README.md

# allegro_schrift
Drop-in replacement for Allegro_TTF that contains libschrift, instead of using FreeType2.

It is 100% API compatible with the vanilla TrueType addon. Compile Allegro with these files inside of `/addons/ttf`.

Requires the primitives addon.

![Comparison between FreeType2 and schrift when running Allegro's ex_ttf demo](comparison.png)

## Pros
- It doesn't require NT 6 kernel calls
- It doesn't dynamically link against hundreds of thousands of lines of ugly corporate-backed C code you can't read
  - Our addon is only a couple or few hundred lines, and libschrift is less than 2,000. They're compiled together.  
  The original Allegro_TTF is over 1,000 lines (for a good reason) and has a relatively massive dependency weight (for a stupid reason).

## Caveats
- Pre-stretching is not implemented.
- The entire caching system is gone, fonts are baked to textures immediately and no further. This makes supporting some languages with this add-on inconvenient, and increases load times. For many users this an acceptable tradeoff.
    - The `cache_text` setting in allegro5.cfg is now reused to determine what glyphs can be rendered at all. `skip_cache_misses` has no effect.  
    When `cache_text` is undefined, the [Latin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII), [Germanic, and Romance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_Extended-A) alphabets will be generated by default. (not necessarily 32 - 255)
    - **TODO** Alternatively, the developer can force a custom range of unicode characters to be generated using a new parameter in the `al_load_ttf_font` function.
- Kerning, per-character advance and offsets, and other features which are exposed by libschrift are not currently implemented, but doing so is possible. See the above comparison screenshot.

## In Practice
You can see here some of the flaws with this implementation. Line heights are taller than they should be, and there's an issue with string endings or other characters.  

Not visible in the below example is the atlas size to hold glyph data.  

![Time Falcon main menu with the allegro_schrift plugin, work in progress](schrift_demo_wip.png)
Add README.md 2026-09-12 06:45:24 +00:00			`# allegro_schrift`
			`Drop-in replacement for Allegro_TTF that contains libschrift, instead of using FreeType2.`

			It is 100% API compatible with the vanilla TrueType addon. Compile Allegro with these files inside of `/addons/ttf`.

fix linking with allegro primitives, fix header name when installed, update readme 2026-09-22 19:08:40 -05:00			`Requires the primitives addon.`

update wmax, update README.md 2026-09-22 18:43:20 -05:00			`![Comparison between FreeType2 and schrift when running Allegro's ex_ttf demo](comparison.png)`

fix linking with allegro primitives, fix header name when installed, update readme 2026-09-22 19:08:40 -05:00			`## Pros`
sync 2026-09-14 17:44:01 -05:00			`- It doesn't require NT 6 kernel calls`
			`- It doesn't dynamically link against hundreds of thousands of lines of ugly corporate-backed C code you can't read`
			`- Our addon is only a couple or few hundred lines, and libschrift is less than 2,000. They're compiled together.`
			`The original Allegro_TTF is over 1,000 lines (for a good reason) and has a relatively massive dependency weight (for a stupid reason).`

fix linking with allegro primitives, fix header name when installed, update readme 2026-09-22 19:08:40 -05:00			`## Caveats`
sync 2026-09-14 17:44:01 -05:00			`- Pre-stretching is not implemented.`
fix linking with allegro primitives, fix header name when installed, update readme 2026-09-22 19:08:40 -05:00			`- The entire caching system is gone, fonts are baked to textures immediately and no further. This makes supporting some languages with this add-on inconvenient, and increases load times. For many users this an acceptable tradeoff.`
sync 2026-09-14 17:44:01 -05:00			- The `cache_text` setting in allegro5.cfg is now reused to determine what glyphs can be rendered at all. `skip_cache_misses` has no effect.
update wmax, update README.md 2026-09-22 18:43:20 -05:00			When `cache_text` is undefined, the [Latin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII), [Germanic, and Romance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_Extended-A) alphabets will be generated by default. (not necessarily 32 - 255)
			- TODO Alternatively, the developer can force a custom range of unicode characters to be generated using a new parameter in the `al_load_ttf_font` function.
fix linking with allegro primitives, fix header name when installed, update readme 2026-09-22 19:08:40 -05:00			`- Kerning, per-character advance and offsets, and other features which are exposed by libschrift are not currently implemented, but doing so is possible. See the above comparison screenshot.`

			`## In Practice`
			`You can see here some of the flaws with this implementation. Line heights are taller than they should be, and there's an issue with string endings or other characters.`

			`Not visible in the below example is the atlas size to hold glyph data.`

			`![Time Falcon main menu with the allegro_schrift plugin, work in progress](schrift_demo_wip.png)`