FreeTypeFramework

Carefuly compiled with love FreeType library as an Xcode Framework and distributed as a Swift package so you can conviniently integrate it in your Xcode project and use in Swift or C.

Installing FreeTypeFramework

Add the following dependency to your Package.swift:

.package(url: "https://github.com/EvgenijLutz/FreeTypeFramework.git", from: "1.0.0")

You will likely need to link the following libraries in your Xcode project (already included in Xcode):

libz.tbd
libbz2.1.0.tbd

And you're good to go!

Using FreeTypeFramework

After adding the package to your project, import the library in Swift:

import FreeTypeFramework

or in C:

#include <libfreetype.h>

And you're good to go!

The journey of compiling FreeType

Currently used version 2.13.3 and Xcode 16.4

git clone https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/freetype/freetype.git

Docwriter

If you don't have docwriter installed yet, you'll much likely get this warning after finishing the Step4:

'make refdoc' will fail since pip package 'docwriter' is not installed.
  To install, run 'python3 -m pip install docwriter', or to use a Python
  virtual environment, run 'make refdoc-venv' (requires pip package
  'virtualenv').  These operations require Python >= 3.5.

To avoid this, install the docwriter:

python3 -m pip install docwriter

Step 1

First, you need to get your signing identity:

security find-identity -v -p codesigning

Choose one of them in the list and execute the following command to define your signing identity and path to Xcode SDKs for later use:

export ft_developer="/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer"
export ft_sing_identity=YOUR_SIGN_IDENTITY

Step 2

Set ft_platform to MacOSX, iPhoneOS, iPhoneSimulator, XROS, XRSimulator, AppleTVOS, AppleTVSimulator, WatchOS, WatchSimulator. Note that arm64 simulator is only available from iOS 14, tvOS14.

# Set target platform
export ft_platform="WatchSimulator"
export ft_sysroot="/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/$ft_platform.platform/Developer/SDKs/$ft_platform.sdk"

# Specify minimum OS version depending on OS
if [[ "$ft_platform" == "MacOSX" ]]; then
     export ft_min_os="-mtargetos=macos11"
elif [[ "$ft_platform" == "iPhoneOS" ]]; then
     export ft_min_os="-mtargetos=ios12"
elif [[ "$ft_platform" == "iPhoneSimulator" ]]; then
     export ft_min_os="-mtargetos=ios14-simulator"
elif [[ "$ft_platform" == "XROS" ]]; then
     export ft_min_os="-mtargetos=xros1"
elif [[ "$ft_platform" == "XRSimulator" ]]; then
     export ft_min_os="-mtargetos=xros1-simulator"
elif [[ "$ft_platform" == "AppleTVOS" ]]; then
     export ft_min_os="-mtargetos=tvos12"
elif [[ "$ft_platform" == "AppleTVSimulator" ]]; then
     export ft_min_os="-mtargetos=tvos12-simulator"
elif [[ "$ft_platform" == "WatchOS" ]]; then
     export ft_min_os="-mtargetos=watchos8"
elif [[ "$ft_platform" == "WatchSimulator" ]]; then
     export ft_min_os="-mtargetos=watchos8-simulator"
else
     export ft_min_os=""
fi
echo "$ft_min_os"

Step 3

# For every OS:
export ft_arch="arm64"
export ft_host="arm-apple-darwin"

# Additionally to MacOSX, iPhoneSimulator, XRSimulator, AppleTVSimulator and WatchSimulator:
export ft_arch="x86_64"
export ft_host="x86_64-apple-darwin"

Setp 4

Build library with C 17. Don't forget to replace path to your downloaded freetype library in the following command:

make clean

./configure --prefix=/Users/evgenij/Developer/Sources/freetype-2.13.3/install/$ft_platform/$ft_arch \
--host=$ft_host \
--enable-static=yes \
--enable-shared=no \
CC="$ft_developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/clang -isysroot $ft_sysroot" \
CFLAGS="-arch $ft_arch -std=c17 $ft_min_os -I$ft_sysroot/usr/include/libxml2" \
LDFLAGS="-arch $ft_arch"

Step 5

make
make install

Optional - check supported OS version

Go to the compiled library folder (somwhere in the install folder) and execute the following command:

otool -l libfreetype.a | grep -A 1 minos

Setp 6 - only for universal libraries that should support both arm64 and x86

Create a universal library for MacOSX, iPhoneSimulator, XRSimulator, AppleTVSimulator and WatchSimulator targets:

lipo -create -output install/$ft_platform/libfreetype.a install/$ft_platform/arm64/lib/libfreetype.a install/$ft_platform/x86_64/lib/libfreetype.a
#lipo -create -output install/$ft_platform/libfreetype.dylib install/$ft_platform/arm64/lib/libfreetype.dylib install/$ft_platform/x86_64/lib/libfreetype.dylib

Step 7

FreeTypeFramework uses slighty modified headers (located at Resources/Headers) to make it possible to use in Swift and include as a single header in C.

# Use generated headers
#xcodebuild -create-xcframework \
#     -library install/MacOSX/libfreetype.a -headers install/MacOSX/arm64/include/freetype2 \
#     -library install/iPhoneOS/arm64/lib/libfreetype.a -headers install/iPhoneOS/arm64/include/freetype2 \
#     -library install/iPhoneSimulator/libfreetype.a -headers install/iPhoneSimulator/arm64/include/freetype2 \
#     -library install/XROS/arm64/lib/libfreetype.a -headers install/XROS/arm64/include/freetype2 \
#     -library install/XRSimulator/libfreetype.a -headers install/XRSimulator/arm64/include/freetype2 \
#     -library install/AppleTVOS/arm64/lib/libfreetype.a -headers install/AppleTVOS/arm64/include/freetype2 \
#     -library install/AppleTVSimulator/arm64/lib/libfreetype.a -headers install/AppleTVSimulator/arm64/include/freetype2 \
#     -library install/WatchOS/arm64/lib/libfreetype.a -headers install/WatchOS/arm64/include/freetype2 \
#     -library install/WatchSimulator/arm64/lib/libfreetype.a -headers install/WatchSimulator/arm64/include/freetype2 \
#     -output install/libfreetype.xcframework

# Use custom headers
xcodebuild -create-xcframework \
     -library install/MacOSX/libfreetype.a -headers install/Headers \
     -library install/iPhoneOS/arm64/lib/libfreetype.a -headers install/Headers \
     -library install/iPhoneSimulator/libfreetype.a -headers install/Headers \
     -library install/XROS/arm64/lib/libfreetype.a -headers install/Headers \
     -library install/XRSimulator/libfreetype.a -headers install/Headers \
     -library install/AppleTVOS/arm64/lib/libfreetype.a -headers install/Headers \
     -library install/AppleTVSimulator/arm64/lib/libfreetype.a -headers install/Headers \
     -library install/WatchOS/arm64/lib/libfreetype.a -headers install/Headers \
     -library install/WatchSimulator/arm64/lib/libfreetype.a -headers install/Headers \
     -output install/libfreetype.xcframework

codesign --timestamp -s $ft_sing_identity install/libfreetype.xcframework

Error processing