TrueType Installer v1.0 A TrueType Font installer/viewer
Instalation: TrueType Installer needs the GLTT/Freetype and GLUT libraries in order to work. These are available from Beware. The archives you need are libGLTT.tgz and either libglut.zip or Glut-3.5-x86.zip.

To install the GLTT library, drag the file libGLTT.so onto the folder link named "Drop libGLTT.so into this folder."

To install libglut.so from the libglut.zip archive, move the file libglut.so to /boot/home/config/lib directory.

To install the glut library from the Glut-3.5-x86.zip archive, open a terminal and cd to the glut-3.5 directory. Type "setup.sh" and press return - follow the prompts.

TrueType Installer can be placed and run from anywhere you prefer.

First Time Startup: TrueType Installer requires that a user TrueType font directory exists on your system. The first time it is run, TrueType Installer will check to see if one exists, if it does not, you will be presented with a requester giving you the choice of either letting TrueType Installer create the directory, or exiting the program. If you choose to create the directory, it will be created as /boot/home/config/fonts/ttfonts and the main GUI will appear.

Main Interface: Hopefully, the GUI should be pretty self explanitory, at the top there's an openGL preview of the currently selected font. Below that are a set of controls for setting the size and color of the font in the preview, and the text it displays.

Below the controls are two list views. The left hand view displays the contents of the source directory from which you wish to browse fonts. The right hand list view displays the contents of the user font directory i.e. /boot/home/config/fonts/ttfonts. When TrueType Installer is first started up, the source list view will display the contents of the user font directory. If this is the first time TTI has been run and/or your user font directory is empty, both lists will initially appear blank.

A new source directory can be selected by clicking on "Select", this will present you with a standard BeOS file requester. Select the directory you wish to browse from and click open.

Selecting a font in either list window will result in the display text being rendered in that font. Depending upon the complexity of the chosen font, the update may take a few seconds.

The currently selected font in the source window can be copied to the user font directory either by clicking ">Copy>", or by right clicking on the font and selecting copy from the menu (currently, this is the only menu item available).

In order for fonts copied to the user font directory to be available for use by other software, the system needs to update it's font list. You can do this by clicking "Refresh".

Fonts can be removed from your user font directory by right clicking on them and selecting delete (again, this is the only menu item currently available for this list). You should click "Refresh" after deleting any fonts to make the BeOS aware of the change. TrueType Installer will refresh the system font list automatically when you exit the program. Just to be on the safe side :)

WARNING!! Selecting this menu item deletes the font from the directory.

Font preview display
Font color selector
Font size slider
Preview display text
Source directory contents
User font directory contents
Quits program
Updates system font list
Copies selected source font to system
Select font directory to browse
About
Known Issues: Some complex fonts can take 2 or 3 seconds or more to update. I think this may be a limitation of using the openGL preview.

I've been having a problem which I think is related to antialiasing with anything other than a black background in the openGL display, so sorry, for the moment you can't change the background color.

Future: Sort out the known issuses.
Make the list views drag and drop.


Revision History: 1.0b1:
First public release

1.0:
List views now filter the directories to display only TryeType fonts, which means you can now merrily scroll up and down them with the arrow keys without the dreaded requester appearing.

Added context sensitive pop-up menus to the list views

Added About and Quit buttons

Fixed a bug that crashed the app if you attempted to copy a font when none were selected



Feedback: Please send any feedback/bug reports/suggestions to: AGOG

Ramblings: Thanks for trying out my first piece of BeOS software. Hope you find it usefull.

Gwynne.