Query about including Harfbuzz in SFML

[Suhair Zain]

Hi,

As mentioned at http://en.sfml-dev.org/forums/index.php?topic=19293.0, I need to display complex text layout in my app. I was directed to the github issue https://github.com/SFML/SFML/issues/246.

According to the PR at https://github.com/SFML/SFML/pull/624, a way to make Harfbuzz a part of SFML was given, but it was rejected/postponed for the following reasons: https://github.com/SFML/SFML/pull/624#issuecomment-57596111.

One of the reasons mentioned is the use of a LGPL licensed library. But I believe harfbuzz has a new version now which is licensed under the "Old MIT" license as given at https://github.com/behdad/harfbuzz/blob/master/COPYING, so one less reason to not use Harfbuzz right?

Also, as specified at https://github.com/SFML/SFML/issues/799#issue-58459076, freetype 2.5.3 can be configured to use Harfbuzz, whereas SFML uses a 2.5.5+ version.

Is there any way I implement the complex layout without going through a lot of manual source code changes, either using Harfbuzz or some other SFML implementation?

[eXpl0it3r]

Looking at the Git history it seems that the license hasn't been edited in 3 years, which makes me wonder where that LGPL claim came from, Laurent?

Complex layouts have come up more than once here and recently also on IRC and I think it's an important feature. Since I'm not very familiar with the code base, I can't really say how much trouble this will bring to sf::Font.

[FRex]

Pango is under LGPL, maybe Laurent was thinking of that.