font2font - a better pfontview?
Posted: Fri 26 Jun 2020, 02:42
In one of my recent comments on pfontview, Puppy's standard font viewer, I argued that this tool needs not only a fix but a rewrite.
I tried that, and the result is IMHO opinion more useful, but finally that's not for me to decide, so I'll better add a questionmark to my claim. I decided to do a complete rewrite because I wanted more functionality with less code and less files. Since I didn't use a single line of the original code I also had to come up with a new name.
What's different in font2font
⚫ Apart from TTF and OTF files, full support for TTC and PFB files
⚫ The selected font is always compared to a second font. I find it hard to judge a font by staring at the glyphs. Often only when I compare the font to a similar font I can see differences. And even when the glyphs look almost identical, the width very often is not.
⚫ No more jumping foxes. The preview text is customizable, can be changed on-the-fly and of course can be saved. This also eliminates the need for an extra preview entry field.
⚫ Preview size can also be changed on-the-fly (up to size 200)
⚫ No "style" display for the selected font. I've come to the conclusion that the "style" element is almost useless. It's just a more or less fancy name like the font name and may or may not reflect the characteristics of a font. It's all up to the font author to name the style. Interestingly the GTK font button for the comparison font returns a style calculated based on the font metrics, ignoring whatever name was selected in the dialog. E.g. in my font "Jedi" the style is named "Normal", but the GTK button returns "Jedi Bold Semi-Expanded" because weight is 200 and width is 113. This label would be added to the darkred name of the comparison font while "Jedi Normal" would be the label for the font button. Utterly confusing. That's why I let the font button only show the font name but not the style.
⚫ An additional Info diplay shows font properties and metrics. Here the user can see the "style" name(s) and more important information like weight or width.
⚫ The Save button will, among other things (see tooltip), save window position, not just window size.
⚫ font2font uses much less files (3 files vs. 18 files for pfontview, not including the obsolete sfontview).
⚫ Can be called without an argument (sometimes useful for testing)
What's the same
⚫ Ability to preview uninstalled fonts (by temporarily installing font for the duration of preview). Hmm, this sentence makes no sense but I hope you get the idea anyway.
⚫ Installation. There is none. Just copy script to /usr/bin, make executable if needed and associate TTF,TTC, OTC, PFB files in ROX-Filer by right-clicking such file, select "Set Run Action" and edit the command. Alternatively create a desktop icon and drag font files onto it.
I tried that, and the result is IMHO opinion more useful, but finally that's not for me to decide, so I'll better add a questionmark to my claim. I decided to do a complete rewrite because I wanted more functionality with less code and less files. Since I didn't use a single line of the original code I also had to come up with a new name.
What's different in font2font
⚫ Apart from TTF and OTF files, full support for TTC and PFB files
⚫ The selected font is always compared to a second font. I find it hard to judge a font by staring at the glyphs. Often only when I compare the font to a similar font I can see differences. And even when the glyphs look almost identical, the width very often is not.
⚫ No more jumping foxes. The preview text is customizable, can be changed on-the-fly and of course can be saved. This also eliminates the need for an extra preview entry field.
⚫ Preview size can also be changed on-the-fly (up to size 200)
⚫ No "style" display for the selected font. I've come to the conclusion that the "style" element is almost useless. It's just a more or less fancy name like the font name and may or may not reflect the characteristics of a font. It's all up to the font author to name the style. Interestingly the GTK font button for the comparison font returns a style calculated based on the font metrics, ignoring whatever name was selected in the dialog. E.g. in my font "Jedi" the style is named "Normal", but the GTK button returns "Jedi Bold Semi-Expanded" because weight is 200 and width is 113. This label would be added to the darkred name of the comparison font while "Jedi Normal" would be the label for the font button. Utterly confusing. That's why I let the font button only show the font name but not the style.
⚫ An additional Info diplay shows font properties and metrics. Here the user can see the "style" name(s) and more important information like weight or width.
⚫ The Save button will, among other things (see tooltip), save window position, not just window size.
⚫ font2font uses much less files (3 files vs. 18 files for pfontview, not including the obsolete sfontview).
⚫ Can be called without an argument (sometimes useful for testing)
What's the same
⚫ Ability to preview uninstalled fonts (by temporarily installing font for the duration of preview). Hmm, this sentence makes no sense but I hope you get the idea anyway.
⚫ Installation. There is none. Just copy script to /usr/bin, make executable if needed and associate TTF,TTC, OTC, PFB files in ROX-Filer by right-clicking such file, select "Set Run Action" and edit the command. Alternatively create a desktop icon and drag font files onto it.