fonts - yet another desperate plea
fonts - yet another desperate plea
- Subject: fonts - yet another desperate plea
- From: Robert Clair <email@hidden>
- Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 10:04:32 -0500
First, Dustin thanks for the suggestion about
availableMembersOfFontFamily:
I overlooked this, but I have an excuse: it is missing from the
summary of available methods for NSFontManager in the docs (it is
present in the detailed explanations).
But the problem with oddball fonts remains. The standard font panel
includes them and when you try and type with them it silently switches
the font to Lucida Grande or some other recently used western font. I
instrumented everything, changeFont:, notifications, etc., and cannot
find where this is happening. Evidently something in the font manager
detects it and just changes it. One font, Bodoni Ornaments, even lets
you enter the symbols from the keyboard until you type the ' character
where upon it switches itself to dread Lucida Grande ( because it has
no encoding for ' ?)
Lets look at this from the "naive user" point of view. While working in
some program he/she summons the system font panel and decides to try
some random font, say for example, Thonburi. Thonburi as it turns out
is not a western font (Asian ? Thai ?). But, especially given the
whimsical naming of many fonts, how the hell would a non-expert know
that ? When they select Thonburi they get both the label "Thonburi
Regular 20.0pt" and the word "Thonburi" in 20pt type in the preview
area. The word "Thonburi", of course is not in Thonburi it is in
Helvitica or Lucida or something, but again how the hell would a
non-expert know. The would probably assume Thonburi is just some dull
sans-serif variant. When they go to type it switches, leaving them
scratching their head. The first time it happened to me, it took
several repetitions and experiments to figure out what was going on -
and I'm the "expert". Do mysterious things and leave the user clueless
? Where, exactly, were all the vaunted Apple UI Gods when this was
designed ?
I can't believe that there is no way to detect this and filter or flag
them. Someone must know something about this. Somebody ? Anybody ? Help
! :-)
......Bob
"I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my
telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my
telephone." - Bjarne Stroustrup
"His phone's software was written in C++." - Robert Clair
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