Cross-platform fonts...what is everyone else doing?

[Frank Leahy]

Two reasonable suggestions -- comments below:

On Jul 28, 2004, at 4:48 PM, use-revolution-request at lists.runrev.com 
wrote:

> From: Cubist at aol.com
> Subject: Re: Cross-platform fonts...what is everyone else doing?
> To: use-revolution at lists.runrev.com
> Message-ID: <1ea.263defb9.2e388db0 at aol.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
>
>    Stupid idea: Since Windows fonts stay assigned after you assign 
> them on
> Windows, why not just *do* that as a one-time operation when you're 
> releasing
> stuff for Windows? Yes, this does somewhat go against the "write once, 
> run
> anywhere" ideal we all strive for. But if Windows just refuses to 
> either do the
> right thing itself, or allow you to do the right thing for it...
>

I considered that -- but I started this thread hoping not to have to do 
that.

> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Wed, 28 Jul 2004 01:20:55 EDT
> From: Cubist at aol.com
> Subject: Re: Cross-platform fonts...what is everyone else doing?
> To: use-revolution at lists.runrev.com
> Message-ID: <15.2ecb7ad7.2e3891b7 at aol.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
>
>    Another idea for how to deal with it: Why not include a function 
> that
> allows your users to select whichever font they like? You can set 
> things up so
> that the first time your app runs, it allows them to choose their own 
> font (and
> do whatever other preference-type tweaking you care to implement). 
> After that,
> everyone walks away happy, with a font that they *know* works on 
> *their*
> systerm, because they *chose* it themselves! Best of all, this 
> solution *is*
> perfectly cross-platform, just because...
>

You have to be careful about doing that because if they choose the 
wrong font, the baseline bug will not only make all your carefully 
aligned fields and controls misaligned, but you might get cutoff text 
on your carefully designed labels if the new font is wider than what 
you designed your screens to.

I think I will probably go with a runtime solution, such that when a 
stack opens for the first time it quickly checks every field for a 
non-empty font/size/style and resets it to the correct font for that 
platform.  I don't have that many controls that are bolded or have a 
different point size, so it should be fast enough.

-- Frank

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