Use Windows' default font

bvanoudtshoorn · December 02, 2008, 23:04:12

The font choice in the program is a little bit, well, erratic. In places it's MS Shell Dlg, in others it's the font specified in the theme. It'd be nice if the theme font was used throughout the app, because a) it'd make OpenMPT more visually consistent, both internally and across the system, and b) it'd allow people to use non-bitmapped fonts, and thus antialiasing and subpixel hinting.

I'm not really concerned about the pattern editor in this context; I know that that is literally a couple of bitmaps. Just the rest of the interface's fonts.

LPChip · December 03, 2008, 07:02:01

Can you be a bit more specific about what font is used where?

I have a bit of trouble thinking what font is different.

bvanoudtshoorn · December 03, 2008, 07:04:11

Look at the difference between the menus and, say, the font in the instrument name input.

bvanoudtshoorn · December 03, 2008, 09:50:57

OK, screenshots.

And at 300% (uninterpolated) zoom, you can see how the font used in the orderlist is nicely antialiased with subpixel hinting, whereas the font used in various other places in the system isn't.

Saga Musix · January 19, 2009, 18:38:02

I have replaced any occurrences of "MS Shell Dlg" by "MS Sans Serif" which is used everywhere else. Can you confirm that this looks as desired? It is well possible that I have to do it the other way around, since I read on the web that "MS Shell Dlg" seems to replace the font with the system's standard font.
(removed files)

bvanoudtshoorn · January 27, 2009, 09:00:30

Thanks Jojo! Sorry I took so long to get back to you on this...

The second one (MS Shell Dlg) looks as though it's been replaced, not with the system's standard font (which on my theme is Corbel, which incidentally is a very pretty font, particularly under FreeType/GTK), but at least with an antialiased font.

bvanoudtshoorn · January 27, 2009, 09:15:56

More digging. It looks as though the registry key HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\FontSubstitutes defines... font substitutions! Like MS Shell Dlg, on my machine, is replaced by Microsoft Sans Serif, and MS Shell Dlg 2 is replaced by Tahoma. Weird that it's in HKLM, not HKCU. :/

Couldn't resist blogging this oddity, either.

Saga Musix · January 27, 2009, 13:24:09

Well, then your theme probably doesn't set the fonts that have to be replaced correctly?

Are you willing to test a few more default fonts to check if they break the program's layout?

bvanoudtshoorn · January 27, 2009, 23:03:57

If I get a chance... I haven't got much time at the moment. After all, I'm getting married on Saturday.

psishock · January 27, 2009, 23:19:31

omg, best luck Barry, be good and send us some pictures will you? (not those dirty ones =)

LPChip · January 28, 2009, 06:34:57

Quote from: "bvanoudtshoorn"If I get a chance... I haven't got much time at the moment. After all, I'm getting married on Saturday.

In order to avoid an offtopic conversation, I've started a new one

http://forum.openmpt.org/index.php?msg=22217.0#msg22217

Saga Musix · January 28, 2009, 09:17:00

Relabs and me found out that there's a problem with changing the font to "MS Shell Dlg". It throws an access violation into the debug log which doesn't hapen with "MS Sans Serif". Hmm, strange enough, but we won't change the font then.

Saga Musix · January 25, 2010, 22:28:22

MS Shell Dlg is now used; Please confirm that this has been added as wished in OpenMPT 1.18 release candidate. You can set the thread status to S=C yourself then.

bvanoudtshoorn · January 26, 2010, 09:14:11

Awesomesauce. Thanks Jojo.