Fonts, please please please

[Petrah]

Originally Posted by Terraan I'm using 21" Widescreen w/ 1440 x 900 -- 24 bit color. Not sure if it might be because of the widescreen, but I've just found that the fonts look tall and thin, and sometimes hard to read.

Havoxx is correct here. Flatpanel screens are supposed to use their native resolution. Anything other than that will reproduce icky results. I believe you should be at 1680x1050 for a 21 inch widescreen.

[Petrah]

Originally Posted by havoxx I think he's saying if he has to remove it in the future, to make a cleaner looking design.

Ahh.. that made more sense lol. Thanks

[Zyonin]

Originally Posted by spiel2001 I have no problem going with a clean and functional font that is not a Blizzard font. If anyone wants to research various fonts and find a handful that look really good, are clean and above all else are in the public domain, I would be willing to bundle them with nUI and make the changes required to implement them... but they *HAVE* to be public domain as I'm not going to infringe on anyone's copyright - ever.

I don't run nUI (I build my own UIs) and I have an old panel that maxes out at 1024x768. I ran into the Blizz font issue (aka Blizz fonts look like crap) so I went hunting for a good clean font. My choice for my overall system font?

Bitstream Vera Sans Bold

It is a part of the Bitstream Vera family. These fonts are not "public domain" but released under a very liberal license by the Gnome Foundation and Bitstream. This license allows for full redistribution (as long as you don't sell the fonts themselves) as well as derivative works. http://www.gnome.org/fonts/

[Xrystal]

Originally Posted by Hambil Well, as far as solutions go, the problem may be in the fonts itself. Here is a screen shot of an icehud/kgpanels ui I built which uses some very small fonts but they are quite readable. It uses tekticles. The Blizz built in fonts are not very good.

That was one of the reasons I was asking about perhaps implementing an option to use SharedMedia fonts and have it dynamically change the nUI_L Font values. That way nUI isn't depending on a third party module to work but those that want the extra fonts need only get access to SharedMedia from things like Healbot and such like that come bundled with it.

[Hambil]

Originally Posted by spiel2001 By all means... post away. Better to do it here in the public forum where folks can read over our shoulders.

1. I used CalibriBold for both fonts.

PHP Code:

nUI_L["font1"] = "Interface\\AddOns\\nUI\\Layouts\\Default\\Fonts\\CalibriBold.ttf";
nUI_L["font2"] = "Interface\\AddOns\\nUI\\Layouts\\Default\\Fonts\\CalibriBold.ttf"; 


2. I changed all the font strings in nUI.xml (they might just be placeholders, not sure, but changed their font and removed shadow anyway).
3. Modified the info panel in nUI_Layout_Default_Dashboard.lua to increase font sizes slightly (since sizes vary by font and the new font was a bit smaller).
4. Modified HUDLayoutSelector function and the nUI_DefaultConfig.AddOns["nUI_SysInfo"] table in nUI_Layout_Default_Console.lua to increase the button and font sizes slightly.

[spiel2001]

Originally Posted by Xrystal That was one of the reasons I was asking about perhaps implementing an option to use SharedMedia fonts and have it dynamically change the nUI_L Font values. That way nUI isn't depending on a third party module to work but those that want the extra fonts need only get access to SharedMedia from things like Healbot and such like that come bundled with it.

Generally I would agree except that fonts are so fundamental to the UI that support for them really should be integral with it and not dependent on the 3rd party mod/library (in keeping with nUI's design philosophy)

[Terraan]

Originally Posted by spiel2001 o.O Ummm.... how can nUI not handle the fonts in the elements it displays? As for the chat font... have you tried using the chat settings to change the font size?

Yeah I manually changed them, but when I log out and log back in it changes it again.

I go into the settings, change them to 12, works fine, I reload ui for some reason or swap characters, and when nUI reloads, my chat is back to smaller font. It's not like a make or break type thing, just gets seems weird that it does it.

Also, is there a way to make the chat box at the top, move to the bottom of the chat window? I popped in CT_MOD which has a checkbox for "move chat input to top of window" I check it, and uncheck it. Then chat input us on bottom. Reload UI and bingo....back to the top. (If needed I can put this in a separate post since this is actually a font question)

[spiel2001]

There's no option to put the chat edit box at the bottom... the problem is the chat edit box *overlays* the chat frame, not sits above or below it. If you put the chat box at the bottom *and* you overlay the chat frame, then the chat edit box is on top of the last line in the chat frame and you can't click links and such. Putting the chat edit box at the top of the frame means it is always covering the oldest text in the chat and it never is in the way of new text.

[Terraan]

Originally Posted by Silenia Havoxx is correct here. Flatpanel screens are supposed to use their native resolution. Anything other than that will reproduce icky results. I believe you should be at 1680x1050 for a 21 inch widescreen.

I'll look into it, it could possibly be my monitor/resolution, but my monitor is a DELL monitor and it says "optimum 1440 x 900" and windows looks great, so if the game needs to be something other than 1440 x 900 (wide) I'm game to test it.

EDIT: Well I found out because my Monitor only supports this, I can't go any higher than 1440 x 900...

Also, a good font is Calibri -- that is what is on my Recount in this picture. I have found that ClearFont2 does not change any of the fonts on nUI only other off AddOns like Recount, Omen, etc.

[Terraan]

Originally Posted by spiel2001 There's no option to put the chat edit box at the bottom... the problem is the chat edit box *overlays* the chat frame, not sits above or below it. If you put the chat box at the bottom *and* you overlay the chat frame, then the chat edit box is on top of the last line in the chat frame and you can't click links and such. Putting the chat edit box at the top of the frame means it is always covering the oldest text in the chat and it never is in the way of new text.

Yeah the one time I did get it to go to the bottom of the chat box, I resized the chat window and moved it up a bit, but it never seemed to stay so I said oh well, I'll learn to live with it. =) 2-3 minor things don't over weigh the usefulness of everything else.

[spiel2001]

Originally Posted by Terraan Yeah the one time I did get it to go to the bottom of the chat box, I resized the chat window and moved it up a bit, but it never seemed to stay so I said oh well, I'll learn to live with it. =) 2-3 minor things don't over weigh the usefulness of everything else.

I would actually argue that the chat edit box being at the top is more useful than being at the bottom ~grin~ You just gotta get used to it being there is all.

But thank you for the kind word and do know that I have lots of major enhancements planned for the chat function once I get the rest of the basics out of the way.

[Petrah]

Originally Posted by Terraan I'll look into it, it could possibly be my monitor/resolution, but my monitor is a DELL monitor and it says "optimum 1440 x 900" and windows looks great, so if the game needs to be something other than 1440 x 900 (wide) I'm game to test it. EDIT: Well I found out because my Monitor only supports this, I can't go any higher than 1440 x 900... Also, a good font is Calibri -- that is what is on my Recount in this picture. I have found that ClearFont2 does not change any of the fonts on nUI only other off AddOns like Recount, Omen, etc.

Do you have the drivers for your monitor installed?

[Terraan]

Originally Posted by Silenia Do you have the drivers for your monitor installed?

Yup, and I checked in game and 1440 x 900 is all I can go to also. I am using DVI connection to DVI connection so it's the digital.

I found out with my fonts, the chat box saves what I change to Size: 12 -- but when I type in, it's still itty bitty.

[havoxx]

Originally Posted by Terraan Yup, and I checked in game and 1440 x 900 is all I can go to also. I am using DVI connection to DVI connection so it's the digital. I found out with my fonts, the chat box saves what I change to Size: 12 -- but when I type in, it's still itty bitty.

Hmm, so it's a 19 , not a 21, resolution is fine then, you might want to try changing the entire wow font as that's what I did, check out my screenshot, same resolution, but I'm using Segoe UI for everything.

A basic outline of how to change the fonts in WoW. Read up on the ClearFont2 links for more details. 1. Make a folder called Fonts 2. Put folder in the following directory structure: C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\Fonts\ 3. Find font(s) you want. 4. Change font name(s): Find four different fonts, or create four copies of the font file of your choice, place them in the above folder, and rename them to the following names: ● FRIZQT__.ttf (the main UI font: NPCs names; buffs, etc) ● ARIALN.ttf (the normal number font) ● skurri.ttf (the 'huge' number font) ● MORPHEUS.ttf (Mail, Quest Log font) 5. Put those renamed fonts in the Fonts folder 6. Log in. Enjoy. Note: .TTC fonts will not work with WoW. They need to be converted into .TTF fonts for them to be recognized and read by WoW.

Taken from http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...02350234&sid=1 That's the guide I used, and it works great, I used Segoe UI for everything, so just copied and pasted 4 times and renamed them all, the capitalization matters.

[Petrah]

Originally Posted by havoxx Hmm, so it's a 19 , not a 21]

Actually Id be willing to bet that he does indeed have a 21 inch monitor. I found some 21 inch monitors yesterday on the Dell site that only support the rez he is using.

[Vis]

Originally Posted by Silenia Actually Id be willing to bet that he does indeed have a 21 inch monitor. I found some 21 inch monitors yesterday on the Dell site that only support the rez he is using.

Havoxx is right, it's a 19". In one of the screenshots he shows the Display Properties box listing a Dell E198WFP. His font fix may do the trick for it then.

When i had my 19" fullscreen, I had to adjust the fonts for visibility also, not as much adjustment needed now that I'm on a 22". Of course, I'm also blind as a bat, lol.

[spiel2001]

Pft... I'm 51 and play on a 17" and have no problem with the fonts... you kids are all blind.

~grin~

[Vis]

Originally Posted by spiel2001 Pft... I'm 51 and play on a 17" and have no problem with the fonts... you kids are all blind. ~grin~

hehe, how close are you to the screen?



*Im glad for all the lens inovations they've had in the past 10 ish years or so or I would have Coke bottle glasses, lol

[spiel2001]

About 2 1/2 feet to 3 feet on average.... monitor's at the back corner of my desk in my office and I sit leaned back in a high-back office chair most of the time... leaning forward if I'm stomping horde in BG ~grin~