PST and propeller font
MagIO2
Posts: 2,243
Why is PST not using the propeller font? In my current situation this would make sense as I'd like to send logic-levels measured on propeller pins to the PST and I don't understand why PST is not using that font which has perfect characters for that.
Is there a possibility to switch to propeller font? Is there a terminal tool which can use the propeller font?
Is there a possibility to switch to propeller font? Is there a terminal tool which can use the propeller font?
Comments
-Phil
I don't understand your comment. The propeller tool also uses the propeller font. I don't mean the original font stored in propeller ROM, I mean the same font that's already used by the propeller tool.
Yes, I understand: I was referring to rendering on a PC. However, upon reexamination, the Parallax typeface doesn't look all that bad at 8 pts. It looks really crappy at 6 pts., but what typeface doesn't? It does not look good at 11 pts, but that's not an option in PST.
You also have to realize that, on a PC, you have to specify the Unicode value for the upper characters, not their Propeller $80 .. $FF equivalents, although a terminal program could easily do that translation for you.
-Phil
Do you have to do anything special to display the upper glyphs?
-Phil
BTW Hyperterminal can be added to XP and I presume Vista. You will have to google to find out how (also in a prop thread too).
I don't use Hyperterminal because it always reseted the propeller when you attach it to the serial connection. This is of course not the best idea, when you load the programs to RAM, which is my favourite for testing. And on my new Win7 Netbook it's not even installed.
I just wondered if there might be a trick (command line parameter) or a hack to tell PST that it should use the propeller tool font instead. I don't know windows programming. Is PST simply using some kind of default font or could one possibly hack the font name inside of the executable?
This would simply be a cheap n easy way to get a logic analyser.
A lot of that would depend if the font is embedded within the exe. If it is embedded as a resource, then the function UpdateResource should probably do the trick, but I think there are some prerequisites. I will look into it for you.
Bruce
Without digging to deep, it appears that UpdateResource would do the trick. First you would have to "enumerate" the font type resources in the serial terminal just to get the name of the resource, then should be able to update the font.
Bruce
The Parallax Serial Terminal depends upon GDI32.DLL, which has a lot of font functions. It would be my guess that pst loads a stock font instead of having it as a resource. If this is the case, I think the only possible way to do it would be to create a system hook that would capture the call to the font creation, and this would be a true pain in the rear. It would probably be easier to create your own serial terminal with the font you want.
Bruce
Thank You Parallax for that and the fun looking at it.
It is a Delphi Application and I would guess Delphi 6 because the propellent.dll source is Delphi 6.
I loaded the PST project into Delphi 2007 and it compiles and runs, by that I mean puts up a terminal window and responds to mouse clicks on things. I did not connect it to anything serial but do not see why it would not still work.
The font is not Parallax and it would take less than a minute to change it and re-compile and it would work as is with a different font, assuming Jeff did not have a side effect like scaling the chars in the chosen font.
BUT the bad news on the special drawing chars is there not going to work because they are Unicode ie
two chars per character. Also the version of Delphi it was written in and even Delphi 2007 know nothing about
Unicode. So displaying the characters in the receive window using Canvas.TextOut(some string) is not going to work.
Delphi 2009 - Delphi XE are Unicode and I could re-compile it under XE but there are issues.
Sure now Canvas.TextOut could display them but now all Chars are two bytes and character counting is
off in receive buffers. I do not think having everyone switch to sending two bytes per char serially is a good idea. You could fix that by rewriting the PST to be Unicode aware. Would take some planning on how to decide when it is one byte or two bytes per char.
I like the idea of using the using the Parallax font for a simple logic analyzer and maybe a seperate
window that knows about Unicode and gets a serial message would be a way.
Or like the old Word Star idea for formatting remember cntrlB This is now Bold CntrlB Bold now off.
So cntrlU Unicode to draw coming cntrlU all done sending Unicode.
Thinking outloud is dangerous Ha
Tom