[PD] [PD-announce] Pd-0.39.2-extended-rc1 released // fonts

[Hans-Christoph Steiner]

On Apr 16, 2007, at 1:34 PM, Frank Barknecht wrote:

> Hallo,
> Miller Puckette hat gesagt: // Miller Puckette wrote:
>
>> I think that, since font sizes now differ between platforms, it's  
>> probably
>> OK to introduce a new, uniform font size as long as it doesn't  
>> exceed that
>> of any currently used one by more than about a pixel... and  
>> indeed, it will
>> be a huge benefit to get this straightened out at last!
>
> Yep, definitely.
>
> I now had a real look at pd-extended.  Some comments: The properties
> menu for IEMGUIs still explicitly specify names like "Deja Sans ..."
> or "Helvetica". I think, it would be better to use more general names:
> "Mono", "Sans Serif" and "Serif". That way it would be easier to map
> the names to different font faces eventially or when "-typeface X" is
> used.

Sounds like a good idea.  It's a separate issue though, so I left  
that situation as is. One step at a time.  You could submit a patch  
if you feel inspired...

> Then very much, even with Deja, I would prefer to have a bold typeface
> back. I find the non-bold fonts hard to read and for my tastes they
> are too similar in width to the object borders.

Bitstream Vera/Deja at 8pt and 10pt is not so good.  11pt is much  
better, and 12pt is quite nice.  Too bad the Lucida fonts aren't  
free, they look better IMHO.

> Btw: the number in
> number boxes is positioned a little bit to low, not in the center.

Unfortunately, there is only one place to adjust the font placement.   
This is the best compromise that I could come up with.  It would be  
great if people experimented with the positioning and perhaps other  
fonts to see if there is a better solution.

> _From a quick glance at pd.tk I still don't like, that the font face
> is hardcoded in many places. I'm tcl-illiterate, but it would be nice
> to have the fonts defined in just one place. One end goal IMO should
> be a system similar to the one in Desire Data: Here you can totally
> change the graphical appearance, from colors to fonts and beyond, by
> editing a GUI config file. With hardcoded font names everywhere this
> is porbably harder to realize.

Indeed.  I did some work towards that end, but there is much left to  
do.  AFAIK, in order to do have all of the graphical stuff  
customizable and still have working cross-platform patch layout, the  
graphical information would have to be stored in the .pd file.  It's  
currently not.


> Also after seeing Chun's DD presentation at "make art" last week I
> fell in love with the Zoom feature of Desire Data: If like me one is
> sight impaired when in front of a screen (yep, I'm aproaching 40),
> with current Pd it is necessary to change the font size, which, even
> with the Deja-font and pd-extended, will still break the layout of a
> patch. Instead of that, zooming into a patch would be a much better
> solution for handicapped users.

Yes, it would be very nice to tk scaling support.

.hc

>
> Ciao
> -- 
>  Frank Barknecht                 _ ______footils.org_ __goto10.org__
>
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