Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!think!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!CORY.BERKELEY.EDU!dillon
From: dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Fonts on the Amiga
Message-ID: <8803280907.AA01876@cory.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 28 Mar 88 09:07:45 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Lines: 21

:>Yes, this would require keeping around more information per character
:>than now, [...]
:
:Well, no, no extra information.  If you know from the font how wide
:the character was when writing it going to the right, then you can
:look at the same information to figure out how big a blank space to

	Theoretically, yes, but compared to what you were doing before
	it's an expensive operation to do a dynamically sized bit-by-bit 
	(optimized to a byte-by-byte) compare.  It makes more sense 
	to have some notion of the characters which have already been 
	output on the line, which requires saving a bit more information
	in some cases.

	You wouldn't have to save much more for, say, an editor.  But think
	of the cost of a cursor up?   Since you are probably not on the
	same column if using a proportional font, you need to scan the
	previous line and sum the widths of each character to determine
	where the cursor sits.

					-Matt