************************************************************ * README FILE FOR FontFolder 3.0 * ************************************************************ FILES FOR FONTFOLDER VERSION 3.0 DISKETTE VERSION The diskette for FontFolder Version 3.0 should contain the following files: BCKGNDVG.BMZ Compressed VGA bitmap used by Install program BCKGNDXG.BMZ Compressed XGA bitmap used by Install program CATALOG.TXT Used to customize font catalog printing CHARBOX.TXT Used to customize specimen sheet printing COMPRESS.DLL Module used to decompress Install bitmaps FFCLEAN.EX@ Compressed form of the FontFolder Cleanup module FFPRNMOD.EX@ Compressed form of the FontFolder print module - not directly executable FILE_ID.DIZ Brief description in DIZ format FINSTALL.PKG Package file used by Install program FONTFOLD.EX@ Compressed form of the FontFolder program file FONTFOLD.HL@ Compressed form of the FontFolder Help file FONTFOLD.NEW Brief description of new and changed features of Version 3.0 INSTALL.EXE FontFolder Installation program INSTALL.HLP Help file for Install program LICENSE.TXT FontFolder License file and registration information LINE.TXT Used to customize specimen sheet printing PGRAPH.TXT Used to customize specimen sheet printing README.TXT This file BMTORDER.FRM Order form and ordering instructions for BMT Micro In addition, the diskette should contain the file FNTFLIB.ZIP described in the following On-line Version list, and the file OS2FNFAQ.INF which is a VIEWable copy of the current version of OS/2 Fonts Frequently Asked Questions. ON-LINE VERSION On-line users should look for the following files. FNTF30.ZIP is required while FNTFLIB.ZIP is optional. FNTF30.ZIP Contains the files named above. Please use this file if you upload FontFolder to a bulletin board or on-line service. FNTFLIB.ZIP Contains the FontFolder pre-registered libraries for popular font CDROM's as shown below. BST500.FZ2 Pre-registered library for the Bitstream 500 Font CDROM (includes library and text documentation file). ZIP format. COR25.FZ2 Pre-registered library for the fonts on the CorelDraw 2.5 for OS/2 CDROM. (includes library and text documentation file). ZIP format. HB1093.FZ2 Pre-registered library for the fonts on the October, 1993 Hobbes OS/2 CDROM. (includes library and text documentation file). ZIP format. EX2000.FZ2 Pre-registered library for the fonts on the Expert Software 2000 Fantastic Fonts CDROM. (includes libraries for entire CDROM and also by-subdirectory libraries and text documentation files. ZIP format. My thanks to Larry Ebbit for creating this library and for giving me permission to ship it with FontFolder. FNTFSTAR.ZIP Pre-registered library for the fonts on the StarMedia CDROM shipped with StarOffice. GENERAL This README file gives basic information for installing FontFolder. For more detailed instructions on using FontFolder, consult the on-line Help for the Install program after starting it. If you have the fntf30.zip file, unzip it to a temporary directory and then follow these instructions to install from this temporary directory. Users with the FontFolder diskette should insert the diskette in their diskette drive, and then proceed as follows. NEW FONTFOLDER USERS Either open the drive/directory containing the FontFolder files and double-click on the INSTALL.EXE icon, or change to that directory from a command line and type INSTALL and press ENTER. (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, recreate FontFolder's ini file, and recreate FontFolder's program object (icon). Choose Install from the menu bar and follow the instructions. You can read the On-line Help for the Install program for the details of using these features. USERS UPGRADING FROM AN EARLIER VERSION OF FONTFOLDER 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, recreate FontFolder's ini file, and recreate FontFolder's program object (icon). Choose Install from the menu bar and follow the instructions. You can read the On-line Help for the Install program for the details of using these features. You can choose to either install Version 3.0 into the same directory as your current version of FontFolder, or you can install to a separate directory. It is possible to have both versions of FontFolder on your system at the same time, but you should be aware that neither version will be aware of or be able to deal with the other version's installed FontPacks. The fonts will simply look like any other installed fonts. In order to use FontPacks you will need to make sure to install and uninstall them with the same version of FontFolder. 1) Installing over an older version of FontFolder Simply set the Install program to install to the existing FontFolder directory. The Install program will be able to use your existing ini and data files, but it will convert them to a new format needed to support the mixing of Type 1 and TrueType fonts. The new data files will have extensions of FF3 and FP3. The old FF2 and FP2 files will be left in place and can be deleted once you are satisfied that the upgrade has been successful. 2) Installing to a new directory, but using the existing FontFolder ini and data files. Create the new directory where you want to install FontFolder and copy the FONTFOLD.INI file and all .FF2 and .FP2 files in your old directory to this new directory. Specify this new directory as the target directory when installing FontFolder. The Install program will recognize and use the old ini and data files. It will detect that you have moved the FONTFOLD.INI file and ask you if you want to update the directories stored in FONTFOLD.INI. You should accept this offer unless you have set things up in a special way and know that you want to leave the old directory locations in place. USERS INSTALLING OVER THE FONTFOLDER 3.0 BETA. You should be able to simply point the Install program at the directory containing the FontFolder 3.0 Beta and let it overwrite the Beta files. It should pick up and use the ini and data files you have created with the beta. If you are nervous about installing final code over a Beta, choose the Uninstall option of the Install program to uninstall the Beta first. If you want to preserve your ini file customizations and the libraries and fontpacks you have created with the Beta, you can first make a backup of FONTFOLD.INI and all of the .FF3 and .FP3 files before running the uninstall program. Then, after the uninstall but before installing the new version, copy these files back to the directory where you are installing version 3.0. (But this is a lot of work just to accomplish exactly the same thing as will happen if you just install directly over the Beta). ***************************************************************** THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS INFORMATION THAT SHOULD BE READ BY BOTH NEW USERS AND THOSE UPGRADING FROM AN EARLIER VERSION. THERE ARE SIGNIFICANT CHANGES IN THE INFORMATION SINCE THE LAST RELEASE OF FONTFOLDER, SO UPGRADERS SHOULD BE SURE TO READ THIS. ***************************************************************** PROBLEMS ON FONTFOLDER STARTUP: When you start FontFolder the first time you may find that it complains about a number of fonts that you have already "installed" in OS/2 through the OS/2 Font Pallete. This can be for a number of reasons outlined below, all of which represent legitimate problems that FontFolder is attempting to deal with. (Of course it may also be true that FontFolder is incorrectly objecting to a legitimately installed font. If that appears to be the case, please bring the situation to my attention via one of the routes described at the end of this ReadMe file.) Situations where FontFolder will object to an already "installed" font: 1. The OS/2 Font Pallete is unfortunately not too discriminating in what it will "install" in OS/2. There are examples of font AFM files that are totally unreadable because of garbage in the file. The Font Pallete will "install" these files, although they are unusable and show up in the Font Pallete list as blank lines. FontFolder will reject a file if the OS/2 api that is used to query font information can't at least return a name for the font (the blank line in the Font Pallete occurs because no font name was returned for the file). 2. Users have been known to install a font in OS/2 and then later move the OFM and PFB files for this font to a different directory or even erase them, without first un-installing the font from OS/2. However, OS/2 keeps a record in OS2.INI of where it thinks the files are for installed fonts, and when it can't find them there on bootup, things get quite confusing. The user finds that a previously installed font "no longer works", but when they try to re-install it they find they can't because OS/2 insists it is already installed. FontFolder checks the listings in OS2.INI and verifies that both a PFB file and an OFM file exist where OS2.INI claims they are located. It behaves in a similar fashion for the TrueType TTF files. In both of the above cases, FontFolder a) does not show the font in the installed fonts list, and b) puts up a message box alerting the user to the problem and offering to remove the entry for this font from OS2.INI. You should note what font files FontFolder can't find, and then accept the offer to clean up OS2.INI. If the problem is simply that the font files have been moved, you can then go and find out where the font files are currently located (if they still exist) and register the fonts with the Library from the correct location. KNOWN PROBLEMS/LIMITATIONS: 1. Warp 4 has a bug which causes it to hang or significantly corrupt the desktop when certain fonts are installed. This occurs for both Type 1 and TrueType fonts. Users who are upgrading from earlier versions of OS/2 and FontFolder should be aware that fonts that worked without problems in earlier versions can now cause either an immediate hang or enough OS corruption that at some point in the near future the system will hang. At this time the only solution is to find and temporarily remove these fonts from both the set of fonts installed in OS/2 and from the FontFolder libraries. The latter is important since simply browsing these fonts or attempting to print a Font Catalog will kill the system when one of these "bad" fonts is loaded. The easiest way to identify the fonts that cause Warp 4 to hang is to browse your fonts with the FontFolder Browser. Any font that does not display in the browser window is a problem font, even if it doesn't immediately hang the system. Write down the name of the font (your system is about to crash, if it hasn't already, so you can't depend on being able to do anything after you have browsed this font), reboot this system, and use FontFolder to a) uninstall this font if you have it installed, and b) remove it from all libraries and fontpacks. You do NOT need to remove the font files from your system. There is nothing wrong with the font. When IBM provides the fix for this problem (supposedly coming in the first FixPack) you will be able to add the font back to your system. Note that the system does not become corrupted simply by having the font installed; you have to actually use the font to cause the problem. So removing it as described above is a safe way to temporarily clean your system of these problem fonts. So far, all the problem fonts I have encountered have exhibited the trait of not displaying in the FontFolder Browser window. However, if you still see OS/2 crashing with certain fonts, but all fonts display properly (i.e. this is a delayed crash so you can't pinpoint which font caused the problem), you can most likely pin down the problem font by making one point size change in the Browser while each font is displayed (you need to change the point size each time, for each font). In my experience this always causes an immediate OS/2 crash, whether it is done with FontFolder, the OS/2 Font Palette, the System Editor or any other application I've tried. Since it is a lot more work to change the point size every time for each font, I don't recommend this approach as the intial screening. 2. When running FontFolder with versions of OS/2 prior to Warp 4, OS/2 does not allow FontFolder to remove any font from memory that was not installed by FontFolder in the current session. With Warp 4 this behavior has changed, and it appears that FontFolder can now immediately uninstall any font that is not currently in use by another application. However, I haven't yet been able to fully scope out the conditions under which this is true (this is now and has always been undocumented behavior), so my advice to users of Warp 4 is to read the following and be aware of the situation even if fonts seem to uninstall immediately. FontFolder always updates the OS2.INI file and shows the font as removed, but if you check the Font Palette or look in the font list presented by your application, you will see that the font is still there. It will be gone the next time you reboot. This is not a problem if you don't change fonts frequently since any font removed by FontFolder will be gone the next time you reboot. However, if you work with large numbers of fonts during a single session, you may end of with very large numbers of fonts installed in OS/2, with performance and even perhaps error problems. The way to avoid this is to only keep a minimum number of fonts, the ones you use all the time, loaded in OS/2 at startup. Then start FontFolder and keep it open during the entire session if you are going to work with large numbers (100's) of fonts during the session. FontFolder can be minimized when you are not using it, but don't close it. This way, FontFolder can completely remove any font it installed (as long as you aren't currently using the font in an open application). Before closing FontFolder, clean up your installed font list by removing all the fonts other than your basic font set. (HINT: Define a FontPack to be your basic set of fonts. Then just before closing FontFolder, remove everything extra and install this FontPack. That will guarantee that you always have the correct base set installed on bootup). 3. It is easy to browse large numbers of fonts in the Browser window with FontFolder. In versions of OS/2 prior to Warp 3 this can quickly consume large amounts of memory, causing problems if you are short of swap file space. Look in the online Help Index for "browsing fonts" and read this section to understand what the memory requirements are when browsing fonts. This problem has been fixed in Warp 3 and presumably is also fixed in Warp 4. 4. Versions of OS/2 prior to Warp 4 had a memory leak connected with printing font samples that works out to approximately 7.5 KB of lost memory for every font printed. This may not sound like much, but if you print a Font Catalog for the Bitstream 500 Font CDROM, you will lose access to 3.75 Megabytes of your virtual memory, i.e. your swap file will be 3.75 Megabytes closer to being full than it would be otherwise. This effect is cumulative, i.e. if you print the same Font Catalog a second time you will lose another 3.75 Megabytes of memory. This memory can not be recovered except by rebooting OS/2. IBM confirmed that this leak is in OS/2 back in the Warp 3 time frame, and I tried to open an APAR. But about that time IBM changed their system so that it was no longer possible for developers to open APARs without buying the rather expensive support contract they offer. As a result, this APAR never got opened, and as far as I know the same leak exists in Warp 4 (although I haven't yet had time to test for it). Until a fix is available, if you are printing large numbers of fonts, you will need to pay attention to your swap file size. 5. Past OMNI drivers have had multiple problems that prevent FontFolder from tracking print jobs in the OS/2 Print Spooler. FontFolder must be able to track print jobs to know when it is safe to uninstall fonts that have been temporarily installed for the purpose of printing. As explained above the APARs I attempted to open for this never got opened. The latest OMNI drivers may or may not have fixed this problem. In the mean time I have implemented a workaround that requires the users of the OMNI driver to manually inform FontFolder when the last job has printed. If you use the OMNI driver, turn off the "Enable manual spool file monitoring" checkbox on the Printer dialog and see if you can successfully print uninstalled fonts. If you can, the driver has been fixed, and you can leave this option unchecked. If uninstalled fonts won't print, re-enable this checkbox. ********************************************************************* REGISTERING FONTFOLDER: The version of FontFolder you download electronically is a fully functional demonstration copy. You can carry out all operations, but after a period of time the program will begin prompting you to register and pay for the program. You can register and pay for it through a variety of mechansims as described below and in the LICENSE.TXT file. When you register the program you will be provided with an electronic key which will permanently unlock this version of FontFolder. FontFolder can be registered either as a full version with access to all facilities, or as a "Lite" version, which has access to all facilities except for printing. Registered users of FontFolder 2.1 may upgrade to the corresponding version of FontFolder 3.0 without charge. No action is necessary to upgrade; the current registration key will work with FontFolder 3.0. Users of 1.x versions of FontFolder have free access to FontFolder 3.0 Lite using their existing registration key. To use printing they must upgrade their registration to the full version of FontFolder 3.0. See the LICENSE.TXT file or look in the On-line Help Index under Registration Information for the details of registering. Registration Fees: New User Registration for FontFolder 3.0 $30 New User Registration for FontFolder 3.0 Lite $20 Upgrade from Version 1.x or FontFolder 2.x or 3.0 Lite $10 ********************************************************************* FONTFOLDER SUPPORT: FontFolder is supported on Compuserve in OS2BVEN, Section 1 (GO OS2SHARE), by Compuserve e-mail to [75013,1701], and by Internet e-mail to 75013.1701@compuserve.com or ccullum@ibm.net. I also monitor the Internet newsgroups comp.os.os2.app and comp.os.os2.utilities on a daily basis. Notice of new releases of FontFolder will be posted on Compuserve in OS2BVEN, Section 1 and in the Internet newsgroup comp.os.os2.announce. The latest versions of FontFolder can always be found on Compuserve in OS2BVEN, Lib 1, and at BMT Micro's Web site, http://www.bmtmicro.com. It should also be on ftp-os2.nmsu.edu and the other OS/2 public ftp sites, but I cannot guarantee this since access to these sites can be quite variable. For all of the above locations, the FontFolder zip file will be named FNTFnn.ZIP where nn is the version number. Cliff Cullum PVsoft 2/1/97