README.TXT FILE FOR FONTFOLDER 3.0 BETA Thank you for participating in the public beta test of FontFolder 3.0. Before installing the program, make sure you understand that it is a beta version of FontFolder. This means, among other things, that it is likely to have bugs. You should only install this program if you want to participate in finding these bugs, and if you do not need to use this program for any real work. If you must have a stable version of this product, use FontFolder 2.1A instead. WARNING This is a beta version of FontFolder. Do not install it over top of your existing copy of FontFolder. Instead, install it in its own separate directory. If you want to be able to use your existing Library and FontPack files with the beta, create this separate directory ahead of time and copy all the MLIBnnn.FF2 and FNTPnnn.FP2 in your existing FontFolder directory to this new directory. Also copy the FONTFOLD.INI file to this directory so that the beta will use your customizations (and pick up the information about what FontPacks, if any, are installed in OS/2). NEW FEATURES IN FONTFOLDER INSTALL PROGRAM FontFolder now comes with an Install program. You can no longer install it by just unzipping it to a directory and starting it up. Instead, you should unzip it to a temporary directory and then either double-click on the INSTALL.EXE icon, or change to that directory from a command line and enter INSTALL. (NOTE: If you prefer the command line approach, you MUST first change directories to the install directory. The install program will not run otherwise.) The install program offers options to install FontFolder, uninstall FontFolder, and recreate FontFolder's ini file, and recreate FontFolder's program object (icon). Read the On-line Help for the Install program for the details of using these features. TRUETYPE SUPPORT The big new item in v3 is the support for TrueType fonts when using FontFolder with Warp 4. You should automatically get this support when you start FontFolder under Warp 4, and the Installed Fonts listbox should contain both your installed Type 1 fonts (with a little Adobe "a" bitmap alongside them) and your installed TrueType fonts (with a "T-T" bitmap). If you run v3 with an earlier version of OS/2, things should still run, you'll just have a boring bunch of little "a"s alongside all your fonts. You should find the TrueType support to be seamlessly integrated into FontFolder, i.e. you don't have to do anything special to use TrueType fonts, and you can mix and match Type 1 and TrueType fonts in all your libraries and fontpacks. The only place where there is a difference is when you register fonts with a library. On the register fonts dialog you will see a set of radio buttons to indicate whether you want to register Type 1 fonts or TrueType fonts, meaning you can register one or the other, but not both, in a single registration pass. This means that if you want to build a library of mixed type you will need to do two registration passes, one for the Type 1 fonts and a second for the TrueType fonts. This makes life considerably simpler for me, and I don't think it seriously compromises the ease of registration. If you dislike this restriction, please let me know. I probably won't fix it for this release, but I can take a look at it for the next release. DRAG AND DROP SUPPORT Version 3 is drag and drop enabled for most all of the operations you would think you might be able to use this for in FontFolder. (If you think it should work for something and it doesn't, let me know so I can add it to my to-do list for future releases.) Specifically, you can do the following: * Install fonts from a library - Mark the fonts to be installed just as you would normally, but instead of clicking the Install button, use your right mouse button to drag and drop the fonts on the Installed Fonts listbox. * Install a fontpack - Mark the fontpack and drag and drop it on the Installed Fonts listbox. * Uninstall fonts - Mark the fonts to be uninstalled as you would normally, and then drag and drop them on the FontFolder shredder icon in the lower right corner of the main FontFolder window (note I said the FontFolder shredder, not the OS/2 shredder). * Uninstall a fontpack - Mark the fontpack to be uninstalled in the Installed Fonts list, and then drag and drop it on the FontFolder shredder. * Remove fonts from a library - Mark the fonts to be removed and then drag and drop them on the FontFolder shredder. * Remove fonts from a fontpack - Open the fontpack for editing, mark the fonts to be removed, and drag and drop them on the FontFolder shredder. * Delete a fontpack - Mark the fontpac to be deleted in the Fontpacks list, and then drag and drop it on the FontFolder shredder. Now for the more interesting stuff. * Register a font with a library - First make sure the correct library is open in FontFolder (if you have multiple libraries), and then drag and drop one of the font files from a Drives folder or equivalent on the Library listbox to register the font. You can drop the PFB, AFM, or OFM file for a Type 1 font; FontFolder will look for the complimentary file to the one you drop and let you know if it can't find it. For a TrueType font, use the TTF file. * Install a font in OS/2 - Drag and drop one of the font files on the Installed Fonts listbox. Again you can drag either the PFB, AFM, OFM or TTF file. FontFolder will ask if you also want to register the font with the current library (so if you do, make sure you have the correct library open before doing this operation). * Browse uninstalled fonts without first registering them - When the FontFolder Browser window is open, drag and drop a font file on the Browser window. This gives you a quick way to look at some fonts you may or may not be interested in adding to your collection without going to the trouble of first registering them with a library. FONT SPECIFICATIONS WINDOW For those few who are interested in getting really down into the technical guts of the OS/2 fonts (OK, I did it because *I* wanted it ), there is a new window associated with the Browser that will show you a selection of the technical details that OS/2 reports about a font. You can open the window via the Specs button in the Browser. The top half of the window shows details about the character drawings such as the height of ascenders and descenders, "x" height (lower case character height), and other parameters that characterize the character drawings. All of these are scaled to a 1000x1000 "Em Height" (capital M height), which is a standard way of displaying such information in the font world. Unless you are "into fonts" you probably won't find this information all that useful or illuminating. The lower half of the window displays some potentially more useful information. It includes what code pages the font was designed to support (unfortunately this depends on the font designer having included the information in the font files, which not all designers do), what OS/2 thinks are the styles of the font, such as weight (bold, but also semi-bold, etc.), width (compressed, extended, etc.), and things such as whether the font is an italic style and if it is monospaced. In addition to whatever other usefulness this information may have, it serves as a diagnostic tool when you are trying to figure out why applications such as Describe decide whether to treat a font as a style (i.e. italic, bold, etc) of a another font, or to treat it as a totally separate font in the font list. BUG REPORTS Please report all FontFolder 3.0 Beta bugs on Compuserve in OS2BVEN, Section 1 (GO OS2SHARE), by Compuserve e-mail to [75013,1701], or by Internet e-mail to 75013.1701@compuserve.com or ccullum@ibm.net. Internet users, please report problems via e-mail to one of these e-mail addresses.