Conference bulova::decw_jan-89_to_nov-90

    Here's a file that can be compiled with the command           
    $ FONT MYFONT.DECW$BDF
    
    --cut here--
STARTFONT 2.1
FONT -Sweeney-Myfont-Medium-R-Normal--12-120-75-75-P-74-Sweeney-FONTSPECIFIC
SIZE 12 75 75
FONTBOUNDINGBOX 14 16 -1 -4
STARTPROPERTIES 23
COMMENT Begin LogicalFontDescription
FONTNAME_REGISTRY ""
FAMILY_NAME "Myfont"
FOUNDRY "Sweeney"
WEIGHT_NAME "Medium"
SETWIDTH_NAME "Normal"
SLANT "R"
ADD_STYLE_NAME ""
PIXEL_SIZE 12
POINT_SIZE 120
RESOLUTION_X 75
RESOLUTION_Y 75
SPACING "P"
AVERAGE_WIDTH 74
CHARSET_REGISTRY "Sweeney"
CHARSET_ENCODING "FONTSPECIFIC"
COMMENT END LogicalFontDescription
CHARSET_COLLECTIONS "FONTSPECIFIC"
FONT_DESCENT 3
FONT_ASCENT 9
CAP_HEIGHT 9
X_HEIGHT 6
FULL_NAME "Myfont"
DEVICE_FONT_NAME "Myfont"
COPYRIGHT "Copyright (c) 1984 Adobe Systems, Inc., Portions Copyright 1988 Digital Equipment Corp."
COMMENT Not sure about the copyright, but just to be safe and not sorry
COMMENT ***** end of inserted font properties
ENDPROPERTIES
CHARS 2
STARTCHAR space
ENCODING 32
SWIDTH 250 0
DWIDTH 3 0
BBX 1 1 0 0
BITMAP
00
ENDCHAR
STARTCHAR bar
ENCODING 33
SWIDTH 333 0
DWIDTH 4 0
BBX 1 9 1 0
BITMAP
80
80
80
80
80
80
80
80
80
ENDCHAR
ENDFONT

    ---cut here--
    
    Copy the resulting MYFONT.DECW$FONT to SYS$COMMON:[SYSFONT.DECW.USER_75DPI]
    
    You must RESTART THE SERVER to recognize _any_ new fonts.
    
    I you don't believe me then try this out as
    DECW$USER_DEFAULTS:DECW$NOTEPAD.DAT (line > 80 chars follows)
    
    ---cut here---
    *DwtText.font: -Sweeney-Myfont-Medium-R-Normal--12-120-75-75-P-74-Sweeney-FONTSPECIFIC
    ---cut here---
    
    RESTART THE SERVER!!!
    
    Startup the notepad application and !!! become |||
    
    It's a working example but don't expect it to do much, or expect the
    values that I put into the font file to be blessed by anyone. 

    
    Pat's reply looks to be XLFD, a superset of BDF.
    
    The documentation is less than great, you can start by looking in the
    notesfile: HANNAH::FONT_ARCHITECTURE there is a reference in note 3
    to the BDF description and in one of the other early notes is a XLFD
    description.  The files that they reference are not on
    HUMAN::FONT_ARCH$:  they are in HANNAH::FONT$ARCH: (note the change in
    the logical name as well as the node).
    
    The MIT documentation makes me want to scream.  All I've found so far
    is Bitmap Distribution Format 2.1 (from the X Window System, Version 11
    Release 3 documentation).  This 4 page document is the readers digest
    condensed version, there is no expanded, understandable one that I can
    locate.
    
    In short it says:
    
    	A USASCII encoded, human readable file.  Characters 40-176 are
    	allowed plus CR and LF.  Record format is variable length records
    	with CR/LF or just LF termination.
    
    	1) STARTFONT followed by the version number which is 2.1
    	2) COMMENT these lines are ignored and can happen anywhere
    	3) FONT followed by the full name of the font, it can contain spaces
    	4) SIZE folloed by the POINT SIZE followed by the X resolution and
    	   then the Y resolution
    	5) FONTBOUNDINGBOX followed by the WIDTH IN X, HEIGHT IN X and the
    	   X and Y displacements from the lower corner to the origin of
    	   the characters.  These are in device units.
    	6) STARTPROPERTIES (this is optional) followed by the number of
    	   properties.
    	7) The properties:
    
    		FONT_ASCENT  which is the offset from the baseline to the
    			     top of the cell.
    		FONT_DESCENT which is the offset from the baseline to the
    			     bottom of the cell.
    		DEFAULT_CHAR the default character
    	8) If there were properties: ENDPROPERTY
    	9) CHARS followed by the number of characters in the font
       10) a variable number of character definitions:
    
    		STARTCHAR followed by the character name
    
    		ENCODING  followed by some bizzare encoding value that
    			  is usually the character number which actually
    			  says it's part of the standard Adobe encoding.
    
    		SWIDTH	  Scalable width, both X and Y.  Another wild value.
    			  Here's the definition:
    
    			  "Scalable widths are in units of 1/1000th of the
    			  size of the character.  If the size of the
    			  character is p points, the width information must
    			  be scaled by p/1000 to get the width in printer's
    			  points.  This width information should be
    			  considered as a vector indication the position
    			  of the next character's origin relative to the
    			  origin of this character.  To convert the
    			  scalable width to the width in device pixels,
    			  multiply the SWIDTH times p/1000 times r/72 where
    			  r is the device resolution in pixels per inch.
    			  The result is a real number giving the ideal
    			  print width in device pixels.  The actual device
    			  width must of course be an integral number of
    			  device pixels and is given in the next entry."
    			  Y is usually zero BTW
    
    		DWIDTH	  Device width for X and Y.  Y is always 0.
    
    		BBX	  Bounding Box.  4 values: Width, Height, X
    			  displacement, Y displacement.  The displacement
    			  defines the offset from the lower left to the
    			  origin of the character.
    
    		ATTRIBUTES   - This is explicitly undefined in the document
    
    		BITMAP	  No parameters on this line
    
    		Some number of HEX encoded data each line represents
    		a row in the character definition.  The data is BIG ENDIAN
    		and the RIGHT edge rounded if the width isn't a multiple
    		of 8 and padded with zero bits.
    
    		ENDCHAR
    
       11) ENDFONT
    

    I did everything I could to help make proper documentation
    of fonts happen in the ULTRIX DECwindows product, but no one
    had the time or resources.  So we did a 40 page Release Note,
    which was reduced to about 10 pages after a last minute
    insertion into the product software of files containing the
    font names.  Not very good for the customer or the DEC user, right?
    
    So I wrote a High Priority QAR against the (lack of) documentation
    and made sure it got stuck pretty high in someone's list of
    action items.  Bug reports are a last desperate resort, but
    I am a fairly desperate person at times.
    
    John

    
    How about putting the unabridged release note here?
    
    

    How about putting in a pointer instead?
    
    - ���

    XLFD = X Logical Font Description

    re .4
    
    Sorry, the only place I know of to get the Release Note is
    in the UWS V2.0 product documentation.  Generally, it
    contained information provided by Jim Flowers (Font Architecture
    office) and heavily augmented by Bob Barrie (VMS Servers)
    and ULTRIX-ized by me.  The information dealt largely with
    how to invoke fonts from .Xdefaults or application defaults
    files.  There wasn't much if any on the BDF format itself.
    
    That lack of comprehensive information and documentation
    effort was why I wrote the high priority QAR in the first place.
    
    Good luck,
    
    John