[comp.sys.next] Font Collections - Problems & Solutions

dbrenner@sparta.weeg.uiowa.edu (Doug Brenner) (02/09/91)

A few folks have mailed me directly and a few have posted about various
problems, etc., with Font Collection 1.0 and 2.0.  I just wanted to send
out a general note with a few fixes (I hope) in case others are having
similar problems.

1. Don't install the fonts in /NextLibrary/Fonts.  I believe you will find
   trying to do so painful, but this is only my opinion.

2. If you install the fonts in /LocalLibrary/Fonts, make sure they are
   accessable by everyone.  This was something I should have included in
   the Makefile, sorry.  These commands should help:

      chmod -R a+rX /LocalLibrary/Fonts
      chmod a+r /LocalLibrary/Fonts/.afmcache
      chmod a+r /LocalLibrary/Fonts/.fontdirectory
      chmod a+r /LocalLibrary/Fonts/.fontlist

3. Several people have told me BenjaminCaps is broken.  I thought I tried
   all the fonts prior to sending them out, but this one seems to have
   escaped me.  (It still seems to work for me, but I believe those who
   have reported problems with it.  Delete it.)

4. A few folks have asked about using these fonts with non-NeXT PostScript
   printers.  My access is currently limited to a NeXT printer, hence I
   cannot give you good information.  You might, however, look at the
   'fontloader' utility.  (It has a UNIX manual page, so either man or the
   Digital Librarian will find it for you.)

5. FrameMaker doesn't seem to work with the fonts; it core dumps.  This
   has been verified with my demo copy (2.0B2-V) and by David Randall who
   is using FrameMaker 2.0d.

   I believe FrameMaker does not "play by the rules".  I support this by
   pointing out that:

      o Edit, WriteNow and other applications seem to work with these fonts.
      o FrameMaker does not use the standard Font Panel.
      o The Lexi font shows up in FrameMaker as a valid font choice.  (At
        least in my demo version it does.)
      o The "fix" below seems to make FrameMaker happpy.  (This duplicates
        what NeXT did in /NextLibrary/Fonts.)

   (I do not want to start a flamefest over this issue.  As far as I know,
   FrameMaker is a very nice and usable product.  It just has a problem here.)

   Save this shell script into a file (say FixFrameMaker),
   make it executable (chmod +x FixFrameMaker), and
   run it AFTER the fonts have been installed (FixFrameMaker).

   Doing this will make it difficult to run buildafmdir against the location
   where you installed the fonts.  I don't have a better solution if you
   wish to run FrameMaker with these fonts.

I hope that clears up any problems you may have had.  Good luck!  -dcb
==
Doug Brenner <dbrenner@umaxc.weeg.uiowa.edu>
============================== cut here ==============================
#! /bin/sh
# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
# FixFrameMaker -- create afm and outline font links so FrameMaker works
# 
# Copyright (c) 1991 Doug Brenner
# 
#    This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
#    it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
#    the Free Software Foundation; either version 1, or (at your option)
#    any later version.
# 
#    This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
#    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
#    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
#    GNU General Public License for more details.
# 
#    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
#    along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
#    Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA, or send
#    electronic mail to the the author.
# 
# FrameMaker doesn't seem to "play by the rules" when it comes to using
# fonts under NeXT Software Release 2.0.  The new font structure seems
# to work for everything except FrameMaker.  (At least I have no reports
# of other problems yet.)
#
# This procedure seaches for font directories within INSTALLDIR (see below)
# and creates links to the enclosed outline and afm files.  The links are
# placed in ${INSTALLDIR}/outline and ${INSTALLDIR}/afm.
#
# This procedure assumes you installed FontCollection-1.0 or 2.0 using the
# 'make install2.0' procedure.  (If you typed 'make install' and you are
# running Software Release 2.0, install2.0 should have been done for you.)
#
# Please note this procedure only does the afm and outline files.  It does
# not do screen bitmaps or screen afm files.  Only one font (TechPhonetic)
# had these components anyway.
# 
# Doug Brenner <dbrenner@umaxc.weeg.uiowa.edu>
# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

# Where the fonts were installed.  Valid choices are /LocalLibrary/Fonts and
# ~/Library/Fonts.  (Again, I'd suggest against using /NextLibrary/Fonts.)

INSTALLDIR=~/Library/Fonts

# Command to collect all the font names in INSTALLDIR.  DO NOT CHANGE.
FONTS=`(cd ${INSTALLDIR}; ls -d *.font | sed 's/\.font$//')`

mkdirs ${INSTALLDIR}/afm ${INSTALLDIR}/outline

echo "Creating afm and outline links so bad FrameMaker will work..."

for i in ${FONTS}; \
   do echo $i; \
   cd ${INSTALLDIR}/outline; ln -s ../$i.font/$i $i
   cd ${INSTALLDIR}/afm; ln -s ../$i.font/$i.afm $i.afm
done

echo ""
echo "FrameMaker should now work.  You may find, however, that running"
echo "buildafmdir ${INSTALLDIR} will cause errors."
echo "This is not a problem unless you install new fonts again."

dbrenner@sparta.weeg.uiowa.edu (Doug Brenner) (04/18/91)

Some time ago (okay, it was only February) I posted some hints about the
font collections.  Here is that posting again with one addition (#2) and a
few minor changes.

If time permits, I will update the font collections themselves and perhaps
release another set.  -dcb

P.S.  Can anyone tell me if the new releases of FrameMaker have fixed the
problem mentioned in #6 below?  (Mail to me directly if you know.)

P.P.S.  The font collections are at {nova sonata}.cc.purdue.edu in the
directory pub/next/misc in case anyone wonders.
====================
A few folks have mailed me directly and a few have posted about various
problems, etc., with Font Collection 1.0 and 2.0.  I just wanted to send
out a general note with a few fixes (I hope) in case others are having
similar problems.

1. Don't install the fonts in /NextLibrary/Fonts.  I believe you will find
   trying to do so painful, but this is only my opinion.

2. If you install the fonts as root, make sure you change the INSTALLDIR
   macro in the Makefile to /LocalLibrary/Fonts.  If it is not changed,
   the fonts will be installed in /Library/Fonts and only root will be
   able to see the fonts. (The Makefile has $(HOME)/Library/Fonts by
   default and what does $(HOME) turn into for root?)  I'm sorry I didn't
   check for this condition and it has caused problems.

3. If you install the fonts in /LocalLibrary/Fonts, make sure they are
   accessable by everyone.  This was something I should have included in
   the Makefile, sorry.  These commands should help:

      chmod -R a+rX /LocalLibrary/Fonts
      chmod a+r /LocalLibrary/Fonts/.afmcache
      chmod a+r /LocalLibrary/Fonts/.fontdirectory
      chmod a+r /LocalLibrary/Fonts/.fontlist

4. Several people have told me BenjaminCaps is broken.  I thought I tried
   all the fonts prior to sending them out, but this one seems to have
   escaped me.  (It still seems to work for me, but I believe those who
   have reported problems with it.  Delete it.)

5. A few folks have asked about using these fonts with non-NeXT PostScript
   printers.  My access is currently limited to a NeXT printer, hence I
   cannot give you good information.  You might, however, look at the
   'fontloader' utility.  (It has a UNIX manual page, so either man or the
   Digital Librarian will find it for you.)

6. Some versions of FrameMaker (under NeXTStep 2.0) don't seem to work with
   these fonts; FrameMaker core dumps.  This has been verified with my demo
   copy (2.0B2-V) and by David Randall who is using FrameMaker 2.0d.

   I believe FrameMaker does not "play by the rules".  I support this by
   pointing out that:

      o Edit, WriteNow and other applications seem to work with these fonts.
      o FrameMaker does not use the standard Font Panel.
      o The Lexi font shows up in FrameMaker as a valid font choice.  (At
        least in my demo version it does.)
      o The "fix" below seems to make FrameMaker happpy.  (This duplicates
        what NeXT did in /NextLibrary/Fonts.)

   (I do not want to start a flamefest over this issue.  As far as I know,
   FrameMaker is a very nice and usable product.  It just has a problem here.)

   Save this shell script into a file (say FixFrameMaker),
   make it executable (chmod +x FixFrameMaker), and
   run it AFTER the fonts have been installed (FixFrameMaker).

   Doing this will make it difficult to run buildafmdir against the location
   where you installed the fonts.  I don't have a better solution if you
   wish to run FrameMaker with these fonts.

I hope that clears up any problems you may have had.  Good luck!  -dcb
==
Doug Brenner <dbrenner@umaxc.weeg.uiowa.edu>
============================== cut here ==============================
#! /bin/sh
# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
# FixFrameMaker -- create afm and outline font links so FrameMaker works
# 
# Copyright (c) 1991 Doug Brenner
# 
#    This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
#    it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
#    the Free Software Foundation; either version 1, or (at your option)
#    any later version.
# 
#    This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
#    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
#    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
#    GNU General Public License for more details.
# 
#    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
#    along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
#    Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA, or send
#    electronic mail to the the author.
# 
# FrameMaker doesn't seem to "play by the rules" when it comes to using
# fonts under NeXT Software Release 2.0.  The new font structure seems
# to work for everything except FrameMaker.  (At least I have no reports
# of other problems yet.)
#
# This procedure seaches for font directories within INSTALLDIR (see below)
# and creates links to the enclosed outline and afm files.  The links are
# placed in ${INSTALLDIR}/outline and ${INSTALLDIR}/afm.
#
# This procedure assumes you installed FontCollection-1.0 or 2.0 using the
# 'make install2.0' procedure.  (If you typed 'make install' and you are
# running Software Release 2.0, install2.0 should have been done for you.)
#
# Please note this procedure only does the afm and outline files.  It does
# not do screen bitmaps or screen afm files.  Only one font (TechPhonetic)
# had these components anyway.
# 
# Doug Brenner <dbrenner@umaxc.weeg.uiowa.edu>
# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

# Where the fonts were installed.  Valid choices are /LocalLibrary/Fonts and
# ~/Library/Fonts.  (Again, I'd suggest against using /NextLibrary/Fonts.)

INSTALLDIR=~/Library/Fonts

# Command to collect all the font names in INSTALLDIR.  DO NOT CHANGE.
FONTS=`(cd ${INSTALLDIR}; ls -d *.font | sed 's/\.font$//')`

mkdirs ${INSTALLDIR}/afm ${INSTALLDIR}/outline

echo "Creating afm and outline links so bad FrameMaker will work..."

for i in ${FONTS}; \
   do echo $i; \
   cd ${INSTALLDIR}/outline; ln -s ../$i.font/$i $i
   cd ${INSTALLDIR}/afm; ln -s ../$i.font/$i.afm $i.afm
done

echo ""
echo "FrameMaker should now work.  You may find, however, that running"
echo "buildafmdir ${INSTALLDIR} will cause errors."
echo "This is not a problem unless you install new fonts again."