Cross Platform Font Layout - current workarounds

Tue Aug 25 19:58:57 EDT 2020

Sean,

As much i understand the pressure you feel to finalize your project, the less i  understand why every post of you sounds rude.
What do you want to accomplish with such posts and what do you want to hear from us? 
You can't expect that everyone on this list shares your opinion. 
I do not think that your behavior is very helpful. But anyway that's your decision.

I really wish you can complete the project successfully.

Take care of yourself.

Matthias

> Am 26.08.2020 um 01:36 schrieb Sean Cole (Pi) via use-livecode <use-livecode at lists.runrev.com>:
> 
> Se my notes on the other thread about OTF fonts. THEY ARE DESIGNED to be
> the SAME in ANY platform (except browsers coz they don't accept them. They
> have their own variance.
> 
> Stop making excuses. Accept I am right, for FS. I didn't create the fault.
> I'm not even the first to report it. It's there! It's real. Stop arguing
> and help me get LC to pull their fingers out their posteriors and fix these
> damned mistakes that have been around for years!! Why does no one pull
> behind me, but just point the finger at me assuming I'm in the wrong for
> highlighting a bug that is clearly already accepted? It astounds me, it
> really does! You tell me off for getting angry about it but it is purely
> because everyone has made out the OTF fonts aren't designed to appear the
> same. They should. They don't. They should. But they don't! It needs
> fixing. Simple as that. Of course I'm going to respond badly to this kind
> of bullying. What did you all expect!
> 
> Sean Cole
> *Pi Digital *
> 
> 
> On Tue, 25 Aug 2020 at 23:04, Bob Sneidar via use-livecode <
> use-livecode at lists.runrev.com> wrote:
> 
>> I’ll toss this in. I was using a Mac font that had a Windows corollary (I
>> thought) but when I dug deeper I found that the Mac had individual type
>> faces whereas the Windows equivalent did not. This font was a BUILT-IN font
>> on both platforms!
>> 
>> The result is if I chose the bold version of the font for something like a
>> Header or a Label, it wouldn’t be either the font chosen OR bold in
>> Windows, although it looks absolutely fine on the Mac.
>> 
>> The Livecode devs CANNOT take liberties with this sort of thing! What can
>> they do?? Write code that guesses what it was the developer was trying to
>> do? It’s absurd to think this is even a problem that CAN be solved at the
>> application level.
>> 
>> THAT BEING SAID…
>> What I DID do successfully was find an app that was able to CONVERT the
>> Mac font type faces into WINDOWS font files, and then I was able to install
>> them in Windows and I got pretty much what I expected to get.
>> 
>> Bob S
>> 
>> 
>>> On Aug 25, 2020, at 10:51 AM, Andrew at MidWest Coast Media via
>> use-livecode <use-livecode at lists.runrev.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Sean-
>>> 
>>> My degree is in TV/stage production and digital design. I’ve built web
>> sites (HTML, WordPress, LiveCode), produced/directed broadcast and
>> streaming programs, and delivered custom software on Mac/PC/Web (using
>> Director and Flash), and now Mac/PC/iOS/Android using LiveCode (because
>> you’re right, the HTML5 port isn’t ready for primetime).
>>> 
>>> Anyone who thinks pixel perfection across mediums is possible has never
>> worked on a web platform; this usually ends up being UI designers who only
>> work in theoreticals. That InDesign file they mocked up might look great
>> saved as a PDF or printed on a specific coated paper using Pantone inks,
>> but those CMYK colors and Post Script fonts are rendered using RGB and WOFF
>> in a web browser or desktop computer so they won’t look the same: and
>> there’s not a damn thing you can do about it (short of making everything an
>> image, but you still can’t make-up for the color gamut differences). The
>> WYSWIG hacks that sufficed in the 90s/00s to make things visually similar
>> were always shoddy at-best creating hundreds of additional lines of code
>> and won’t pass muster with current accessibility standards even if they did
>> "work".
>>> 
>>> Fonts have ALWAYS been one of the most difficult parts of app
>> development. Whether it’s getting legal fonts (the good ones aren’t cheap,
>> and the cheap ones aren’t good), or cross-platform fonts (not every OS
>> reads the same format, and not every font is available in multiple
>> formats). The closest I’ve come has been to run some scripts when
>> populating text fields to make sure they fit the dimensions allotted in the
>> design. Text doesn’t fit in box? Reduce the fontSize by 1 until it does.
>> Text doesn’t fill the space? Increase the fontSize by 1 until it does. It’s
>> a PITA, so I usually add this in at the end since the art department seems
>> to have another “small change” along the way.
>>> 
>>> Programming isn't a science as much as an art. With your broadcasting
>> background you understand that a projects aren’t “done” until the deadline:
>> there is ALWAYS something else you would have tweaked if you had more time
>> (2 weeks?!?). But I get it: producers are generally unreasonable eggplant
>> emojis that are notoriously difficult to please.
>>> 
>>> While LiveCode DOES require some if platform() conditionals, I can only
>> imagine coding this in Swift and Java (even for a unicorn proficient in
>> BOTH) would still take much longer and NOT give the pixel perfection you
>> are referring to. I say “imagine” because I don’t know, and never had to
>> learn, those languages since I could easily pick-up LiveCode from the
>> various programming environments I’ve previously developed for. My copy of
>> Microsoft Windows looks different on my iMac than it does on my Dell, and
>> it wasn’t a fireable offense for the development team.
>>> 
>>> —Andrew Bell
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