richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) (03/26/88)
I'd like to address the subject of fonts on the Amiga. Support for any arbitrary font is a desirable feature, and one I'm certainly thankful for. But why only support for fixed space fonts ? Proportional fonts work most of the time when used strictly for output, such as directory listings, but when backspacing on a cli line or when used in an editor (Z for example) behavior, although predictable, is undesirable. Yes, this would require keeping around more information per character than now, but heavens, were talking about a machine that can have more MEG of RAM on it that the first IBM-PC/XT's had for hard disks. If this feature could not be supported by Commodore, how about getting it in Shell V2.08 ? ---- The other subject I want to touch on is colorfonts. Color fonts are fonts comprised of more than one bitplane. They were invented by Interactive Softworks, who developed _The Calligrapher_, a font editing program. Now, to use colorfonts, you have to run "colortext" - a wedge that makes the system handle colorfonts instead of simple single bitplane fonts. The only program of which I'm aware that already has built in colorfonts support is Prism Plus from Impulse. Therein lies the rub. The only way you can get the colortext program is to buy _The Calligrapher_ for $100, or buy one of two commercially available font disk sets that have the colortext wedge program on them. If however you want to sell color fonts, how do you get colortext licensing so you can put it on your disks with your fonts? Well, Interactive Softworks was sold, lock, stock, barrel, name and all to a company in San Diego (used to be up in the Bay Area), and the new owner is unwilling to license colortext any further as he doesn't want to have to support it in other peoples' product, a decision for which I can't really fault him. Ah but the plot thickens. A knight in shining armor on the horizon. Who ? C= I've learned that a source inside Commodore-Amiga has said on "another network" that 1.3 will have Heath's "fastfonts" and 1.4 will have color fonts capability built-in. If C= is going to support colorfonts, and since they have had the colortext program license for a while now, what would be the chance of C= releasing colortext before 1.4 as to allow artists to package font disks with the one program they (and their customers) need to make them work. Sure, in the real world, somebody buying a disk of color fonts may already havec olortext from "another source" but what about the guy who doesn't; that person is in amiga.color.font.limbo until 1.4 comes out. Comments ? -- ..who come from long lines of soldiers, | richard@gryphon.CTS.COM whose destiny was fulfilled, | ihnp4!scgvaxd!cadovax!gryphon!richard in the words of the warriors will, | rutgers!marque!gryphon!richard and protocol. | codas!ddsw1!gryphon!richard
kent@xanth.cs.odu.edu (Kent Paul Dolan) (03/27/88)
In article <3000@gryphon.CTS.COM> richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) writes: >But why only support for fixed space fonts ? > >Proportional fonts work most of the time when used strictly for output, >such as directory listings, but when backspacing on a cli line or >when used in an editor (Z for example) behavior, although predictable, >is undesirable. > >Yes, this would require keeping around more information per character >than now, [...] Well, no, no extra information. If you know from the font how wide the character was when writing it going to the right, then you can look at the same information to figure out how big a blank space to write going to the left. You do still have the ASCII code for the character in the file you're editing, so you know what you are about to delete, right? The font table is still around for reference? >The other subject I want to touch on is colorfonts. Color fonts are >fonts comprised of more than one bitplane. They were invented by >Interactive Softworks, who developed _The Calligrapher_, a font >editing program. Not unless they invented color fonts before 1977, the first time I saw them used. Those have been in SIGGRAPH procedings stuff for a long, long time. We of ANSI X3H3 decided not to support them, directly as fonts, in what became the GKS standard, in late 1979 or early 1980, because they were beyond our charter. >Comments ? Well, you asked. ;-) I restricted this to comp.sys.amiga, 'cause it is more history lesson than a tech contribution. Kent, the man from xanth.
dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) (03/28/88)
:>Yes, this would require keeping around more information per character :>than now, [...] : :Well, no, no extra information. If you know from the font how wide :the character was when writing it going to the right, then you can :look at the same information to figure out how big a blank space to Theoretically, yes, but compared to what you were doing before it's an expensive operation to do a dynamically sized bit-by-bit (optimized to a byte-by-byte) compare. It makes more sense to have some notion of the characters which have already been output on the line, which requires saving a bit more information in some cases. You wouldn't have to save much more for, say, an editor. But think of the cost of a cursor up? Since you are probably not on the same column if using a proportional font, you need to scan the previous line and sum the widths of each character to determine where the cursor sits. -Matt
keithd@cadovax.UUCP (Keith Doyle) (03/30/88)
In article <4640@xanth.cs.odu.edu> kent@xanth.UUCP (Kent Paul Dolan) writes: >Well, no, no extra information. If you know from the font how wide >the character was when writing it going to the right, then you can >look at the same information to figure out how big a blank space to >write going to the left. You do still have the ASCII code for the >character in the file you're editing, so you know what you are about >to delete, right? In the case of an editor program, sure, but not in the case of a generic console window, where the characters that are on the screen are not saved anywhere. It's up to the application to decide to save the characters that are on the screen. Many applications don't need to save the characters that have already been output. Keith Doyle # {ucbvax,decvax}!trwrb!cadovax!keithd Contel Business Systems 213-323-8170
richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) (03/31/88)
Kent has a point: In article <4640@xanth.cs.odu.edu> kent@xanth.UUCP (Kent Paul Dolan) writes: >In article <3000@gryphon.CTS.COM> richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard >Sexton) writes: >>But why only support for fixed space fonts ? >> >>Yes, this would require keeping around more information per character >>than now, [...] > >Well, no, no extra information. If you know from the font how wide >the character was when writing it going to the right, then you can >look at the same information to figure out how big a blank space to >write going to the left. You do still have the ASCII code for the >character in the file you're editing, so you know what you are about >to delete, right? The font table is still around for reference? Bloody 'ell, 'es right. Ok you people, no excuses now... :-) >>The other subject I want to touch on is colorfonts. Color fonts are >>fonts comprised of more than one bitplane. They were invented by >>Interactive Softworks, who developed _The Calligrapher_, a font >>editing program. > >Not unless they invented color fonts before 1977, the first time I saw >them used. Those have been in SIGGRAPH procedings stuff for a long, >long time. We of ANSI X3H3 decided not to support them, directly as >fonts, in what became the GKS standard, in late 1979 or early 1980, >because they were beyond our charter. My mistake; bad terminology. By "color fonts" I didn't mean fonts comprised of multiple colors in an abstract sense, but rather, the specific format for color fonts as they are used on the amiga developed by Interactive Softworks. Hey, not bad for a non lawyer, that almost sounds legalese. Maybe theres a future for me after all. Hey Leo! Need any legal help for this years Siggraph ? >>Comments ? > >Well, you asked. ;-) I restricted this to comp.sys.amiga, 'cause it >is more history lesson than a tech contribution. > >Kent, the man from xanth. I'd really like an answer from sombody working on the shell or is in some way resposible for the CLI. Really really. -- "I certainly don't have to defend the most profitable corporation on Earth to you, we terminate this right now" -Jim Sitek richard@gryphon.CTS.COM rutgers!marque!gryphon!richard
SLMYQ@USU.BITNET (04/01/88)
Speaking of fonts, how about vectored fonts?
Just a point to ponder...
Anonymous :)richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) (04/04/88)
In article <8804010614.AA01418@jade.berkeley.edu> SLMYQ@USU.BITNET writes: >Speaking of fonts, how about vectored fonts? > > Just a point to ponder... Whole new ball of wax. I am concerned at this point with trying to get the amiga system software to support the fonts we have now. Bill Volk and crew are, I understand, working on this on BUX. If anybody would care to fill us in on status, it would be most appreciated. -- "Ever since the world ended... I don't go out as much" richard@gryphon.CTS.COM rutgers!marque!gryphon!richard
lee@uhccux.UUCP (Greg Lee) (04/04/88)
From article <3107@gryphon.CTS.COM>, by richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton):
" In article <8804010614.AA01418@jade.berkeley.edu> SLMYQ@USU.BITNET writes:
" >Speaking of fonts, how about vectored fonts?
" >
" > Just a point to ponder...
"
" Whole new ball of wax. I am concerned at this point with trying to get the
" amiga system software to support the fonts we have now.
" ...
You might be interested to know that my "hershtools" programs from
comp.sources.unix will produce vector font data in Amiga compatible
assembly language from the Hershey data base. I tried out some fonts
produced this way in my PostScript interpreter, but the display is
quite slow for all but the simplest characters.
Greg, lee@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu