Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!hoptoad!tim
From: tim@hoptoad.uucp (Tim Maroney)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Font Menus
Message-ID: <7756@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: 23 Jun 89 16:50:17 GMT
References: <19728@cup.portal.com> <14032@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> <2452@internal.Apple.COM>
Reply-To: tim@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney)
Organization: Eclectic Software, San Francisco
Lines: 35

In article <14032@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> isle@eleazar.dartmouth.edu
(Ken Hancock) writes:
> Quick question, probably not so quick answer:
> How does one have a Font menu show the fonts in their
> own typeface?  Claris' MacWrite II does it without
> any noticable delay.  Suitcase II does it, but
> takes quite a long time to build it.

In article <2452@internal.Apple.COM> cep@apple.com (Christopher Pettus) writes:
>The problem is that this is very, very slow, since the font manager has to 
>suck in and handle each individual font; in a system with a large number 
>of fonts, this can take forever.  Therefore, it makes sense to build a 
>bitmap which contains the screen image for the menu, and just blit that 
>onto the screen when it's time to draw.  I assume that's what MacWrite II 
>does.

It's not so long since this was discussed here.  Claris software
actually builds the font menu image once and sticks it into a System
Folder file.  When the software runs again, it just checks the list of
fonts, and if it hasn't changed (which must be about 99% of the time)
it uses the stored image; otherwise, it makes a new one and stores
that.

Fortunately, it's nearly trivial to write a bitmap MDEF.  Even I have
been able to do it....

Nor should it be very hard to construct the image, though I haven't
done that.  Still, drawing into offscreen bitmaps is pretty easy if you
just follow the Tech Note (that, I have done).  And making the file in
the System Folder and storing the bitmap is a resource is trivial.
-- 
Tim Maroney, Mac Software Consultant, sun!hoptoad!tim, tim@toad.com
Postal: 424 Tehama, SF CA 94103; Phone: (415) 495-2934

A good flame strengthens its points; it does not stand in lieu of them.