Probably the best sequence to attack this in might be:
I agree with all points except:
- start emplying Pango to perform text layout for e.g. SPText and
friends
What is meant by this? What we DO need from Pango is proper glyph composites and contextual forms (in some languages, different glyphs are used for the same char in different positions), and that fits into the "get glyphs from Pango into the renderer" part. As for text layout proper, I see no need to rewrite it once again, with all the spacing and kerning that was added recently. In any case, compliant text layout is only possible if you know the document tree context (remember the example where one part of the dx/dy values for a string is taken from its parent, the other from grandparent, etc.?), and I doubt Pango is really capable of that.
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