TTF Font installed with TTFLib not working

[motorollin]

Hi all

I have just installed TTFLib on my A4000 and used ttfmanager to install a TTF font. It successfully created the .font and .otag files in the FONTS: drawer, but the font does not show up in any font requesters, e.g. font prefs. Any ideas?

TIA

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moto

[motorollin]

I should add that I opened the otag file with a hex editor and checked where it is looking for the ttf file. The original ttf is in the location it wants it to be.

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moto

[motorollin]

This is strange. I just downloaded FontViewer from Aminet and this correctly displayed the font. After this, the font is available in my Workbench Fonts prefs! The font doesn't look very good compared to the original TTF. Is there a reason for this?

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moto

[jmbattle]

The Workbench font prefs seems to be rather fussy with the fonts it lists, however as you have found, once the font is opened by another process it will show up.

You may also be able to manually type the name of the font into the requestor.

As for the poor legibility of the fonts, experiment with the 'Bounding Box' settings when installing the font - this will have a significant effect over the rendered appearance, especially at small point sizes.  

If I am correct in thinking that you are searching for a new UI/icon font, anti-aliasing will improve things dramatically.  Software that utilises ttengine.library (another truetype solution) provides a reasonably attractive anti-aliasing technique, which is very effective AmiStart and Scalos, for example.

And of course, thanks to Bernd #3's wonderful progress back-porting AROS to 68k, truetype fonts can be implemented system-wide using AfA-OS.

Good luck!

James
x

[motorollin]

jmbattle wrote:
As for the poor legibility of the fonts, experiment with the 'Bounding Box' settings when installing the font - this will have a significant effect over the rendered appearance, especially at small point sizes.  

Thanks! I will play with that option and see what happens.

jmbattle wrote:
If I am correct in thinking that you are searching for a new UI/icon font, anti-aliasing will improve things dramatically.  Software that utilises ttengine.library (another truetype solution) provides a reasonably attractive anti-aliasing technique, which is very effective AmiStart and Scalos, for example.

Is there any way to get Workbench to use those fonts in order to get the anti-aliased effects in the UI?

jmbattle wrote:
And of course, thanks to Bernd #3's wonderful progress back-porting AROS to 68k, truetype fonts can be implemented system-wide using AfA-OS.

Unfortunately I could never get AfA-OS to work :-(

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moto

[jmbattle]

I believe the 'Custom' bounding box setting provided the best (clearest) results.  Years ago, I used this setting to convert a truetype font into an Amiga bitmap font, then 'touched-up' the pixels of the misshaped characters manually.  This was the AIAB system/shell font.

Currently, Scalos is only able to render icons fonts using ttengine.library, while the remaining elements of the UI will continue to use the bitmap fonts defined in font.prefs.

Honestly speaking, I would heartily recommend persevering with AfA-OS, as this will breathe new life into your 68k system.  Download AmiKit or even AIAB, then analyse the startup-sequence of either package to see how all the patches work together with AfA-OS.  Actually, forget about AIAB - it's a mess!

If you are still encountering problems with AfA-OS, contact Bernd for advice - it is quite likely that he will help you resolve the issue, or possibly even implement a fix.

I hope this helps, cheers,
James
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[motorollin]

Thanks James for convincing me to try AfA-OS again. I got it working with some help in this thread, and the fonts look really great!

Thanks again

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moto