[fa.info-mac] User font numbers

info-mac@uw-beaver (info-mac) (08/25/84)

From: John.Pane@CMU-CS-IUS
When I started to make my own fonts, I decided to give them numbers starting
with 511 and working my way down, to hopefully minimize collisions with
other users' fonts.  These font numbers are in the range specified in the
manual as "user fonts".  

Font number 511 translates to resource number (511 * 128) = 65408.  The
24-point version of this font would occupy resource number (65408 + 24) =
65432.  When these numbers are assigned with the resource mover, however,
they are converted to -128 and -104, respectively.  No real problem.  I
expected this, since all font numbers higher than 255 will have the most
significant (sign) bit on.  The resultant ID's after sign conversion are
still consistent with the guidelines set forth in the manual.

So, next step is to enter the font mover.  The trouble begins here.  For
some reason, font mover named my font "Chicago- -104".  Somehow, the
negative (base) resource number for my new font was not being recognized by
font mover.  I figured that this wasn't a real problem, and installed it
anyway.  Hopefully, I thought, MacWrite and MacPaint would be smarter about
the negative ID's.  Well, I was wrong.  Neither program inserted my new font
into it's menu of available fonts.

The solution?  I went back and re-numbered my font to be number 255
(resource ID numbers 32640 and 32664).  Things worked fine, but there is one
major problem.  These font numbers are outside the range assigned to
"users".

Any suggestions?  Does Apple know about this?