[FontTools] Installing TTX 2.1

Hi all,

I am a new subscriber to this list. I have used TTX before (2.0b) and am
quite happy that it's being developed again.

Unfortunately there are no windows binaries and the maintainer of the old
ones has not responded to inquiry. I have three options on windows:

1. Do a plain install and run from the win-shell command line;
2. Do a binary compilation based on the instructions in
\fonttools-2.1\Windows\readme.txt;
3. Do a plain install on cygwin.

I have been unsuccessful in all three approaches so far. I am not a
programmer so I need your help to get this up and running somehow. I have
the latest official python and numpy:

Method 1. I get

==========
ttools-2.1>python setup.py install
*** Warning: FontTools needs Numerical Python (NumPy), see:
http//sourceforgenet/projects/numpy/
running install
running build
running build_py
running build_ext
error: Python was built with Visual Studio 2003;
extensions must be built with a compiler than can generate compatible
binaries.
Visual Studio 2003 was not found on this system. If you have Cygwin
installed,
you can try compiling with MingW32, by passing "-c mingw32" to setup.py.
==========

I have installed numpy, and I have VS 2005 Express, not VS 2003. I tried
the -c mingw32 and get

======
ttools-2.1>python -c mingw32 setup.py install
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
NameError: name 'mingw32' is not defined
======

Method 2. The instructions in \fonttools-2.1\Windows\readme.txt are out of
date, eg

python setup.py py2exe -f --icon Windows\ttx.ico --packages encodings

gives me

=========================
\fonttools-2.1> python setup.py py2exe -f --icon Windows\ttx.ico --packages
encodings
*** Warning: FontTools needs Numerical Python (NumPy), see:
http//sourceforgenet/projects/numpy/
usage: setup.py [global_opts] cmd1 [cmd1_opts] [cmd2 [cmd2_opts] ...]
or: setup.py --help [cmd1 cmd2 ...]
or: setup.py --help-commands
or: setup.py cmd --help

error: option -f not recognized
=========================

Here NumPy is installed (Python 2.5.2) and the -f flag is not recognized.

Method 3. Installation in Cygwin _appears_ to work, after installing gcc.
I also installed Numeric (obsolete cygwin package) and numpy-1.0.4 (from
tar pack). But upon trying it I get

============
$ ttx lmroman12-regular.otf
Dumping "lmroman12-regular.otf" to "lmroman12-regular.ttx"...
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/bin/ttx", line 11, in <module>
ttx.main(sys.argv[1:])
File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/FontTools/fontTools/ttx.py", line
292,
in main
process(jobs, options)
File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/FontTools/fontTools/ttx.py", line
277,
in process
action(input, output, options)
File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/FontTools/fontTools/ttx.py", line
165,
in ttDump
ttf = TTFont(input, 0, verbose=options.verbose,
allowVID=options.allowVID)
File
"/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/FontTools/fontTools/ttLib/__init__.py",
line 118, in __init__
import sfnt
File
"/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/FontTools/fontTools/ttLib/sfnt.py", lin
e 16, in <module>
import Numeric
ImportError: No module named Numeric
============

Again, Numeric problem.
======================================

Some context:

The luatex project is in beta and we're working on opentype layout support.

1. Some FontForge code is used for importing and reading ot tables, and
there are naturally bugs from time to time.

2. For testing I am developing ot tables in VOLT, but VOLT does not
support all ot-spec possibilities eg, direct many-to-many substitutions.

3. FontForge itself supports more of opentype than ADFDK or VOLT, but is
much more buggy than either for purposes of developing opentype tables.

4. TTX can provide
i) another independent benchmark for what's going on in opentype tables,
which helps with debugging luatex/fontforge;
iii) a basis for ot table development, particularly features that VOLT
does not support. I am very hopeful now that Just has confirmed that TTX
can both decompile and recompile arabtex.ttf!

(Does TTX support many to many substitutions? We have a font that tests
this and I'ld like to see how TTX interprets it).

5. While the developers are in the "TTX-improvement mood" ;-) I'ld like to
take advantage of that and do some testing and feedback.
========================================

I would greatly appreciate any help you can provide with getting TTX
working here. Thank you in advance!

Best wishes
Idris

--
Professor Idris Samawi Hamid, Editor-in-Chief
International Journal of Shi`i Studies
Department of Philosophy
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO 80523