feature request - font change capabilities

davidp · 11-17-2007, 10:38 PM

i know you can change the fonts externally using variables (like in Shock V5) , but i would like to be able to have a list of all the installed fonts, their size, and the style able to be shown within the skin so that i can make a label font, and list font change skin much like the color change i now have in my skin. if there is any way to do this already, please let me know, all my attempts so far have failed miserably

either way, thanks a lot for any help,
david

JohnWPB · 11-18-2007, 03:48 AM

Wow, that is a tall request. 90% of skins come with a predefined font, that works best with that skin. and what it was initially designed with.

As most people know, fonts differ dramatically as far as the width and look of a font. What may look totally correct with an intended skin, may not work correctly with another font.

Meaning, where the description of a button may say something as simple as: "Main Menu" may fit perfectly with the skins original design, does not mean that with a different font, will still fit within the confines of the font that was set.

Here is a good example of such a situation:

this is a test of a font size
this is a test of a font size

As you can see, the first line, may have been set to fit a certain space in a skin. The 2nd line will not fit in that same space.

ThunderStick · 11-18-2007, 06:03 AM

Currently I am experimenting with this idea. When I was creating the settings file that would control the fonts the same idea came to my mind. It wouldnt be too hard actually to make it so the fonts would change selectable from a settings menu, but there would have to be a setting for font name and size and the person changing the fonts would have to Adjust them as needed.
It really would be a pain for the user. As John said this is why most skins do not have font changers.

guino · 11-18-2007, 07:18 AM

The only way you'll be able to do it is to embed an app displaying the fonts and adjust your skin based on what is selected. This is way too specific to take place inside RR.

davidp · 11-18-2007, 05:15 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by guino

The only way you'll be able to do it is to embed an app displaying the fonts and adjust your skin based on what is selected. This is way too specific to take place inside RR.

thats what i thought, i have been trying with a dir list and setvarbycode, and a bunch of other things, and i havn't been able to get it to work.

anyone know of a program that would select the font (the name of it, not the filename) and size, that could be used to output the info to the skin (as variables)?

i know some fonts would look wierd, or not fit, but it would still be cool to have the functionality of it in my opinion.

thanks for the help.
david

Sonicxtacy02 · 11-18-2007, 06:48 PM

i was thinkin along the lines of an autoitscript coupled with a custom list ... autoitscript would do nothing but read all the files in the font folder to a text file, custom list displays the contents and allows you to set your $font$ variable. Only obstacle i see is not having a way of seeing what the font looks like in the custom list.

davidp · 11-18-2007, 07:29 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by Sonicxtacy02

i was thinkin along the lines of an autoitscript coupled with a custom list ... autoitscript would do nothing but read all the files in the font folder to a text file, custom list displays the contents and allows you to set your $font$ variable. Only obstacle i see is not having a way of seeing what the font looks like in the custom list.

that would be great, but i have no idea how to script

i hadn't thought of using a custom list to do it. to view the font you could put an application area in the screen, that when a font is selected, it launches the font viewer from windows for that font.i know you've got a lot to do (new skin looks great by the way), but is there any way you could write the script to make the list? if so i would be very greatful.

thanks
david

ThunderStick · 11-18-2007, 10:05 PM

The way I am trying to impliment is have a few fonts that I have tried out. Create batch files that when called from RR will execute a delete and copy command which will copy over my settings.txt file. There will be a series of this txt files each of them named for the font being used. Inside the text file will be a size for the font and the font name. Which will change all the fonts to the variable specified.

Code like below...

Example Menu line of code for a label
INC,settings.txt
L,407,356,150,33,255,255,255,#FONTSIZE1#,#Font1#," DATE","LEFT"

Example line of code in the DS-Digital.txt file
/DEFINE FONT1 "DS-Digital"
/Define FONTSIZE1 25

Example Batch File name DS-Digital.bat
DEL settings.txt
copy DS-Digital.txt settings.txt

Example Button Command
"RUNQ;$SKINPATH$DS-Digital.bat||WAIT;1||RELOADSKIN||Load;menu.skin"

I use similar coding for changing button commnands and menu displays in my current skin. It works very well, lot of files and maybe there is a more efficient way but this get the job done pretty well and it stays all behind the scenes. When you make the change the only thing you will notice is the fonts changing. It is actually pretty cool.

In the settings.txt file there will be a pre-defined font name and size, ones of which I have tested and know work. This limits the user for on the fly font changes but will ensure everything will work correctly and fit with in the parameters needed. For custom fonts of course the user can allways manually edit the settings.txt file and enter font names and sizes their self.

monkeyracer · 11-19-2007, 02:20 AM

as posted on davidp's thread for his skin:

Quote: Originally Posted by monkeyracer

I've been looking at this a little more, and I was able to dock the Font Window of notepad into RR. But still trying to get RR to read what it says inside that window. I've found some windows classes, but some of the boxes don't have names, so I don't know how we could get the info from that box.

Here's a screenshot of what I've got going:

The red highlighted box is the item in the list in winspector spy.

Edit:
maybe someone can take the info from this thread...

http://www.dreamincode.net/forums/showtopic23512.htm

...and create a simple program that might work for what we need... (Or maybe guino can implement something in the code that allows the label command "FONTNAME" to show the Name of the font, and then some way we could get this information to write to a file in a similar way that the background chooser works.)

I'm not good with programming, otherwise I could have made some kind of code for this by now.

I understand the whole thing about each font's character spacing and everything not showing correctly on all the buttons, but maybe we skinners control that by having the font changer only change fonts in controlled areas. Or have a preview of the effect on a test button, so that if it's too big for it, it's not recommended.

One other way to do this is to have a folder with the fonts that are "approved" for use in the skin saved as a picture. Then have a picture viewer like the background chooser. When the right font is selected, a WRITETOFILE command can be used. We would just need to make sure that the filename is saved as the exact name of the font. The only problem I had when I tried this was that it was saving the filename with the extension (example: BankGothic Md BT.jpg) so if there's a way to remove the last four characters of the variable, then it would work this way...

davidp · 11-20-2007, 08:33 PM

just an update, the font change feature now works, i have it working in my skin thanks to the help of a script by el camino, and using a custom list.

david

Sonicxtacy02 · 11-21-2007, 07:55 AM

glad i read the last post i was just gettin ready to create a script myself lol