[comp.sys.atari.st] GDOS fonts, metafiles

fortin@seas.gwu.edu (robert fortin) (02/17/90)

I am writing a small graphing program, and I would like to
be able to use different fonts to label the graphs and charts,
and use metafiles to save the graphs.

How do I load and access the fonts. Do I just use the VDI load
fonts and select font calls. I have Gdos loaded already. I am
using Laser C v2.1, and there is very little mention of how to
use gdos. If anyone can help me or point me to informtion on
fonts, metafiles, etc please let me know.

-Bob Fortin
fortin@seas.gwu.edu

ps. How can I get a new version of Gdos, I have version 1.1.

tellabs.canada@canremote.uucp (TELLABS CANADA) (02/18/90)

>From: fortin@seas.gwu.edu (robert fortin)
>Orga: The George Washington University, Washington, D.C.
>I am writing a small graphing program, and I would like to
>be able to use different fonts to label the graphs and charts,
>and use metafiles to save the graphs.
.. 
>How do I load and access the fonts. Do I just use the VDI load
>fonts and select font calls. I have Gdos loaded already..
 
Yes in fact you do! C! Call vst_load_fonts(handle,select) where h/dle is 
your virtual workstation handle, and select is 0. All of your fonts will 
be loaded into memory in one time-consuming bunch at this point (this, I 
am lead to believe is what is meant by setting select to 0, future
revisions of GDOS will allow you use other numbers, in order to select
specific fonts to load).
 
One useful thing to do just after loading up fonts, is performing a call 
to vq_extnd(handle,owflag,work_out), where owflag is set to zero,
meaning you'd like to know the current status of the regular,
non-extended work_out variables. work_out[10] will contain the number of 
fonts available to you now. To know the names of these fonts, or
anything else for that matter, you can use the calls vqt_name and
vqt_fontinfo respectively.
 
To set any particular font, simply call vst_font(handle,font) where font 
represents the N'th fonl loaded by vst_load_fonts. What you can expect
back from the call is the font number (that integer that is unique to
each GDOS face) :-( I've always wished that you could call the fonts by
this ID rather than the way things really work.
 
Above I mentioned a future release of GDOS, the ramifications of this
are, unfortunaltely, that your version 1.1 is the latest to be released. 
We can all dream of 2.0 (which the rumour mill says is on its way), the
features of which I won't speculate about (although if you live close 
to a rumour mill, you're sure to hear about individually loadable fonts, 
bezier curves, maybe even outline fonts :-)) )
 
Regards,
Roman @ tellabs
 
#include<disclaimer.h>
 
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