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fontsel Font Selection Dialog

Chapter 14 Font Selection Dialog


14.1 Overview

The font selection dialog (

Figure 14-1) is used to select the font for the window from which it is opened. There is no way through the interface to change the font for every ASCEND window.

Currently, the fonts you select are not remembered across invocations of ASCEND. This is a feature we will be adding in a future release.

To change the default fonts for ASCEND, see Setting the Default Font later in this chapter.

The font which the font selection dialog displays when it is opened is independent of the current window's font. This is actually a feature. When you close the font selection dialog (by pressing either the OK Button or the Cancel Button) and reopen it, it will display the same font as when it was closed. This way, once you find a font you like, you can change other ASCEND windows to this same font by simply opening the font selection dialog and pressing OK. As a default, the very first time you open the font dialog in an ASCEND session, the font is set to Courier 12 normal.

The font selection dialog has eight parts: Font Menu, Style Menu, Cancel Button, OK Button, Current Font Sample, Font Sampler Area, Point Size Slider, Current Font Selection.

14.2 Font Menu

The Font menu displays the fonts available for your platform (e.g, Helvetica, Courier). Selecting one of these fonts will update the Current Font Sample and Current Font Selection areas of the window.

14.3 Style Menu

The Style menu allows you to specify attributes (e.g., Bold, Italic) for the selected font. As you add and remove attributes, the Current Font Sample and the Current Font Selection will reflect the changes.

14.4 Cancel Button

The Cancel button closes the font selection window without changing the fonts of the window.

14.5 OK Button

The OK button closes the font selection window and sets the font of the window to the font listed in the Current Font Selection area.

14.6 Current Font Sample

This area of the font selection window shows a sample of text in font, style, and size you have currently selected.

If you want to see what your current selection does to particular characters, you may type into this area. Note that your additions will be deleted when you change any aspect of the font (style, size, font).

14.7 Font Sampler Area

This area of the font selection window shows you a sample of the fonts available for your platform. You may make one of the listed fonts the current selection by clicking the font with the left mouse button. The currently selected styles and sizes remain in effect.

14.8 Point Size Slider

This slider lets you choose the point size of the font. The text displayed in the Current Font Sample updates immediately.

14.9 Current Font Selection

This area displays the Tcl name for the font (including the size and style(s)) that you have currently selected. You may type in this area, but doing so will have no effect on the font.

14.10 Setting the Default Font

To have ASCEND use the same font each time you run it, you need to do the following steps.

Use the font selection dialog to choose a font you like. Make a note of the Tcl name for the font; this name is displayed in the Current Font Selection area of the window.
Open the system utilities window and make a note of the value of ASCENDDIST.
Exit ASCEND.
Under the ASCENDDIST directory, there should be a directory called TK, and in this directory a file called ascend.ad. Copy this file to your HOME directory and name it .
Add the following lines at the end of , replacing courier 11 normal with the font you noted in Step 1.
Global font courier 11 normal
Global labelfont courier 11 normal
Toolbox font courier 11 normal
Library font courier 11 normal
Display font courier 11 normal
Browser font courier 11 normal
Probe font courier 11 normal
Units font courier 11 normal
Script font courier 11 normal
Solver font courier 11 normal
Debugger font courier 11 normal
Save , and restart ASCEND.
Note that this file also contains the default size and position for most ASCEND windows. To change the position or size of a window, edit the lines containing geometry; the format for the geometry is
WWxHH+xx+yy
where WW is the width of the window, HH is its height, xx is the distance between the left edge of the screen and the left edge of the window, and yy is the distance between the screen's top edge and the window's top edge.


Last Modified: 02:47pm EDT, September 30, 1997
9/26/97 Release 0.8 authors T.O.C. Index Bug Report ASCEND IV Home