home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Turnbull China Bikeride
/
Turnbull China Bikeride - Disc 2.iso
/
STUTTGART
/
EDITORS
/
ZAP130
/
!Zap
/
Fonts
/
bdfHelp
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1995-05-14
|
4KB
|
93 lines
bdf->Zap 0.10 help file
© Martin Ebourne, 1995
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
This software is COPYRIGHT, but has been released as FREEWARE. Please see the
end of this file for conditions of use and distribution.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Introduction
============
Now Zap supports bitmap fonts nicely it would be great if we had some more of
them. Unix has huge numbers of bitmap fonts, as it does most other things.
Wouldn't it be great to use those in Zap...
Quick guide
===== =====
(i) Find a Unix BDF file
(ii) Run it through bdf->Zap with the command line:
bdf->Zap <source-BDF-file> <destination-Zap-file>
(iii) Put the resulting file into the appropriate directory in !Zap.Fonts
Explanation
===========
BDF is the Bitmap Distribution Format and is the standard way X Windows
bitmap fonts are distributed on Unix. It is a textual format, the specs for
which can be found in the docs directory of the X11 distribution. There are
large numbers of these BDF format fonts available and a few of the standard
X11R6 fonts are provided already converted with Zap. The only thing to watch
when distributing them, of course, is the copyright contained within them.
The copyrights for the fonts coming with Zap are reproduced in the Copyrights
file in the !Zap.Fonts directory.
bdf->Zap is not a complete implementation of the spec by quite a long way.
There is a considerable amount of information in the files which is of no
relevance to Zap anyway. In fact, it is pretty much a base implementation of
version 2.1, although it does support a few of the extensions.
Notable omissions are that it goes purely by character code, not by the
encoding name - this should be okay if the font is ASCII. It also ignores the
default char, instead defaulting to blank. Lastly, it is very strict about
the character bounding boxes being correct.
If you find a font which it will not convert then firstly try and see if
you can see anything wrong with it (you'll need the spec for this), and if so
patch it up. (I had to fix the bounding boxes on two of the fonts present
here.) If you can't do this then send it to me and I'll see if I can fix it,
or if relevant, add the appropriate missing feature into bdf->Zap.
One useful point is that since Unix generally follows the ISO Latin 1
character set, as does RISC OS, all the top bit set characters are usually
correct - assuming they are present in the first place.
Copyright
=========
The conditions of copying this program and its associated documentation are
the same as those of the main Zap application, except you do not need my
permission to copy it if you have Dominic's.
This software is provided as is with no warranty as to its suitability or
otherwise for any particular task. If it does anything nasty then I want to
know so I can fix it, but I'm not taking any responsibility. (Besides,
there's no point in sueing me since I've got no money.)
Contacting
==========
I can be contacted through email to mje@soton.ac.uk until the end of June
'95. After that send it to martin@compton.demon.co.uk. This will
automatically forward it to my new (as yet unknown) address, although it may
take a day or two longer. Alternatively, snail to:
Martin Ebourne,
1 Malvern Road
Acocks Green
Birmingham
B27 6EG
I can also be contacted on Arcade, though only through private messages since
I hardly ever read the public ones. (It's bad enough trying to keep up with
Usenet/NetNews, and that's free!) A much faster response by modem can be
obtained by calling Challenger on 021 445 3913 [user #3]. 24hr; V21, V22,
V22bis, V23, V32, V32bis, with MNP1-5, V42 or V42bis; 7E1. Oh, and it's
Viewdata. :-)