Author Topic: Help with ArcaOS font settings...  (Read 4494 times)

lss73912

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Help with ArcaOS font settings...
« on: October 07, 2018, 09:09:22 am »
Some problems I'm having with ArcaOS' font settings:

1. I've been playing around with this "drag-and-drop" font setting feature with Font Palette, but now I want to revert the changes and look for some ways to change fonts in a generic manner, and I'm not sure where to find the option to do so. The Font Palette feature seem to only apply to the object I've pointed the font setting at, causing inconsistencies (for example applying a font in the file manager will affect other file manager windows, but won't affect the directory tree window when I click on a hard drive).

I don't know how the "holding ALT for system default change" works as it doesn't make any difference even when I did. The Font Palette is only meant to theme a single window after all. I tried the Styler Preferences to change titlebar or dialog texts, but it appears setting fonts to a larger size would mess the dialog up. The text may get cropped, and not all elements are affected by the font change (some fonts remain unchanged even after applying the new font).

(PS: I'd like to screenshot it somehow, but I recall I've tried doing so before, and when I press Print Screen, the system complained about something regarding printer settings and refused to work, so I couldn't.)

2. I intend to make use of some Japanese apps and websites so I set the locale to Japanese during installation. I can confirm I can properly visit Japanese websites with Firefox, but the titlebar font and in some other places aren't working (It appears as underlines (_), and I did try the Times New Roman MT 30 font as instructed in some other posts, no difference). Also, the XCenter time widget is always 12h format (it's 24h in Locale Settings) and is showing two triangles (which should appear as the Japanese words meaning AM or PM), and it doesn't seem to honor System Clock or Locale Settings (the Japanese words themselves could be displayed properly in the Locale Settings dialog, though as a test, changing the hour format or the AM/PM words to English AM or PM won't affect XCenter widget at all). There are few places I could find to configure XCenter, though. Maybe I need to look at the config parameters since that's the only place I could find it configurable (and by default, it's without any parameters), but after browsing the Help index I couldn't find any place mentioning the XCenter Time widget.

3. The DPI setting in the Screen settings doesn't seem to have any effect at all. As my video card and monitor is capable of using 4K@60Hz with Panorama (and yeah, it works), I set the DPI to Large Fonts (120 DPI), but after restart, it didn't make any difference at all. I'm not sure about the reason... could that DPI settings are deprecated (no effect), or that the programs declare themselves DPI-aware (so the OS will not try to scale it)?

ivan

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Re: Help with ArcaOS font settings...
« Reply #1 on: October 07, 2018, 12:32:24 pm »
Regarding a screenshot utility go to hobbes and search for gotcha.  That utility allows selective screenshots, full screen,full windows or selected areas of windows.

For setting the default font the only utility I jnow of is setdf101 (available on hobbes) but it has a very limited set of fonts.  The other thing would be to use an ini editor to change the fonts that way (not recommended unless you are sure you know what you are doing).

The best person to tell you about Japanese is Alex Taylor.  He is also our font expert.

To see all the Japanese glifs you need the full utf8 font (search these forums for information on that Martin brought it up some time ago - https://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php/topic,1806.0.html).
« Last Edit: October 07, 2018, 12:34:27 pm by ivan »

xynixme

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Re: Help with ArcaOS font settings...
« Reply #2 on: October 07, 2018, 01:10:23 pm »
change titlebar or dialog texts, but it appears setting fonts to a larger size would mess the dialog up. The text may get cropped, and not all elements are affected by the font change (some fonts remain unchanged even after applying the new font).

I'd suggest to contact the author of the PM app. Any text-related element, per window, may have been intentionally designed with a specific text size, element size and/or text font in mind, and the OS won't solve all possible issues. If a small button is designed for a 12.Default "Ok", then the 2 dropped 10.Japanese or 18.Japanese characters "Oh-ka" may not fit.

The author may not be willing to help you, because it's possible that you are destroying the concept of a lovely small window by claiming that you are as blind as a bat and need a font size of at least 60. There is more to it than just not using "12.Default" as a property of displayed text.

lss73912

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Re: Help with ArcaOS font settings...
« Reply #3 on: October 07, 2018, 02:34:56 pm »
I'll look into the font in that thread there (for improving web browsing experience, just in case). However, I don't think it'll solve the XCenter time widget issue as it doesn't seem to honor any code page/time format settings, and I don't have problems with fonts in some dialogs including Locale Settings window to begin with.

Plus, I might consider looking for a way to revert the fonts I dragged and dropped previously, since it was not helpful.

I'd suggest to contact the author of the PM app. Any text-related element, per window, may have been intentionally designed with a specific text size, element size and/or text font in mind, and the OS won't solve all possible issues. If a small button is designed for a 12.Default "Ok", then the 2 dropped 10.Japanese or 18.Japanese characters "Oh-ka" may not fit.

The author may not be willing to help you, because it's possible that you are destroying the concept of a lovely small window by claiming that you are as blind as a bat and need a font size of at least 60. There is more to it than just not using "12.Default" as a property of displayed text.

So it seems the problem is within the UI element itself... (Example: Set the dialog font to 12. Times New Roman, from the default 9. WarpSans, in Styler settings, and try opening the change font dialog again)
That would be mostly program-specific (the code may not be able to correctly scale/adjust certain elements). Such issues can also happen in other operating systems (Windows, Linux, etc.). It seems it's better to find ways to mitigate the impacts...

PS, it's not that being "blind" or something :-) The problems are:
(1). My current display and video card is configured to 4K@60Hz (3840x2160) resolution. I might consider using 1920x1080 to evade the issue, but Panorama isn't giving me that option. Other than functional 4K, only some 4:3 resolution options are given.
(2). DPI settings is not working. Setting to Large Fonts (120DPI) has no effect.
« Last Edit: October 07, 2018, 02:45:26 pm by L.S.S. »

xynixme

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Re: Help with ArcaOS font settings...
« Reply #4 on: October 08, 2018, 10:44:48 am »
I shouldn't have any dragged & dropped fonts, but "HELP REXX SysIni" or e.g. the app Initor may be an "easy" way to uninstall (all) test fonts. Or restore the previous desktop...

(3840x2160) resolution. I might consider using 1920x1080 to evade the issue, but Panorama isn't giving me that option. Other than functional 4K, only some 4:3 resolution options are given.

Without wanting to promote any of the 4:3 settings, my maximum X is 1600 and my maximum Y is 1200. Sizes of e.g. button are in fixed units (so not 10% of the width of the screen), so excuse me for making some of the PM apps look like a broken pixel.

A version with a.o. larger buttons would come down to a second release for XXL resultions like yours, and installing a matching font could become an implied requirement. With my default font the maximum size is 14, IIRC; you may need 18+. AFAICT the problem of larger buttons would also apply to larger images ("tiles") somehow, and then authors will have to replace buttons by small and large images.

Apps which are designed for XXL resolutions may look ugly with 50% or less of your resolution. As if the rest of the world is as blind as a bat, or should upgrade their stamp-sized monitors. The problem is not that authors will still have 640x480 in mind, albeit it doesn't help that visual dialog editors and default system fonts may be as old as a maximum size of 1024x768.

So contacting (many) authors may not help, but one could be tempted to consider modernizing a design. Not as small as possible to reduce a footprint or to support small screens, but "clear". Unfortunately disadvantages are quite clear too, like an external font becoming an implied requirement on top of e.g. an OS/2 Warp 3 install. At the moment I'd consider a second XXL release (same code, but larger PM elements), but mainly just because it may be interesting to see what it looks like and what can be done with a "clear" touchscreen look, despite of the fact that I don't like "tiles" for theoretical touch screens and mobile devices.