[net.micro.mac] Problems editing non-Apple fonts with ResEd 1.0D12

abulloch@violet.berkeley.edu (07/31/86)

[Using: Mac+, Mac+ keyboard, System 3.2, Finder 5.3, 800k external.]
I would much appreciate help and advice on the following problem: -

When I try to edit various fonts with ResEd 1.0D12 (opening FONT and 
on throughinto the Font-editor window), the black triangles at the
bottom which regulate the character width either 

a) do not appear at all,  

or b) do appear, but way over to the left of the editing-window well 
outside the  actual character box. 

When this happens the font nonetheless functions OK,  in that its 
characters show up in the display-text box etc., and the pixels 
making up the character show in the 'fat-bits' box - that is 
until/unless I attempt to move the black triangles (if they appear 
at all), or try to edit the pixels, at which point the character-
width does begin to get screwed up.  

Now, this has not happened on any Apple fonts, old or new; it has 
happened on many non-Apple fonts, produced by other people 
(e.g. Boston II) as well as by myself.  At first I thought that 
the  problem must be something to do with the FOND resources, which 
are used by  the new ROMs but not by the old, and which the new 
System (or ROMs) seems to create for the old, pre-FOND, fonts; 
but closer inspection showed that the FOND resources for all the 
non-Apple fonts appear to be exactly the same as those for the Apple 
fonts 
[except those for the Laser fonts, which  are full of specifications on 
width, ascent etc. etc. - why? incidentally.]
 - furthermore, fonts kept stored in separate files which had not been 
through the new System and therefore did not have any FOND resource 
attached to them nonetheless gave poor old ResEd the same problem.

At this point I turned back to an earlier version of ResEd.  Still 
using System 3.2 and Finder 5.3, I find that ResEd 0.8 has no 
problems at all: triangles appear in their proper places, and 
everything can be edited quite happily....  0.8 is a version in 
which the measurements of the character are not given in the 
bottom right of the editing window (that sequence of letters and 
figures of the kind 'ADLOW 12-2-etc.').

    What is it, then, that ResEd 1.0D12 is looking for in these fonts
and not  finding? _Is_ it something to do with the FOND resource? 
	  Why does it happen only with non-Apple fonts? (Which suggests 
that there is some crucial deficiency or lapse of some kind in the 
internal mechanics.) 

The  fonts of my own making with which this has happened were created 
with the ResEditor.... (v.0.8 and earlier).  Is there some other 
factor which I have overlooked?  Is there a simple process that one 
can put the 'older' fonts through to make them fully consistent 
with the new ROMs etc? (After all, if ResEd has problems handling 
a font, presumably the System couldtoo...)  
Do _you_ have any fonts which give ResEd 1.0 these problems? I 
would much appreciate some advice and help on this. 

Anthony Bulloch
 Classics Dept.
Dwinelle Hall
UC Berkeley
Ca. 94720

Tel.: (415)-642-4218

GEnie:  a.bulloch
abulloch @violet.berkeley.edu