ruslan@ecsvax.UUCP (Robin C. LaPasha) (06/01/88)
I've got some troubles with the Amiga 1.2 font editor (Fed.) No kidding, you probably say. But -- after mucking with numerous font files that I'm trying to tidy up after conversion from their Mac heritage, I've got some specific gripes and requests for fixes. 1) If I try to load too many fonts, Fed loads "some" of them. Apparently Fed loads as many fonts as it can handle and drops the rest from its list of loadable fonts. If I rename a font, it _might_ reappear, but some other font is lost. For example, I loaded up 30 fonts, and 14-16 show up in Fed. (You may think that that's a pile of fonts, but if you get a collection filling a disk, there'll probably be lots more than that.) I don't have this sort of problem in Notepad - why in the font editor itself? 2) The gadget to load fonts is crude. It would be great if you could just click on a font to load it, and now there are PD gadgets that do it that way. It would also be helpful if the fonts were listed alphabetically. (I get the idea that they're listed according to what Fed finds along the disk directory/file structure.) 3) Very large fonts get chopped up by Fed. Little dots of "noise" appear in character blocks on Fed, and the letters get cut across the middle. Problems start at 32 - the max X or Y size in Fed. (36 "point" fonts (for sure) and up get trashed.) Again, other programs have no trouble displaying my 56 "point" fonts, why does Fed? [Um, let's not get into any Amiga-point-vs-pixel wars, that's why I put it in quotes...] 4) The most frustrating - I can't set the font "Space" to 0. (That's "space" under "kern" and over "width.") Why would I do such a thing? Take a look at Topaz font and others - accents are made by setting the space to 0 (thereby getting double strike.) It's not related to the Amiga "dead keys." I _have_ some fonts that can do double-strike accent marks over _any_ non-accent letter (not just certain vowels like Topaz and the dead keys do.) I want to make and/or alter more fonts (i.e. with other alphabets...) to work that way, but I can't if that @#$*! space setting won't go below 1. Can anybody suggest patches to these problems? I mean, the last in particular must be some blasted little setting somewhere that'd probably be simple enough to change. I'm willing to believe that the other problems may wait a little longer. I hope that it is envisioned for at least 1.4 (1.3 would be nice, but I'm not gonna suggest holding up its release for this.) Is anybody willing to diddle with it in the meantime (and send me a fix?) CATS? If push comes to shove and Fed can't be fixed, can somebody present a review of Calligrapher? It lists at about $100 (from Interactive ...Softworks?), it's at least $65 mail order, and the local dealer doesn't want to order an unreserved copy of such a little-used utility (i.e. I don't have access to it to try out for myself.) I'd like to hear some (informed) opinions on what its features are, whether its features are solid (bug-free or thereabouts) and whether it's worth the $65-100 to someone who's not making color fonts. Like, can you copy (a) letter(s) from one font to another? Can you re-size or re-scale a font? Is there a "clipboard" for moving fonts around (so you don't have to temporarily stick stuff to unused keys in order to swap characters?) Maybe assume that those of us reading your review _don't_ have experience with font editors on other computers - or at least explain features as you go along, even if they are found on other machines'/systems' font editor software. Also, if any other font editors have been released (but obviously not been extensively advertised,) I'd like to hear about them. (There was a font editor on an early Fish disk, but I'm looking for something more full-featured...) If it's PD or shareware or commercial, whatever - as long as it's available _now_. Any help is appreciated - thanks in advance! Robin LaPasha ruslan@ecsvax.UUCP
richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) (06/02/88)
In article <5162@ecsvax.UUCP> ruslan@ecsvax.UUCP (Robin C. LaPasha) writes: > >I've got some troubles with the Amiga 1.2 font editor (Fed.) No kiding. It's very, very crude. Besides being obnoxious to use, it kept crapping out on me. Add that to the 32 pixel limit and I concluded it was useless. _The Calligrapher_ from Interactive Softworks is a very nice program. Well worth the $100 ($70 mail order). It's like Dpaint for fonts. If only they knew about PostScript. Sigh. Oh, and another thing, you amiga people. If this topic diverges away from fonts and font editors PLEASE TAKE COMP.FONTS out of the newsgroups line. That last round of bitching about the price of WorkBench 1.2 upgrades in comp.fonts was really painful -- The SLA of SNA. richard@gryphon.CTS.COM rutgers!marque!gryphon!richard
peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (06/09/88)
In article <1311@goanna.oz>, ajk@goanna.oz (Alan Kent) writes: > From article <5162@ecsvax.UUCP>, by ruslan@ecsvax.UUCP (Robin C. LaPasha): > > 4) The most frustrating - I can't set the font "Space" to 0. [ for the purpose of supporting overstriking ] > I dont know if its any help, but I did overstriking by making the kern > negative so the current character would overstrike the previous character. Clever, but won't work for proportional fonts unless you know ahead of time which character you're going to overstrike. Maybe someone should port the IEHGOD program from IBM's OS/VU... :->. You could mix these two techniques, pehaps. Set the kern to -1 pixel, and space to 1 pixel, and then offset the character one pixel more. Then what wil happen will be effectively: move back one pixel, display the character, and then move forward one pixel. -- -- Peter da Silva `-_-' ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter -- "Have you hugged your U wolf today?" ...!bellcore!tness1!sugar!peter -- Disclaimer: These may be the official opinions of Hackercorp.
caw@jolnet.ORPK.IL.US (Chris Wichura) (01/17/90)
To sum it up, I am fed up with FED and would like peoples opinions on other font editors around, be them PD or commercial. I want one that will work for standard Amiga fonts (not something like Interfont or whatever that does stuff for ray tracers). Just what is out there? -- Christopher A. Wichura u12401 @ uicvm.uic.edu (my home account) caw @ jolnet.UUCP (my Usenet feed)
crs@cpsc6a.att.com (Chris (Insert phrase here) Seaman) (01/19/90)
caw@jolnet.ORPK.IL.US (Chris Wichura) writes:
< To sum it up, I am fed up with FED and would like peoples opinions on
< other font editors around, be them PD or commercial. I want one that
< will work for standard Amiga fonts (not something like Interfont or whatever
< that does stuff for ray tracers). Just what is out there?
< --
< Christopher A. Wichura
< caw @ jolnet.UUCP (my Usenet feed)
There was a 'sample' (crippled) version of a font editor on one of the
AmigoTimes or Amiga Resource disks from last summer. I can't remember
the name, but it was quite good (the crippled version had no save option).
The interface was patterned after DPaint, and it could edit standard
fonts or color fonts, in any resolution, constant width or proportional.
It was quite nice.
--
Chris (Insert phrase here) Seaman | /o -- -- --
crs@cpsc6a.att.com <or> ||| -- -- - I'm Outta Here!
...!att!cpsc6a!crs |vvvv/ -- -- -
The Home of the Killer Smiley |___/ -- -- --cal@helios.ucsc.edu (Cal Delaney) (10/25/90)
Does anyone know of a Font Editor for the Amiga. Commercial,pd, shareware. I would like to create my own fonts for a project. cal@helios.ucsc.edu | cal@helios.ucsc.edu | Cals Amiga Den (408) 688-4074 | | GEnie C.Delaney | 300/1200/2400 24 Hrs. | | USA Today caldel | 170 MEGS On-Line | | Ma Bell (408) 459-2724 | All Amiga |
dales@teksce.SCE.TEK.COM (Dale Snell) (10/26/90)
In article <8154@darkstar.ucsc.edu> cal@helios.ucsc.edu (Cal Delaney) writes: |Does anyone know of a Font Editor for the Amiga. Commercial,pd, |shareware. I would like to create my own fonts for a project. | Well, there's always FED, that came with your system. It's on the Extras disk, I believe. It's pretty crude, though. (The font requestor is abysmal!) I've never seen a FD font editor, or even a commercial one. Is everybody really satisfied with FED? --dds Now I lay me down to sleep | Dale D. Snell BIX: ddsnell I pray the double lock will keep; | Usenet: dales@teksce.SCE.TEK.COM May no brick trough the window break, | C$erve: 74756.666@compuserve.COM And, no one rob me till I awake. | My opinions, hear? Mine! Mine!!
peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) (10/30/90)
> Is everybody really satisfied with FED?
I am. In fact...
HEY, where's the font editor on my 3000? It's not there in 2.0!
--
Peter da Silva. `-_-'
<peter@sugar.hackercorp.com>.koo@tcville.HAC.COM (11/07/90)
From: koo@tcville.HAC.COM ()
Path: tcville.HAC.COM!koo
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: re: Font Editor
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I can't believe no one has mentioned Calligrapher!! It's been around
for a long time, but it still works. When I bought it, it was about
$65. I'll post a review if there is enough interest.
Frances (koo@tcville.hac.com)