Support multiple fonts

[dorkster]

font_normal is the default font is required and used when no other font is defined. The font name is the last parameter for font/label functions. So it's like this:

label->set("Fancy text", "font_fancy");

Note that font sizes defined in languages.txt are now scale, and not point size. For example, say a font has a point size of 10. But for a language's font, that's to small. We could then set the scale to something like 1.4 to make the font 14pt.

[makrohn]

So what is the suggested implementation for this? Is this usable just in menus (for example, it would definitely be handy to make this actual text: https://github.com/pennomi/polymorphable/blob/master/mods/core/images/menus/powers_tree.png), or in tooltips and NPC dialog as well? Or is it restricted to translations?

Or am I jumping ahead?

[dorkster]

I think you're jumping ahead a bit. As it stands right now, you would have to add labels to the Powers menu that used a new font style. The purpose of this code is to allow certain parts of the engine to have special fonts (e.g. cutscene text). I'll probably update eatLabelInfo to support font names, so menu label fonts can be changed from config files.

I think for the sake of merging from Flare, you should stick with Polymorphable's current method of doing the Powers menu.

[makrohn]

I'll absolutely stick with the current method, I just wanted clarification.

[igorko]

@makrohn text in your screenshot should be picture (menu background layer) and can't be rendered (and shouldn't) as text. Use your favorite image editor to choose font ;)

[makrohn]

It is part of the .png, yes, but I don't honestly think it should be, for two reasons: 1) I spent the better part of 2003-2005 doing ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliant website design. Images containing text don't produce strings that can be read by a screen reader to blind people. 2) They also don't produce strings that contain translatable text. On a very practical level, there should not be any faux-text anywhere in the game. I'm not sure if this would necessitate a new engine feature to be able to insert static text willy-nilly into menus wherever a modder wants, but I'd be happy to create a separate issue for it (even if it can't benefit from this pull) to be done as part of 0.17 Menus.

[igorko]

Well, I understand, but the initial idea was to add "skill tree" image, as it's done in such games. Instead Polymorphable uses "Level" text, which is not "tree image". We can't add such "garbage" text to menus, which is not supposed to be used. Required level is displayed in power tooltip, so such text will duplicate data. Menu background should not give any info. It should be "just art".

[makrohn]

So really, in Flare-data, Poly, or any other mod, we should try and present that sort of information in tooltips and graphical cues, as opposed to in-panel text. That should be a "good modding habit". I'll buy that (not that Dorkster's menu graphic was wasted effort, it needed to be done for the LPC, but now that the contest is done we shouldn't be using workarounds). In that case, it's a Poly issue to "present powers tree options using graphical cues instead of text," as opposed to a Flare-engine issue to "allow arbitrary text in menus".

[igorko]

@dorkster Redefining font from languages.txt might be improved later. Here what problems I see currently:

• if we redefine font, we use the same font for all italic bold etc font types. So there will be no difference. Maybe we could add the list of fonts in the same order as in font_settings to language line to redefine each font type.
• or we can leave as is, but then we will waste memory by opening few times the same font. To save memory (load only one font type if we don't have bold or italic etc) we should handle exceptions like "font_italic not found, use default font".

Edit: for first case we can add to the lang list font_type, file and size to redefine only needed fonts, the rest can be defaulted to normal.

[dorkster]

Yeah, the way the same language font is used for all definitions is bad. I also don't like that I haven't added a font setting to LabelInfo for menu configuration. And the more I look over the code, the more I'm disliking my overall implementation. So, I'm going to close this for now as it needs more work. Plus, I don't want to introduce any new bugs before the 0.17 release.