Groups | Search | Server Info | Keyboard shortcuts | Login | Register [http] [https] [nntp] [nntps]

Groups > comp.sys.acorn.programmer > #5431 > unrolled thread

System font editor?

Back to article view | Back to comp.sys.acorn.programmer

Contents

  System font editor? Jim Lesurf <jcgl@audiomisc.co.uk> - 2018-03-09 15:30 +0000
    Re: System font editor? Harriet Bazley <harriet@bazleyfamily.co.uk> - 2018-03-10 00:54 +0000
      Re: System font editor? Rick Murray <Rick@bogus.email.address> - 2018-03-10 17:32 +0100
        Re: System font editor? Harriet Bazley <harriet@bazleyfamily.co.uk> - 2018-03-10 22:52 +0000
        Re: System font editor? Jim Lesurf <jcgl@audiomisc.co.uk> - 2018-03-11 10:04 +0000
    Re: System font editor? svrsig <chris@svrsig.org> - 2018-03-12 04:54 -0700
      Re: System font editor? Jim Lesurf <jcgl@audiomisc.co.uk> - 2018-03-12 15:01 +0000
    Re: System font editor? druck <news@druck.org.uk> - 2018-03-12 19:54 +0000
      Re: System font editor? "John Williams (News)" <UCEbin@tiscali.co.uk> - 2018-03-12 20:03 +0000
        Re: System font editor? Jim Lesurf <jcgl@audiomisc.co.uk> - 2018-03-13 10:08 +0000
      Re: System font editor? Jim Lesurf <jcgl@audiomisc.co.uk> - 2018-03-13 10:04 +0000
        Re: System font editor? druck <news@druck.org.uk> - 2018-03-13 20:05 +0000
          Re: System font editor? Jim Lesurf <jcgl@audiomisc.co.uk> - 2018-03-14 10:26 +0000

#5431 — System font editor?

Is there still a system font editor program of some kind that I could use
on a modern RO machine (ARMX6) to alter the non-WIMP system font
characters?

Back in the dark days pre 1990-ish I wrote a diy 'printing' program to let
me include various maths and symbols into documents written using PipeDream
(or View!). I've long since changed to !TechWriter. But I have many old
'legacy' files that used the old method.

This used various tricks, but the one relevant here is that it redefined
the shapes for 'top bit set' system font characters to be things like
selected greek chars, special symbols like a 'z' with a 'hat' symbol, etc,
etc.

I've found an old *partial* example of the command program that loaded some
of the new definitions, but not all of them. This still actually works. So
I can now see some old files and things like integral signs show up. but
other chars aren't in this defining file so I need to add them.

Jim

-- 
Electronics  https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scots_Guide/intro/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio  http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
biog http://jcgl.orpheusweb.co.uk/history/ups_and_downs.html
Audio Misc  http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

[toc] | [next] | [standalone]

#5432

On 9 Mar 2018 as I do recall,
          Jim Lesurf  wrote:

> Is there still a system font editor program of some kind that I could use
> on a modern RO machine (ARMX6) to alter the non-WIMP system font
> characters?
>
http://www.tofla.iconbar.com/tofla/gen/bbcfont01/index.htm
http://www.tofla.iconbar.com/tofla/gen/bbcfont02/index.htm


-- 
Harriet Bazley                     ==  Loyaulte me lie ==

I despise the pleasure of pleasing people whom I despise.

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#5433

In article <2ee456d656.harriet@blueyonder.co.uk>,

> http://www.tofla.iconbar.com/tofla/gen/bbcfont01/index.htm
> http://www.tofla.iconbar.com/tofla/gen/bbcfont02/index.htm

I think Jim was looking for a ready-made program to do the job.

I'd say yes. There used to be loads of VDU font editors, mostly written in
BASIC. Unfortunately Arcade is not responding at the moment, else I'd have
a look.

-- 
  ___
 /__/ o __  /_
/ \  / /__ / \ (heyrick one nine seven three at yahoo dot co dot uk)

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#5434

On 10 Mar 2018 as I do recall,
          Rick Murray  wrote:

[snip]

> There used to be loads of VDU font editors, mostly written in
> BASIC. Unfortunately Arcade is not responding at the moment, else I'd have
> a look.
>
Ah, here's one on StarDot: http://mdfs.net/Apps/Font/

Oops, I just redefined the letter D in StrongED's display!   Fortunately it
has a 'Reset font' option....

-- 
Harriet Bazley                     ==  Loyaulte me lie ==

I'm all for computer dating.... But I wouldn't want one to marry my sister.

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#5435

In article <56d6acc0f2Rick@bogus.email.address>, Rick Murray
<Rick@bogus.email.address> wrote:

> I think Jim was looking for a ready-made program to do the job.

Yes. I need(ed) to view and be able to fiddle with the character shapes.

> I'd say yes. There used to be loads of VDU font editors, mostly written
> in BASIC. Unfortunately Arcade is not responding at the moment, else I'd
> have a look.

John W, kindly sent me a copy of !ChrEd (Darren Salt) and this has now done
the trick nicely! :-) My thanks to John and Darren. 

My old 'DreamPrint' program ran a series of setup files that changed the
alphabet to 'greek' and then changed a number of the character shapes to
give me a way to include integral signs, summation signs, odd glyphs that
aren't either English or Greek, the elements of matrix notation, etc, to
what I could write and print with PipeDream.

Problem was this was all based on ye olde machines and it is virtually
impossible to replicate the entire syste, now on a modern machine. And
although I'd written 'user notes' for myself I don't have any real details
of the ways it worked.

However by using the char editor I can now set up the same set of glyphs,
mapped as before. So can see the results when I load an old View/PipeDream
file into PipeDream. Next challenge is to see if I can print it! 8-] 

FWIW The reason for this is that I have been writing a 'working biography'.
The results thus far are linked from

http://jcgl.orpheusweb.co.uk/history/ups_and_downs.html

I'm now starting writing about the era from 1984 onwards when I got a BBC
B. Initially for instrument control and data logging/processing. But quite
sood for wordprocessing, and then the Master, etc, and writing/using
DreamPrinter. Thus the period where I have hundreds of old files as source
material which are in this format which I want to check as source material.

Later on, of course, I got !TechWriter and quickly adopted that as being
vastly better than my DIY approach. But DreamPrinter served me well for
some years. I wrote my first book using it. The snag being that reproducing
it now also requires accessing those old files.

I wrote my second book using !TechWriter, and that made it easy to produce
a 'Free' PDF version to put on the web a while ago. Like to do the same for
the first book sometime, but it will be more of a challenge!

Jim

-- 
Electronics  https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scots_Guide/intro/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio  http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
biog http://jcgl.orpheusweb.co.uk/history/ups_and_downs.html
Audio Misc  http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#5436

On Friday, March 9, 2018 at 3:30:31 PM UTC, Jim Lesurf wrote:
> Is there still a system font editor program of some kind that I could use
> on a modern RO machine (ARMX6) to alter the non-WIMP system font
> characters?

I used a different approach: I took the Windows Arial font and converted it to an Acorn font (also called Arial) using !effTTT and then edited a few glyphs (and the encoding data) to include eighths fractions and ″ and ′ symbols (for feet and inches) in a few of the top bit set characters were there were gaps.

> FWIW The reason for this is that I have been writing a 'working biography'

I also decided (at the end of December 2017) to write my autobiography and it is now 43871 words, 134 pages, all in Impression. Printed to PDF using MW's postscript printer drivers and produced as a printed draft using lulu.com.

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#5437

In article <047ad3f5-aa2f-415b-a385-3f807f02515e@googlegroups.com>, svrsig
<chris@svrsig.org> wrote:
> On Friday, March 9, 2018 at 3:30:31 PM UTC, Jim Lesurf wrote:
> > Is there still a system font editor program of some kind that I could
> > use on a modern RO machine (ARMX6) to alter the non-WIMP system font
> > characters?

> I used a different approach: I took the Windows Arial font and converted
> it to an Acorn font (also called Arial) using !effTTT and then edited a
> few glyphs (and the encoding data) to include eighths fractions and
> &Prime; and &prime; symbols (for feet and inches) in a few of the top
> bit set characters were there were gaps.

Alas, I had to create the things I needed back in the days when View or
PipeDream basically just used system (bitmap) fonts. BBC B, the Master era
I think was when I started this, but so long ago I've forgotten details.

I've now got !SPrinter working, though, thanks to a lot of help from
others. As  a result I can see (most of) the results I used to get. Example
of a couple of randomly chosen pages here

http://jcgl.orpheusweb.co.uk/temp/oldpdtest/Pages4and6.html

I needed to generate a way of being able to print things like integrals
with limits, matrixes, etc, as well as some special symbols like 'z' with a
'hat'. It didn't need to be perfect. Just readable as notes or for a
printer typesetting.

The challenge recently has been to be able to read the content now my old
printing program has long ceased to work.

JIm

-- 
Electronics  https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scots_Guide/intro/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio  http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
biog http://jcgl.orpheusweb.co.uk/history/ups_and_downs.html
Audio Misc  http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#5438

On 09/03/2018 15:30, Jim Lesurf wrote:
> Is there still a system font editor program of some kind that I could use
> on a modern RO machine (ARMX6) to alter the non-WIMP system font
> characters?

You hardly need one, just do the VDU23 from BASIC, where you can use % 
binary literals for the 8 rows, so you can see the bits.

---druck

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#5439

In article <p86lu7$mkq$1@dont-email.me>,
   druck <news@druck.org.uk> wrote:

> You hardly need one, just do the VDU23 from BASIC, where you can use % 
> binary literals for the 8 rows, so you can see the bits.

Gosh, Jim - I extended unnecessary effort as noted in previous postings!

John

-- 
John Williams, now back in the UK - no attachments to these addresses!
Non-RISC OS posters change user to johnrwilliams or put 'risc' in subject!
Who is John Williams? http://petit.four.free.fr/picindex/author/

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#5441

In article <56d7c7cfa3UCEbin@tiscali.co.uk>, John Williams (News)
<UCEbin@tiscali.co.uk> wrote:
> In article <p86lu7$mkq$1@dont-email.me>, druck <news@druck.org.uk> wrote:

> > You hardly need one, just do the VDU23 from BASIC, where you can use %
> > binary literals for the 8 rows, so you can see the bits.

> Gosh, Jim - I extended unnecessary effort as noted in previous postings!

The program you sent made the process vastly easier as I could see what was
going on and what I was doing as I experimented. It may also help with
another stage...

I also used a set of 'special' bitmap font chars' for the 'circuit symbols'
I invented to represent elements in quasi optical optical circuits. My next
challenge is to see if I can now replicate these. Doing the other graphics
is easier as I still have the sprites. (They go where a 'GR' appears in the
margin. That was the instruction to my 'DreamPrinter' program to poke in
the relevant image.)

Jim


Jim

-- 
Electronics  https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scots_Guide/intro/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio  http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
biog http://jcgl.orpheusweb.co.uk/history/ups_and_downs.html
Audio Misc  http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#5440

In article <p86lu7$mkq$1@dont-email.me>, druck <news@druck.org.uk> wrote:
> On 09/03/2018 15:30, Jim Lesurf wrote:
> > Is there still a system font editor program of some kind that I could
> > use on a modern RO machine (ARMX6) to alter the non-WIMP system font
> > characters?

> You hardly need one, just do the VDU23 from BASIC, where you can use %
> binary literals for the 8 rows, so you can see the bits.

Wonderful in theory. And was what I did many years ago. The snag was that I
needed to see the shapes to know what to replicate. Then work out by trial
and error what the 'binary literals' values would need to be. Having an
editor showed me what was going on.

Jim

-- 
Electronics  https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scots_Guide/intro/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio  http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
biog http://jcgl.orpheusweb.co.uk/history/ups_and_downs.html
Audio Misc  http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#5442

On 13/03/2018 10:04, Jim Lesurf wrote:
> In article <p86lu7$mkq$1@dont-email.me>, druck <news@druck.org.uk> wrote:
>> On 09/03/2018 15:30, Jim Lesurf wrote:
>>> Is there still a system font editor program of some kind that I could
>>> use on a modern RO machine (ARMX6) to alter the non-WIMP system font
>>> characters?
> 
>> You hardly need one, just do the VDU23 from BASIC, where you can use %
>> binary literals for the 8 rows, so you can see the bits.
> 
> Wonderful in theory. And was what I did many years ago. The snag was that I
> needed to see the shapes to know what to replicate. Then work out by trial
> and error what the 'binary literals' values would need to be. Having an
> editor showed me what was going on.

The binary is easy:-

%11111111
%10011001
%11111111
%11100111
%11111111
%10111101
%10000001
%11111111

Back on the Beeb, we'd have to visualise directly in hex 
&FF,&99,&FF,&E7,&FF,&BD,&81,&FF

---druck

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#5443

In article <p89atk$d0c$1@dont-email.me>, druck <news@druck.org.uk> wrote:

> Back on the Beeb, we'd have to visualise directly in hex
> &FF,&99,&FF,&E7,&FF,&BD,&81,&FF

Yes, that was the kind of thing I had to do decades ago. But I'm pleased to
report that easier ways have now been developed and made available. :-)

Jim

-- 
Electronics  https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scots_Guide/intro/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio  http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
biog http://jcgl.orpheusweb.co.uk/history/ups_and_downs.html
Audio Misc  http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

[toc] | [prev] | [standalone]

Back to top | Article view | comp.sys.acorn.programmer

csiph-web