FontAnvil has a typical non-recursive Autotools build system.
More detailed instructions are in the PDF documentation in the doc/
subdirectory; quick start instructions below, but the procedure
should already be familiar to almost anyone who has a reason to
use this software.

IF YOU ARE COMPILING FROM A VERSION CONTROL CHECKOUT:

autoreconf
automake --add-missing
autoreconf
./configure
make
# as root, or at least enough privilege to write to where you're installing:
make install

IF YOU ARE COMPILING FROM AN UNPACKED TARBALL DISTRIBUTION:

./configure
make
# as root:
make install

OTHER NOTES:

Use "./configure --help" for additional options controlling things like
installation directories that you can add to configure.  Be aware that
configure currently does not always properly detect or handle dependencies,
because a previous build system was summarily replaced in the recent past. 
On the other hand, some of the dependencies it's looking for are probably
not actually needed anyway.  The autoreconf/automake/autoreconf shuffle is
necessary for version control checkouts, at least on my system, because
autoreconf and automake each require files created by the other.  The first
autoreconf pushes things far enough before failing for automake to run
correctly, after which autoreconf (again) can finish creating configure. 
All these commands are likely to spew error and warning messages, a fact
which I hope to reduce in the future.
