but the problem is that they are
saving descriptions of the font not the font themselves.

regards,
Chema