Ahwoo.BRUTAL.FreeType 2026.10.1

Brutal FreeType

Native build of the FreeType font-rendering library, packaged for use with the BRUTAL framework.

Note: This is a native-only package — it ships native binaries, not a C# FreeType API. It bundles the native FreeType stack: FreeType itself and libpng (for colour-emoji / PNG glyphs). zlib comes from a dependency on Ahwoo.BRUTAL.ZLib rather than being bundled here.

Links

• GitHub
• FreeType
• BRUTAL Docs

NuGet Packages

• Ahwoo.BRUTAL.FreeType - FreeType native binaries for use with Brutal packages

Usage

Include this FreeType package in your project. You don't call any C# from this package directly — referencing it just deploys the native FreeType dlls next to your app, where a consuming Brutal package can load them.

Package Layout

The Ahwoo.BRUTAL.FreeType NuGet package contains the native FreeType/libpng binaries plus the FreeType headers and import library that dependent packages build against:

FreeType Nuget Package Contents
├── buildTransitive/
│   └── RocketWerkz.Brutal.FreeType.targets  # injects FREETYPE_NUGET_DIR for cmake consumers
├── build/
│   └── natives/
│       ├── include/
│       │   ├── ft2build.h                    # FreeType entry header
│       │   └── freetype/                     # FreeType public header tree
│       └── lib/
│           └── win-x64/
│               ├── png18.lib                 # libpng import library
│               └── freetype.lib              # Windows import library
├── lib/
│   └── net10.0/
│       └── Brutal.FreeType.dll               # marker assembly (no C# interop, see note above)
└── runtimes/
    ├── win-x64/native/
    │   ├── freetype.dll                      # FreeType rasterizer
    │   └── png18.dll                         # libpng (colour-emoji / PNG glyphs)
    ├── linux-x64/native/
    │   ├── libfreetype.so*                   # (+ versioned soname variants)
    │   └── libpng18.so*
    └── osx-arm64/native/
        ├── libfreetype.dylib*                # (+ versioned install-name variants)
        └── libpng18.dylib*

The runtimes/ binaries are what get deployed next to a consuming app. The build/natives/ headers and import library are dev artifacts so other native packages can compile and link against FreeType (via the FREETYPE_NUGET_DIR cmake shim).

zlib.dll itself is delivered by the Ahwoo.BRUTAL.ZLib dependency, not this package. FreeType and libpng are built from their submodules under src/, linking against zlib using the headers/import library exposed by Ahwoo.BRUTAL.ZLib (via its ZLIB_NUGET_DIR cmake shim).

Native dependency loading

NativeBuild installs FreeType and libpng with adjacent-library lookup on Linux and macOS. The package declares both targets through brutal_install_native(TARGETS freetype png_shared). NativeBuild supplies runtime files and import libraries. Portable package-consumer output keeps FreeType, PNG, and ZLib under runtimes/<rid>/native; an explicit RuntimeIdentifier uses the SDK's flat output layout. Applications mixing locally built natives and native packages select a RuntimeIdentifier to keep their dependencies beside the executable. Windows applications still require the Microsoft Visual C++ v14 x64 runtime.