GEM Font Editor Instructions Included in the ARC file - GEMFED.PRG Font editor program GEMFED.RSC Resource file for font editor program GEMFED.DOC This file of instructions NONSER24.FNT Sample font created with GEMFED NONSER48.FNT Another sample font for monochrome people What the program does - This program edits fonts that are recognized by the part of the GEM operating system called GDOS. GDOS was not included in the original ST TOS, but can be loaded in from a disk. Programs which have and use GDOS, such as EasyDraw and Degas Elite, can use GEM fonts. Degas does not use GDOS; fonts created with GEMFED cannot be used (use Tom Hudson's font editor supplied on the Degas disk). Additionally, if you are a programmer and have GDOS, you can create your own fonts and use them in your programs. You don't need GDOS to run GEMFED, but without it the fonts aren't very useful. Some of the nice features of GEM fonts are the abilities to create fonts of any size and proportionally spaced fonts. You can also create fonts of any number of characters from 1 to 256 - this is useful if memory is a concern. With GEMFED you can create fonts up to a size of 64 by 64. I've tested the fonts with Degas Elite, but you're on your own with any other programs. Use of the program - Loading a font. Selecting the "Load font" menu option brings up the standard file selection window. Be sure to select a GEM font or the program will surely freak out. Creating a new font. Selecting "New font" gives you an empty 8 by 8 font of the maximum 256 characters. Once a font has been loaded, or a new font created, two windows appear. The select window (titled "Select") is used to select characters and see how they look at normal scale. The edit window (titled with the character number and character currently being edited) is used to change the appearance of a character. You can move these windows around on the desktop. There are two ways to move a character to the edit window. You can click on the character in the Select window, or type the character at the keyboard. For characters without keyboard equivalents (character numbers higher than 127) you'll have to use the select window. Once the character you want is in the edit window, you can "paint" it using the mouse just as in most other graphic programs. The "paint" color is the opposite of the color under the mouse when you press the button, and remains the same until the button is released. There are also several commands to shift a character, and add and remove columns of pixels. The general scheme is: shift + button to shift; alt + button to add; and control + button to remove. All of these are done in the edit window. The complete list is: Shift + up scroll arrow Shift character up Shift + down scroll arrow Shift character down Shift + left scroll arrow Shift character to the left Shift + right scroll arrow Shift character to the right Alt + left scroll arrow Add one pixel column on left side Alt + right scroll arrow Add one pixel column on right side Control + left scroll arrow Remove one pixel column from the left side Control + right scroll arrow Remove one pixel column from the right side Alt + button in window Duplicate the column under the mouse and widen the character Control + button in window Remove the column under the mouse Most of these commands will work only when you can fit the entire character in the edit window (see the rescale command, below). Some of these commands are also available as menu items under the "Char" title. Also under "Char" are horizontal and vertical flips, erase, and toggle. You can copy one character to another by dragging it from the select window. Press the button on a character in the select window and wait for a rubberbox to appear around the character and the mouse to change to the flat hand. Drag the mouse with the rubberbox to the edit window, release the button, and the character will be copied. If you hold down the shift key as you release the mouse button, the two characters will be added together (logical "or"). Several operations under the menu title "Global" change the entire character set. You can remove a row of pixels from the top or bottom of each character. One of the more powerful features is the rescale command. Entering vertical and horizontal factors of 2, for example, will give a font twice as large both vertically and horizontally. Also under "Global" (because I couldn't think of any better place) are the "Display" and "Info" commands. Use the display command to scale the edit window. If possible, try to scale it so you can fit the entire character in the window. Many of the button shift commands will work only on a full window. The info command brings up a box showing information that is placed in the font file along with the actual character set. The ID number should be unique to the font (however you can give the same font scaled to different heights the same ID number). For Degas Elite fonts, be sure to use an ID number in the range of 50-99. The points is usually the vertical size of the font - don't change this unless you know what you're doing. The name can be anything descriptive. "Low" and "High" define the range of characters in the font. For Degas-converted fonts, these will be 0 and 127 - the normal ASCII range. "Ascent line", "Half line", "Baseline", and "Descent line" control the position of the guidelines in the edit window. The ascent line should be at the top of the capital letters, the baseline at the bottom of all character without descenders, the half line in between the ascent and baselines, and the descent line at the bottom of descenders (g,j,q, etc.). The Motorola/Intel box should always be set at Intel (unless you enjoy looking at scrambled characters). Well, that's about it. Play around with the included fonts to get some practice before starting on your own fonts. One useful technique to make symmetrical characters is to make one piece, copy it to a work area (e.g. the space character), flip it, and then shift-copy it back. Please contact me with any complaints, suggestions, etc. about GEMFED. Brad Christie 76167,1461 Disclaimers - GEM is a trademark of Digital Research, Inc. Degas and Degas Elite are trademarks of Batteries Included. GEMFED may be copied at will, but is not to be sold.