the fontSizes

[Paul Dupuis]

On 5/23/2015 2:43 PM, Richmond wrote:
> On 23/05/15 18:32, Bob Cole wrote:
>> put the fontSizes of "Arial" into message box
>
> Over here in the "Happy World of Linux" (Xubuntu 15.04):
>
> 1. "put the fontSizes of "Arial" into message box"
>
> results in nothing at all, whether 6.7.5 or 7.0.5, probably because
> there is no "Arial" font on my machine.
>
> 2. "put the fontSizes of "Caladea" into message box" [ a font which
> Libre Office 'sees' on my system. ]
>
> results in nothing at all either.
>
> 3. "put the fontSizes of "UnDotum" into message box" [ a font which
> shows up when I do a 'put the fontNames' exercise ]
>
> results in a "0" in both 6.7.5 and 7.0.5
>
> Sorry, not much help.
>
> Even tho' the documentation sez 'fontSizes' is good for Linux as well
> as Macintosh.

An empty result is the expected result for any font name passed to the
function that is not among the list of fonts returned by "the fontNames"
0 is the expected result for any scalable font (among the list of fonts
provided by "the fontNames") since such fonts can be scaled to any size.
The fontSizes function is ONLY relevant for old fashion bitmapped fonts,
and while they are still out there and people still use them, 99% of all
fonts these days are scalable (Truetype, Postscript, etc.)

I would say this function is a left over from support of Classic MacOS
days and should be considered deprecated, but someone on the list will
undoubtedly respond that they have an app in current use that still uses
bitmapped fonts.