Inside Macintosh: Mac OS 8 Toolbox Reference /

Chapter 4 - Dialog Manager Reference / Dialog Manager Resources

The Dialog Control Font Table Resource

NEW WITH THE APPEARANCE MANAGER

Your application can specify the initial font settings for all controls in a dialog box or alert box by creating a dialog control font table resource of type 'dftb' with the same resource ID as the item list resource ('DITL'). When an embedding hierarchy is established in a dialog box, the dialog control font table resource should be used instead of the item color table ('ictb') resource, since edit and static text dialog items become controls in an embedding hierarchy.

The control font style information in the dialog control font table resource is automatically read in (along with the 'DITL') by the Dialog Manager. When the 'dftb' resource is read in, the control font styles are set, and the resource is marked purgeable. Figure 4-4 shows the format of a compiled dialog control font table resource.

Figure 4-4 Structure of a compiled dialog control font table ('dftb') resource

A compiled version of a 'dftb' resource contains the following elements:

• Version number. An integer specifying the version of the format of the resource.
• Number of entries. An integer that specifies the number of entries in the resource. Each entry is a dialog control font structure.
• Dialog control font entries. A series of dialog control font structures, each of which consist of type, dialog font flags, the font ID, font size, font style, text mode, justification, text color, background color, and font name.

Figure 4-5 shows the format of a compiled dialog control font entry in a 'dftb' resource.

Figure 4-5 Structure of dialog control font entry in a 'dftb' resource

Each entry in a 'dftb' resource corresponds to a dialog item and contains the following elements:

• Type. An integer that specifies whether there is font information for the dialog or alert item in the 'DITL'. If you specify a value of 0, there is no font information for the item in the corresponding 'DITL', and no data follows. If you specify a value of 1, there is font information for the item, and the rest of the structure is read. You can cause entries to be skipped by setting this value to 0.
• Dialog font flags. You can use one or more of these flag constants to specify which other fields in the dialog font table should be used; see "Dialog Font Flag Constants".
• Font ID. If the kDialogFontUseFontMask bit is set to 1, then this element will contain an integer indicating the ID of the font family to use. See "Meta Font Constants" for more information about the constants that you can specify. If this bit is set to 0, then the system default font is used.
• Font size. If a constant representing the system font, small system font, or small emphasized system font is specified in the Font ID field, this field is ignored. If the kDialogFontUseSizeMask bit is set, this field should contain an integer representing the point size of the text. If the kDialogFontAddSizeMask bit is set, this value will contain the size to add to the current point size of the text.
• Style. If the kDialogFontUseFaceMask bit is set, then this element should contain an integer specifying the text style to describe which styles to apply to the text. You can use one or more of the following style data type mask constants to specify font style:

  	Bit value	Style
  	0x00	Normal
  	0x01	Bold
  	0x02	Italic
  	0x04	Underline
  	0x08	Outline
  	0x10	Shadow
  	0x20	Condense
  	0x40	Extend

• Text mode. If the kDialogFontUseModeMask bit is set, then this element should contain an integer specifying how characters are drawn. See Inside Macintosh: Imaging With QuickDraw for a discussion of source transfer modes.
• Justification. If the kDialogFontUseJustMask bit is set, then this element should contain an integer specifying text justification (left, right, centered, or system-justified).
• Text color. If the kDialogUseFontForeColorMask bit is set, then this element should contain a color to use when drawing the text.
• Background color. If the kDialogFontUseBackColorMask bit is set, then this element should contain a color to use when drawing the background behind the text. In certain text modes, background color is ignored.
• Font name. If the kDialogFontUseFontNameMask bit is set, then this element should contain a Pascal string representing the font name to be used. This overrides the font ID.

---

Subtopics

Dialog Font Flag Constants