ABU 16-Jul-2017
extrafont is a multi-platform binary package providing a way for loading "private fonts" in a Tk apps.
"Private fonts" are fonts usually delivered with an app.
They don't need to be installed in some 'standard' system-wide directories; once these fonts are loaded, they can be used in the same way of pre-installed fonts.
These loaded fonts are only visible by the process (app) who loaded'em, and then disappear when the app terminates.
Download
- [L1 ] extrafont-1.0 Multi-platform package (Windows/Linux/MacOSX)
- [L2 ] extrafont Development-Kit. For developers/maintainers.
SYNOPSYS
The extrafont package provides one core command
extrafont::load
and two convenience commands
extrafont::isAvailable extrafont::availableFamilies
- extrafont::load filename
- After loading filename, a new font-family will be available to the current Tk app.
- extrafont::isAvailable fontFamily
- Return true is fontFamily is avaiable.
- extrafont::availableFamilies fontFamilyPattern
- Return the list of font-families matching the glob-style fontFamilyPattern.
e.g.
extrafont::availableFamilies co*
returns
Courier {Comic Sans MS} .....
One important distinction to keep in mind is among
- font-filename
- font-family
- fontname
Font-filename is used just for loading an external font:
extrafont::load "c:/tmp/Monoton-regular.ttf"
This font will be then available as "Monoton" font-family (note that the family-name may be very different from the font-filename).
extrafont::isAvailable "Monoton" ;# true
Finally, when you want to use this new font, you should create or configure a fontname (using the standard 'font' command)
set myfontname "tk_monoton" ;# ... choose the name you want .. font create $myfontname -family "monoton" -size 20 # or, let tk choose a fontname for you ... set myfontname [font create -family "monoton" -size 20] # then use $myfontname for a new widget ... label .mylabel -font $myfontname .......
MG This is awesome! I have a couple of suggestions/observations, though:
- It would be super handy if extrafont::load returned the font family, so you could do
font create myNewFont -family [extrafont::load $file]
- In your pkgIndex.tcl, I think you're better off using info sharedlibextension rather than trying to guess it by platform
- On Windows, I think it's better to check if $tcl_platform(machine) == amd64 to determine if it's 64bit rather than 32. (IIRC, I stole that from the source for the platform::generic command when I needed to do something similar before)
- In your availableFamilies command, I'd suggest replacing the foreach with an lsearch, which I think should be slightly faster/more efficient
lsearch -all -inline -glob -nocase [font families] $familyPattern
This is a really neat functionality to add, thank you. :)
APN I second that.
ABU - Extracting the font-family from a font-file, or better, as suggested by MG, let extrafont::load return the loaded font-family, is a very difficult task.
Windows/Linux/Mac have three very different font-management APIs, and as far as I googled I never found any hint about how to solve it.
Expert help is welcomed !