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Font compatibility across platforms.

 [1/10] from: carl:cybercraft at: 6-Nov-2000 9:30


I'm finding the default View font is not giving the same results across platforms. If I use a font size of 13 for instance, the text on my Amiga takes up exactly 13 pixels vertically, (worked out by where the next line of text is when it wraps), but on a friend's Windows box using the same script the height is 16 pixels. Anyone know a solution to this? Carl Read.

 [2/10] from: bo:rebol at: 6-Nov-2000 10:35


Yes, View needs to have its own internal fonts as this is the only part of View's layout that is not completely platform-independent (as far as I can tell). -Bo On 6-Nov-2000/9:30:03+12:00, [carl--cybercraft--co--nz] wrote:
>I'm finding the default View font is not giving the same results >across platforms.
<<quoted lines omitted: 8>>
>[rebol-request--rebol--com] with "unsubscribe" in the >subject, without the quotes.
-- Bohdan "Bo" Lechnowsky REBOL Adventure Guide REBOL Technologies 707-467-8000 (http://www.rebol.com) The Official Source for REBOL Books (http://www.REBOLpress.com)

 [3/10] from: kracik:mbox:dkm:cz at: 6-Nov-2000 22:47


Hi Bo, it's good to hear that you want to have platform-independent fonts in View. I think this will give REBOL tremendous advantage over other GUI toolkits, Java and HTML. But how could this be done? I'm afraid that licensing some good fonts may be expensive for a free product like View, and also they can increase View executable size considerably. -- Michal Kracik [bo--rebol--com] wrote:

 [4/10] from: rchristiansen:pop:isdfa:sei-it at: 6-Nov-2000 16:19


I don't think the /View release version will be free IIRC. As for fonts, aren't there oodles of free fonts available? I'm sure some of them are very high quality. I'm thinking of TrueType fonts, of course, and I don't know what type of licensing may be involved in using TrueType technology.

 [5/10] from: carl:cybercraft at: 7-Nov-2000 18:31


On 07-Nov-00, Michal Kracik wrote:
> Hi Bo, > it's good to hear that you want to have platform-independent fonts > in View.
Indeed it is. (:
> I think this will give REBOL tremendous advantage over > other GUI toolkits, Java and HTML. But how could this be done? I'm > afraid that licensing some good fonts may be expensive for a free > product like View, and also they can increase View executable size > considerably.
It'd no doubt be a lot of work, but the ideal would be for View to do its own text-rendering and have within it a small set of default fonts. Then, if RT published the specs for View fonts and/or supplied a font-editor, others would be able to create their own View-compatible fonts to include with their scripts.

 [6/10] from: bo:rebol at: 7-Nov-2000 9:11


Michal, Let me start by saying this is my own opinion. To be useful, REBOL/View would only really need three fonts in some sort of outline format. Serif, sans-serif and fixed. These could be scaled accurately to nearly any size. Therefore, they wouldn't add too much to the executable size. Also, if REBOL HQ comes up with a font format that is unique to View, it wouldn't take too much work to create the data for three font typefaces and the licensing cost would be averted. -Bo On 6-Nov-2000/22:47:54, [kracik--mbox--dkm--cz] wrote:
>Hi Bo, >it's good to hear that you want to have platform-independent fonts in
<<quoted lines omitted: 44>>
>[rebol-request--rebol--com] with "unsubscribe" in the >subject, without the quotes.
-- Bohdan "Bo" Lechnowsky REBOL Adventure Guide REBOL Technologies 707-467-8000 (http://www.rebol.com) The Official Source for REBOL Books (http://www.REBOLpress.com)

 [7/10] from: ptretter:charter at: 7-Nov-2000 21:44


Would that included the ability to bold, italics, and undeline on the three differnt fonts. Paul Tretter

 [8/10] from: bo:rebol at: 8-Nov-2000 12:31


Paul, I believe that bold, italics, underline, strikethrough, superscript, subscript and other styles would only be a slight addition to the font- rendering algorithm, so I would hope that these would also be implemented. Remember that I am only speaking rhetorically because I have no idea whether the team here wants to go in this direction. It is my opinion that we should, but I am looking at it from my own perspective and not the perspective of the company. -Bo On 7-Nov-2000/21:44:17-6:00, [ptretter--charter--net] wrote:
>Would that included the ability to bold, italics, and undeline on the three >differnt fonts.
<<quoted lines omitted: 80>>
>[rebol-request--rebol--com] with "unsubscribe" in the >subject, without the quotes.
-- Bohdan "Bo" Lechnowsky REBOL Adventure Guide REBOL Technologies 707-467-8000 (http://www.rebol.com) The Official Source for REBOL Books (http://www.REBOLpress.com)

 [9/10] from: kracik:mbox:dkm:cz at: 8-Nov-2000 22:13


Hi Bo, I'm afraid fonts are not that simple. They are designed for specific sizes so thay can't be freely scaled to any size and still look good, only in some range around their designed sizes. Fonts contain so-called hints to help them scale to low resolutions, but for very low resolutions used on screen TrueType fonts contain hand-edited bitmap substitutions. Styles like bold and italic of the same font are designed separately, and making them algorithmically does not produce good results. But I agree that one sans-serif, serif and fixed-width font would be sufficient. I remember that Martin Huttenloher once designed very nice fonts for MagicWB on the Amiga. Perhaps they could be used in REBOL? -- S pozdravem Michal Kracik [bo--rebol--com] wrote:

 [10/10] from: bo:rebol at: 9-Nov-2000 0:37


Michal, Actually, I've seen some very good scaling on a single-sized font typeface even to low resolutions using an interpolated algorithm (basically it does anti-aliasing). TV Paint on Amiga does this with bitmapped fonts and as long as the font is scaled smaller than the original, the results are quite good. Results are similar with outline fonts. We're agreed that monochrome scaling lacks when going to much smaller sizes, though. -Bo On 8-Nov-2000/22:13:47, [kracik--mbox--dkm--cz] wrote:
>Hi Bo, >I'm afraid fonts are not that simple. They are designed for specific
<<quoted lines omitted: 11>>
>S pozdravem >Michal Kracik
-- Bohdan "Bo" Lechnowsky REBOL Adventure Guide REBOL Technologies 707-467-8000 (http://www.rebol.com) The Official Source for REBOL Books (http://www.REBOLpress.com)

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