differing Fonts depending on OS Platform

Hello, we like Wireframesketcher.

On differing Platforms (Mac OS 10.4 and Windows Vista) the used Fonts are different. Because of this textlabels and other textbased items will get different dimensions and weird line-breaks.

This happens if the file was created on one platform and opened on another.

Is it possible to set a default font for the whole diagram or a project. And a default font for all wireframes (in the Eclipse preferences diagram).

thx in advance

Christian

Christian,

I was waiting for someone to have this problem. As it is now, WireframeSketcher uses the system font and does not store this fact anywhere.

I need to come up with a good solution to this issue.

I am thinking about storing the font in .screen file and allowing the user to change it using the Properties view. The user should be able to specify the font, the default size and perhaps the default style, bold or normal.

A global Eclipse preference should allow to set the default font for newly created screens. New screens will just retrieve and story this font in .screen file.

I am still not sure how to handle the case when the system font is used. This font will probably not exist on another OS. Actually this can also be true for other fonts. I thinking that it would be nice if WireframeSketcher could find automatically a replacement font that is as close as possible to the original. However, I don't know how hard it is to implement. Perhaps I am over-thinking the problem and I should just let the user handle this issue himself.

Another solution is to use some widely present font as a default. Many tools in this area choose to use Comic Sans. It's ugly but it works.

What do you think?

In Eclipse Preferences their is a configurable font setting. Default value would be the system font.

In every screen file i would write the specific Font into the screen file.

If i open a file which specifies a font which is not available i get a warning which also states the missing font so i could fix this as a user.

Maybe you can show (only show) the font name in the property views of all text elements. That way the users have the chance to get the idea, this could be a problem on other platforms when it says Cambria or Lucida Grande.

Christian,

I've just released a new version that adds configurable fonts. I'd like to have your feedback on it. For now it's the user's responsibility to ensure that he chooses a font that is present on all OSes. Otherwise everything works pretty much as we've discussed above.

Hello Peter, yes it works.

one remark how it could be better in my opinion. Could you make it so, that if the file doesn't specify any font the configured font in eclipse is used.

That way you do not have to change all existing files but can change the eclipse preferences.

Even better would be a per-project setting, that way the correct information is passed along (which it would not, if the definition is inside the eclipse settings).

The fallback way for determining the font would be like (if any question is answered with yes, we use this setting):

1. does the file contain a font setting?
2. if no does the project contain a font setting?
3. if no does eclipse preferences contain a font setting?
4. if no use system font

but thanks again, it is nice to see this developed so fast.

regards Christian

Christian,

I see your point. My main reason for not doing this was my wish for screens to be self-contained. This makes screen files more portable.

I'll consider doing more work on this front in the future after I gather some more data.

Thanks for your feedback!