Cross Platform Font Layout - current workarounds

[Sean Cole (Pi)]

Hi all,

What is the current 'workaround' everyone is using when creating a
cross-platform app to make sure that all text appears the same regardless
of platform? Particularly between Windows and Mac for me at the moment.

My client provided the font they needed in line with their tv show brand.
They need the app to work both PC and Mac. It seems I have to manually go
through each field, button and widget and make sure they are laid out
properly. The left, right, center alignments don't always match and the
vertical position certainly never matches.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/v50aj7uv06bh4d9/MacText.png?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/pry5teqp89xzbun/PCText.png?dl=0

(This dates all the way to bug 3076!! Pretty awesome to hold onto a bug
reported back in 2005 for something so basic. Kudos to LC for keeping on
top of it.)

Also, side note, does anyone remember why we STILL have a discrepancy
between fontnames() in Mac and Windows? Not only do the windows fonts show
alphabetically and mac dramatically out of order, but also, the names
themselves are screwed up:

   1. eg, Windows: Helvetica Neue
   2. Mac: Helvetica, Helvetica Bold, Helvetica Bold Oblique, Helvetica
   Light, Helvetica Light Oblique, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica Neue Bold,
   Helvetica Neue Bold Italic, Helvetica Neue Condensed Black, Helvetica Neue
   Condensed Bold, Helvetica Neue Italic, Helvetica Neue Light, Helvetica Neue
   Light Italic, Helvetica Neue Medium, Helvetica Neue Medium Italic,
   Helvetica Neue Thin, Helvetica Neue Thin Italic, Helvetica Neue UltraLight,
   Helvetica Neue UltraLight Italic, Helvetica Oblique


   - eg. Windows: Arial, Arial Rounded MT, Arial Unicode MS
   - Mac: Arial, Arial, Arial Black, Arial Bold, Arial Bold, Arial Bold
   Italic, Arial Bold Italic, Arial Hebrew, Arial Hebrew Bold, Arial Hebrew
   Light, Arial Hebrew Scholar, Arial Hebrew Scholar Bold, Arial Hebrew
   Scholar Light, Arial Italic, Arial Italic, Arial Narrow, Arial Narrow Bold,
   Arial Narrow Bold Italic, Arial Narrow Italic, Arial Rounded MT Bold, Arial
   Unicode MS

This is bonkers for a SDK that purports to make it 'Easy' to make
cross-platform apps.

Thanks all

Sean Cole
*Pi Digital *