| Coyote Library Update [message #84499] |
Wed, 22 May 2013 07:25 |
David Fanning
Messages: 11724
Registered: August 2001
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Senior Member |
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Folks,
There has been a major update of the Coyote Library today concerning an
issue with True-Type fonts that came up yesterday. The key to the
success of Coyote Graphics is the ability to create extremely high-
quality raster and PostScript output in a device independent way. To
this end, it is necessary to be able to use True-Type fonts in a natural
way.
Unfortunately, this is MUCH harder to do than you probably imagine. :-)
The basic problem is that the way you set True-Type fonts:
Device, Set_Font=myttfontname, /TT_Font
does not set the font for all devices. If you issue this command from
the IDL command line, the font used in the PostScript device is
unaffected, and visa versa
But, if you issue this command in the PostScript device, this property
of the PostScript device is "sticky". That is to say, it will stay set
until it is changed. This makes it extremely difficult to "change it
temporarily" for a single plot, etc.
The end result, typically, is that it is impossible to "sync" the
various devices and know what in the world you are going to end up with
until you actually produce the output. Not good. :-)
I am making an attempt to bring clarity to the situation (at least for
Coyote Library routines) by introducing a new program, cgSet_TTFont,
that can be used to manage True-Type font output in a way that makes it
possible to remain reasonably sane.
http://www.idlcoyote.com/idldoc/cg/cgset_ttfont.html
In order to accomplish this, I had to modify many of my PostScript
handling routines to have a "memory" of how the PostScript device should
be configured. This allows me to temporarily change the configuration
for a particular plot that requires something different, without
affecting the "global" setting that is now set with cgSet_TTFont.
I encourage everyone to update your Coyote Library today. Most users
will be unaffected by the changes (Helvetica rules!!), but it is always
a good idea to be up-to-date. ;-)
http://www.idlcoyote.com/programs/zip_files/coyoteprograms.z ip
Cheers,
David
P.S. I also made a cosmetic change to the cgWindow code. In the Save As
button there is now a single menu for Raster File Output. If you have
ImageMagick installed you will get extremely high-resolution output. If
you don't, well, good luck to you. ;-)
--
David Fanning, Ph.D.
Fanning Software Consulting, Inc.
Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming: http://www.idlcoyote.com/
Sepore ma de ni thue. ("Perhaps thou speakest truth.")
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