[PD] pd font finetuning with tk scaling ?

[carmen]

> I don't see how the point size will be somehow different in aspect ratio
>  from the pixel size?

why point/pixel sizes at all? for years the way to specify a font size for web is in "em" units. 1.0em 0.8em etc..

> If courier 12 is say 10pixels wide then it should be identical to
> courier -10 visually, since the aspect *should* be the same.

even a 12 point font can be different on the same platform depending on which DPI you launched your X server at, which toolkit you are using, etc..

> Or am I misunderstanding what you mean by the "at least three dimensions
> to a font size"?

id say theres at least 4... platform, dpi, font, fontsize

> The font issue is really a stumbling block for trying to make anything
> look constant accross platforms. The current PD documentation is a great
> example of this, where, depending on the platform, many help-patches
> open with overlapping messages/comments. :(

how about a scalable canvas with a client-side algo to make sure nothing overlaps? something like http://whats-your.name/pd/chokun.png but with less ugly colours?