Import Full Formated Text (late reply)

Richard Gaskin ambassador at fourthworld.com
Wed Nov 26 20:59:15 EST 2003


Thomas J McGrath III wrote:

> Actually, in my case if I could import the content I have and keep the
> formatting (Tabs, Centered lines, Bold, Italic, size, color, kerning
> and baseline shift) then the look and feel would be exactly like the
> rest of my project.
> My project is a CD and is 640x480 and so is my content. I wanted it to
> be active text but am considering a pdf solution.
> 
> Right now I am very frustrated with REVs poor text consistency within
> itself and not even dealing with the outside text source.

You don't do a lot of Web or multimedia work, eh? :)

Rev's text handling is on par with similar programming environments, with a
few extras not commonly found elsewhere like backgroundColor and baseline
adjustment.

As a multi-platform tool, Rev does a good job of providing most of the text
handling capabilities provided by the target OSes.

What you're looking for far exceeds the needs of most programs, except for
the category of page layout tools.  Having worked a bit with OS APIs for
handling text, I can tell you that what Quark and InDesign do requires a
_lot_ of code.  Indeed, if you could get the same level of typographic
control from a $99 dev tool like Rev why would anyone shell out $700 for
InDesign?  With Rev they get a smarter scripting language. :)

Most of what you're looking for is available in the engine, including to
some degree baseline shift (see the textShift chunk property).

But kerning is a big can of worms I'd rather not see them encumber the
engine with until all other feature requests are addressed, and then only as
an external so it would not add to the engine size.

Besides, which fonts are you using which have inadequate default kerning?

If you need printer-perfect output, PDF is the way to go.  But if it's for
screen display, adjustments to kerning are probably not needed at 72 ppi
unless you're using fonts with unusually careless kerning tables.

Multiple alignments in a given field would be nice, and well worth
requesting.  But the absence of that is hardly a show-stopper, esp. for
fixed layouts such as one would make for CD-ROM.  Just use multiple fields
until that request gets added to the engine.

If the central concern is how to migrate content from another source into
Rev, the specifics of what's needed will vary depending on the program the
content was created in, but rest assured it can probably be automated.

Side note:  if you're not completely set on using 640x480, current user
stats at <http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp> and
elsewhere suggest you needn't restrict your users' view.  That chart shows
640x480 to be used by only 2%, and most multimedia and Web designers have
been targeting a minimum resolution of 800x600 (44% of users on that chart)
for the last few years.

-- 
 Richard Gaskin 
 Fourth World Media Corporation
 ___________________________________________________________
 Ambassador at FourthWorld.com       http://www.FourthWorld.com
 Tel: 323-225-3717                       AIM: FourthWorldInc













More information about the use-livecode mailing list