kk@shasta.tivoli.com (Kerry Kimbrough) (01/31/91)
> > Is there a font that is common to all hardware platforms? > > For what it's worth, this is one reason (internationalization being > the other obvious extension) that I *never* use an absolute size > or position in my apps. Forms, Tables and RowCols all the way. > This is also one reason why I consider virtual toolkits to be > virtually useless for real apps. This is a good point that seems to have been overlooked in all current toolkits that advertise portability across multiple LAF's/window systems, e.g. XVT, Aspect, Neuron, OI. All rely to some degree upon specifying the positions/sizes of UI components explicitly. Yet the desired component geometry depends in very large measure on the size of text typefaces used (text being such a major element of virtually every UI). The problem: the set of available, LAF-conforming fonts depends on the display, the window system, and even the LAF style guide! An app that is truly LAF-portable cannot determine the fonts it uses!