djvelleman@amherst.bitnet (08/20/90)
I'm writing an application which has its own font containing some special
symbols. I'm trying to do two things that seem to be harder than they
should be:
1. I want to use my font in a menu. I know I can write a MDEF to do this,
but I don't want to duplicate all the work in the standard MDEF. There must
be an easier way. I tried writing a MDEF which switches fonts,
calls the standard MDEF, and then switches back to the system font, but the
standard MDEF seems to set the font to the system font itself. I tried a MDEF
which changes the system font and then calls the standard MDEF, and that didn't
work either. (I'm not sure why. Maybe I did it wrong.) A hack that works:
a MDEF that changes fonts, calls a copy of the standard MDEF which has been
doctored by changing all calls to TextFont to NOP, and then changes fonts
back. There must be a better way.
2. I want to use my font in a TextEdit record, and I want to have line breaks
not only after spaces, but also after a few other special characters. I tried
writing a word break routine, but it didn't seem to work as described in IM.
Has anyone gotten a custom word break routine to work? A hack that does work
for this: use ascii codes <32 for the symbols at which a line can break. This
may actually be the best solution, but is it dangerous? Obviously, I have
to avoid some ascii codes, like CR. Which ones are safe to use?
Thanks for any help.
Dan Velleman
Math Dept.
Amherst College
Bitnet: djvelleman@amherst