How to create font with SVG Fonts dialog

Current code seems to be broken (at least for me).

But when it used to work this was the workflow:

* open the SVGFonts dialog (under Text->SVG Fonts... menu option)
* create a new font.
* select it in the fonts list.
* the text preview area will render the "Preview Text" string using the new font. That means all glyphs will be the default missing glyph (a black square). This is not working for me in my current build under Ubuntu GNU/Linux. Please tell me your operating system and whether this works for you.

* then you should create a new glyph (in the glyphs tab)
* give it a unicode char (input the char itself instead of the unicode codepoint value)
* with the new glyph selected in the glyphs list, select a path from the inkscape canvas and then click "get curves from selection...". Imediatly the preview text should be updated to use the new glyph (I suppose that your preview text contains the glyph you are creating. You can change the preview text by editing the contents of the entry box to another word or sentence)
* you can repeat this process for each new glyph you desire to create

* In the kerning tab you can select 2 of the declared glyphs and apply a kerning value.

After you finish your font, you can save the SVG and import it in FontForge. I have experienced some trouble sometimes, so please report malfunctioning. Please, still dont try to use this feature for production. It is still unstable and buggy. I will be glad to receive bug reports and feature requests from you.

some aditional info:

* "set width" is the default spacing between glyphs (the default horizontal advance when no kerning is applyed)
* currently there is no support for vertical text
* You can define the Font Face name at the general settings tab
* SVG Fonts allow any SVG fragment to be used when describing a glyph. But current implementation only deals with paths. And, of course, if you intend to export it to TTF or other font technologies you will be restricted by the intersection of features available both in the target technology and in SVG Fonts.

I hope this helps a bit. I am waiting your response, please!

Felipe Sanches (a.k.a. JucaBlues)
I am the developer who is implementing this initial SVG Fonts support.

please tell me whether the procedures that I described work OK for your build.
I also would like to know what is:

* your operating system
* svn revision of the build you are testing
* version of the Cairo lib installed on your system

thanks

I'll write more details about what behavior I'm seeing later, but for now:

 * Windows XP
 * nightly 2009-02-01 build
 * "Cairo"? presumably it's bundled in the Windows nightly build

thanks for the workflow.
When i get the curves from selection, the preview is very tiny, i can make it bigger by enlarging the path and getting the curve from selection again. Is there another way? I mean can't i draw the paths in any size and then expect them to be viewed at some standard size in the preview? what is the size correspondence between the glyph preview and the canvas? (i don't know if i'm making myself clear...)

thanx

Ubuntu 8.10
0.46+devel r20638
libcairo2 1.8.0

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