[PD] fonts on GNU/Linux

[Hans-Christoph Steiner]

On May 17, 2007, at 9:38 AM, Frank Barknecht wrote:

> Hallo,
> Hans-Christoph Steiner hat gesagt: // Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:
>
>>> Hans-Christoph Steiner hat gesagt: // Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:
>>>
>>>> Has anyone been able to get the DejaVu font to work with Pd- 
>>>> extended
>>>> on GNU/Linux?  I just switched the default font to Bitstream Vera,
>>>> which comes with GNOME and maybe KDE.  I can't get that to work
>>>> either.
>>>
>>> Try Courier. ;)
>>
>> I would have left it at courier, but from my tests, Courier is not
>> the same font on each platform.  There were notable differences in
>> size and shape across platforms.
>>
>> This is the last hang-up, the current nightly build is pixel exact on
>> all the measures I did, except on Mac OS X the font is 1 pixel lower
>> in the object box.  I think I can fix that too.
>
> I was just joking with that Courier.
>
> I had downloaded the latest autobuild and I get the Vera font just
> fine (compared to a Vim set to the same font).
>
> However I hate to bring this up again, but better now then never:
>
> Would you reconsider your choice of a skinny font?
>
> I still would prefer a bold font. I am absolutely not, in no way, able
> to read the normal font as comfortable as the Bt Vera Bold I use in
> Vim and rxvt. And yes: I tried to use a normal font with Vim etc. in
> the past as well, but it just doesn't work for my eyesight. Maybe
> IOhannes feels the same.
>
> The normal font for me also blends with the borders too much. I'm not
> saying this for aesthetic, but for purely ergonomical reason: I'm not
> able to use this version of Pd-extended, because the anorexic font
> literally hurts after a while.

The font actually isn't a skinny font, it's a standard weight font.   
Or at least it should be showing up that way.  Let me know if it is  
not.  It is the exact same font that GNOME and KDE use by default for  
any fixed width text AFAIK.

I did a survey of applications on GNOME/Debian, GNOME/Ubuntu, Windows  
and Mac OS X.  Bold fonts are only used for highlights everywhere  
that I looked.  I think it is important that Pd also follow these  
established standards, so that's why I went with a normal weight  
font.  Max/MSP and jMax also use a normal weight font.  So in effect,  
I feel I am not making this decision, instead I found it quite  
difficult to continue using a bold font when nothing else did.

That is not to discount your issue with the font.  Ideally, each user  
could set their own font to their needs.  That will take more work,  
but it's within reach.  I already did some work along those lines  
which I will be submitting to Miller.  I made all the C code use  
sys_font, set in s_main.c (before the font was set in many places).

Also, it's possible to change the fonts in bin/pd.tk without  
recompiling, but that won't change all of them.  Anywhere you see  
"{{Bitstream Vera Sans Mono} 12 normal}", change that to "{{Bitstream  
Vera Sans Mono} 12 bold}".

One easy thing that might help you is using a bigger font.  This  
regexp will replace the 10 point with 12 point on any Pd patch:

sed 's/^\(\#N canvas [0-9]* [0-9]* [0-9]* [0-9]*\) 10/\1 12/'

.hc

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