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                         ST FONT LOADER

                      Written by Alan Page

                from ANTIC -- The Atari Resource

             Copyright (1986) Antic Publishing, Inc.

             Not to be distributed by anyone without
                 written permission from Antic.

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                  WORKS WITH TOS IN ROM AND RAM

      This accessory loads either DEGAS fonts or XL/XE-type fonts
(as on the Maps and Legends disk). It works with TOS in ROM or
RAM, although with the original TOS in RAM you will have to
rename the file to DESKn.acc where n is the appropriate number (1
to 6). It also works in either color or monochrome.

                          INSTRUCTIONS

      When you select ST Font Loader from the menu bar, an alert
box appears with the copryight notice and two buttons: [ OK ] and
[ CANCEL ].  If you select [ CANCEL ], the alert disappears and
the fonts remain unchanged.  If you select [ OK ], the file
selector appears and you can choose the font to install from the
disk.  If you select [ CANCEL ] on the file selector, no changes
are made.

                    RESTORING THE SYSTEM FONT

      If you manually type in the filename SYSTEM.FNT, the
original system font will be restored.  It isn't necessary to
have an actual file named SYSTEM.FNT.  Simply type it in the file
selector and press return (or select  [ OK ]).  (You may also
want to put a dummy, empty file named SYSTEM.FNT on the disk
anyway, to remind you.)

       DEGAS FONTS AND XL FONTS ARE DETECTED AUTOMATICALLY

      When you have selected a font to load, the accessory checks
the file size. If it is at least 2050 bytes long, then it assumes
it is a DEGAS font. (It can be more that 2050 bytes to allow for
padding caused by xmodem transfer) If the file is less than 1024
bytes long, then it can't be a font file and an alert box warns
you of this. You also get alert boxes if there are disk errors.

                  SUBDIRECTORIES ARE SUPPORTED

      You may want to put all of your fonts in a subdirectory, or
in drive number two, or both.  In fact, if you simply copy
FONT.ACC out of this folder and into a root directory of your
boot disk, you can use the fonts on this disk the following way:

      1.  When the file selector box appears, click on the top
line or press the up-arrow.  Then press escape to clear the
line.
      2.  Type:  A:\FONTACC\*.FNT
               - or, if in drive B -
                 B:\FONTACC\*.FNT
      3.  Click on the grey horizontal bar to the right of the
close button to update the file selector.

ST Font Loader is smart enough to know where you keep your fonts,
but you have to tell it where they are once.

               ERROR CHECKING, OR... IS IT A FONT?

      There is no checking to see if the font data is valid
because there is no simple way to distinguish font files from
other files. You can type in or select any filename, and as long
as it is at least 1024 bytes long, the accessory accepts it.  If
it is not a font file, however, it will look like garbage.

                THE SYSTEM FONT IS ALWAYS AROUND

      There is an alert to tell you a new font has been
installed.  And when a new font is installed, characters will
still appear in the old font until the system redraws them.  Text
in the VT-52 desk accessory, file listings from the desktop and
text in FLASH's terminal screen remain unaffected because TOS
gets those characters from the original system font.