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From: hatcher@INGRES.BERKELEY.EDU.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Images & Icons (a modest proposal)
Message-ID: <8704182201.AA10079@ingres.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Sat, 18-Apr-87 17:01:43 EST
Article-I.D.: ingres.8704182201.AA10079
Posted: Sat Apr 18 17:01:43 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 19-Apr-87 07:40:33 EST
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
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In article <3200@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> spencer@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Randy Spencer) writes:
In article <8704140657.AA14434@ingres.Berkeley.EDU> hatcher@INGRES.BERKELEY.EDU (Doug Merritt) writes:
>>Along these same lines (as long as I'm on my soapbox), any program that allows
>>you to pick one of a number of fonts should ideally show the font itself in

>I looked that this idea and liked it at first.  Many menus have the option
>of bold in "bold", and the like for underline and italic.  But if you display
>every font the system can put in your document you have to *load* every font

Yes, that is a problem. But not insoluble. Certainly it's not a tough enough
problem to make my suggestion infeasible. Here are three possible solutions,
along with comments on them:
	A-Have a menu command to tell it to go look at all the fonts and load
	  a single example of each for the font menu. Problem: slow. Also
	  inconvenient.
	B-Have the program give examples of the fonts that it expects to
	  see, and then use solution (A) for any "nonstandard" fonts. Problem:
	  inflexible...one might totally replace all "standard" fonts, or
	  delete some. And still not as convenient as it should be.
	C-Run a "fontpicture" program on your fonts directory to create a
	  single file with an example of each font. This file would then be
	  used in the program's menu. Problems: this gets annoying if you
	  for some reason change the contents of fonts/ often. It also leaves
	  undefined the solution to the problem of non-CLI users coping with
	  this. In fact, ideally this "fontpicture" process should be automated
	  somehow so you don't have to screw with it. Solution: the word
	  processor/layout program could compare mod times of fonts/ and the
	  font.picture files and update it if necessary.

Any of the three solutions would be better than nothing, and I think (C)
is all around viable. I'm sure there are other potential solutions, too.
This is a case where I think it's clear that you shouldn't give up what
you want simply because there are a few implementation difficulties.
The Amiga could be *so* much more impressive than it is now with some carefully
done software. But getting from here to there will take both creativity
and determination. The real easy stuff has mostly been done already.

Doug Merritt,				ucbvax!ingres!hatcher
Lord, God, King Unix Hacker,		unisoft!certes!doug
Slayer of SIGSEGVs,			hoptoad!mentat!doug
Defender of Device Drivers,
Chamberlin of the Royal Socketeers.
[ Rogue Monster has threatened great bodily harm to me if I do not use the
above signature he created for me ("a little subdued, but distinctive.")
Send all flames to decwrl!mips!roger ]