NOTE: The program and fonts in this arc set were developed using version
1.2 beta 4. I don't know if these work under 1.1  I hope they work on other
systems such as the real 1.2 release.

The program contained herein permits the installation of a font to replace
the default 80 column topaz font. I wanted to see if I could improve the
quality of the Amiga color monitor's text output since everyone tells me
its the fact that a monochrome monitor can overlap pixels that makes it
look so much better. So I tried to create a font that does not have any
serifs (those little curly cues on the end of letters) and was as straight
as possible so the pixels would appear to overlap more. You can be the
judge as to whether I was successful. The fonts that are included were
built using the 1.2 fonteditor on the developers kit. You will notice that
the bold font (ericbd) has extra bold [], and (), which I like when editing
a program. It makes it much easier to see nested braces and parens. You may
also wish to play with different colors thru preferences.


Note that after running the program, only new windows and screens that call
for the topaz font will use the new font. Old windows will remain using the
original rom topaz font.


This arc file contains:

                test.c          |  source program to replace topaz.font
                test            |  executable of above

                ericbd.font     |  a sample font (bold)
                        8b      |  the font file for above
                eric.font       |  a skinny font
                        8       |  the font file for above
                install         |  a command file to install fonts

In order to use the fonts, they must be moved to the fonts: directory, and
create a subdirectory for each font file.

For example,

                copy ericbd.font   fonts:
                makedir            fonts:ericbd
                copy 8b            fonts:ericbd/8b

                copy erics.font    fonts:
                makedir            fonts:erics
                copy 8             fonts:erics/8

(these commands exist in a file called install in this arc)

The program test, will patch into memory a font you specify on the command
line:

                test    ericbd.font

will read in the font ericbd/8b and then UNLINK ALL fonts preceding the
newly installed ericbd/8b font. Actually, test should be run only just
after startup and before any other fonts are loaded, (or I can't say for
sure if it will work properly - look at the code to see how it forces
itself into the system font list). Once set, you lose a little memory and
cannot go back until you reboot. You can however, run the command again on
a  different font before rebooting. I made no effort to be sure this code
is bulletproof; I simply wanted to see how an alternate font would look. As
I think about it, you had better name your font with 5 or more letters or
the overwriting with topaz might corrupt something. I would like to see a
preferences option in the future to allow this font change.

Test.c is built using Manx with nothing special:

                cc test
                ln test.o -lc

Enjoy!