C / C++ / MFC

1-Sep-09 5:10

http://www.buckrogers.demon.co.uk/software/typecase_vc.zip (source code included) is a program that I wrote: it is like Windows Character Map but displays much bigger and clearer and can select any of the 256 Unicode character planes. It seems to work OK, except:

http://www.buckrogers.demon.co.uk/temp/typecase_bug00.gif is a screen capture of a run of Typecase.

The bug is: some characters (e.g. most characters in the top 4 rows in the image linked to here) do not display in the default font, but they do display in the font '@Arial Unicode MS' - with each character rotated 90 degrees anticlockwise. Please what is causing this?

Only certain groups of characters are affected. But character 2122 (trademark) displays the right way up in the default font and rotated 90deg anticlockwise in the font '@Arial Unicode MS'.

Richard MacCutchan1-Sep-09 6:00

1-Sep-09 6:00

Check the fonts you are using in your rendering function(s). Have you inadvertently set a parameter wrongly for the display?

Anthony Appleyard1-Sep-09 6:37

1-Sep-09 6:37

The whole program including the source texts is in the zip file at the link in my first message. I have looked through it many times.

Cedric Moonen1-Sep-09 7:33

Cedric Moonen

1-Sep-09 7:33

Please, take the time to select the relevant piece of code and post it here. You are asking the question, so you should do your best to present it clearly. Almost nobody will go into a full project trying to find where the problem resides.

Cédric Moonen
Software developer

Charting control [v2.0]
OpenGL game tutorial in C++

Richard MacCutchan1-Sep-09 7:54

1-Sep-09 7:54

Anthony Appleyard wrote:
The whole program including the source texts is in the zip file at the link in my first message.

I'm sure it is, but I have no idea of the construction of this program, which part sets the font, selects the characters etc., nor do I (or any of the other CodeProjecters) have the time or energy to figure it out. Use the VS debugger to step through the code as it sets up to display the characters in question, in order to discover whereabouts the error occurs.

[Message Deleted]

Anthony Appleyard1-Sep-09 8:15

1-Sep-09 8:15

[Message Deleted]

David Crow1-Sep-09 8:52

David Crow

1-Sep-09 8:52

Could you at least be bothered to read #7 here?

"Old age is like a bank account. You withdraw later in life what you have deposited along the way." - Unknown

"Fireproof doesn't mean the fire will never come. It means when the fire comes that you will be able to withstand it." - Michael Simmons

Anthony Appleyard1-Sep-09 11:31

1-Sep-09 11:31

Done. Thanks for the advice.

//spec[] is an array: spec[i] = 1 if character i is special
         else {SIZE K[256]; HFONT zaf; char*n;
               sprintf(tit,"TYPECASE: Select a Unicode character from 0x%02x00 to 0x%02xff: %s %s",
                        nalph2,nalph2,alph[nalph2]+3,alph[nalph2]+21);
               wc[1]=0; di=int(r.right/double(I)); dj=int(r.bottom/double(J+sb));
               for(i=0;i<256;i++) {wc[0]=i+256*nalph2; GetTextExtentPoint32W(dc,wc,1,&K[i]);}
               for(k=j=1,i=0;i<256;i++) {k=max(k,short(K[i].cx)); j=max(j,short(K[i].cy));}
               h=short(.9*min(dj,j*di/double(k)));
               yaf=CreateFont(h,0,0,0,LF.lfWeight,LF.lfItalic,0,0,1,0,0,0,FF_DONTCARE,font);
               zaf=CreateFont(int(dj*.4/(p1616?1:4)),0,0,0,LF.lfWeight,LF.lfItalic,0,0,1,0,0,0,FF_DONTCARE,font);
               of=(HFONT)SelectObject(dc,zaf); COLORREF oldpen=SetTextColor(dc,RGB(255,0,0));
               for(j=0;j<J;j++) for(i=0;i<I;i++) if(m=i+j*I+256*nalph2,n=spec[m],n) {
// instead of a character, a small note in red in that character's box
                     /*   di=char(r.right/16); dj=char(r.bottom/(16+sb));*/
               alphnote(dc,i,j,di,dj,n,n+18);}
               SetTextColor(dc,oldpen); SelectObject(dc,yaf);
               for(j=0;j<J;j++) for(i=0;i<I;i++) if(m=i+j*I+256*nalph2,n=spec[m],!n) {
                        wc[0]=i+j*I+256*nalph2; TextOutW(dc,i*di+2,j*dj+2,wc,1);} // print the character
               SelectObject(dc,of); DeleteObject(yaf); DeleteObject(zaf);
               for(j=1;j<=J;j++) Line(dc,0,j*dj,I*di,j*dj);
               for(i=1;i<=I;i++) Line(dc,i*di,0,i*di,J*dj);}

In CreateFont, the 4th arg is "The angle, in tenths of degrees, between each character's base line and the x-axis of the device.": here, correctly 0.

TextOutW(dc,i*di+2,j*dj+2,wc,1); prints the character.

Is "@Arial Unicode MS" a very new font with internal features that older write-text functions such as CreateFont and TextOutW do not handle properly? This trouble does not happen with my Windows Vista's default font.

Richard MacCutchan1-Sep-09 12:02

1-Sep-09 12:02

Well, you have put this code extract between 'pre' tags but it is so badly formatted and spaced as to be virtually unreadable. You could start by reformatting such that each statement is on its own source line, and the code is correctly indented.

As I have stated before you need to use the debugger to isolate the point at which the particular character is being rendered, and capture the font that is being used at that point in order to give a clue as to which statement may be at fault.

For example in the statement:

zaf=CreateFont(int(dj*.4/(p1616?1:4)),0,0,0,LF.lfWeight,LF.lfItalic,0,0,1,0,0,0,FF_DONTCARE,font);

what are the values of dj, p1616, and font? Are they as expected by you and if not what values should they contain?

Anthony Appleyard1-Sep-09 23:59

Re: Text coming out in a wrong orientation [modified]

1-Sep-09 23:59

I have been testing and looking through the program, and this fault only seems to happen with fonts whose names start with a @ character: @Arial Unicode MS, @Batang, etc.

The "set orientation" parameter when I call CreateFont(), is set as the numeric constant 0:

yaf=CreateFont(h,0,0,0,LF.lfWeight,LF.lfItalic,0,0,1,0,0,0,FF_DONTCARE,font); // h = desired font size, font is a string containing the name of the font to be used

Richard MacCutchan2-Sep-09 4:25

2-Sep-09 4:25

There are actually two issues here:

1. You are displaying Unicode characters in the range 0x2100 to 0x21FF in your sample (linked to in first article), which may or may not be correct.

2. Font names beginning with @ are designed for vertical characters so will be rotated in 'normal' orientation. I admit this information was not easy to discover - but I managed using Google and MSDN.

I was able to verify all of this by a very simple test program without all the convoluted function calls and parameters in your sample code.

modified on Wednesday, September 2, 2009 11:13 AM

Anthony Appleyard2-Sep-09 5:13

2-Sep-09 5:13

Curiouser and curiouser. My program discussed here: its font selector lists these fonts:
* "@Arial Unicode MS", which shows the affected characters rotated 90deg anticlockwise;
* "Arial Unicode MS", which looks the same but shows the affected characters the right way up.
Are these two distinct fonts, or is there some strange system effect here?

Richard MacCutchan2-Sep-09 5:19

2-Sep-09 5:19

See my previous (modified) answer.

Anthony Appleyard2-Sep-09 6:18

2-Sep-09 6:18

Thanks.

Rick York2-Sep-09 11:53

Rick York

2-Sep-09 11:53

You may want to have a look at Font Enumerator[^]. It is was posted here within the last day and it seems to handle those fonts correctly.

Randor 2-Sep-09 9:51

Randor

2-Sep-09 9:51

Richard MacCutchan wrote:
2. Font names beginning with @ are designed for vertical characters so will be rotated in 'normal' orientation. I admit this information was not easy to discover - but I managed using Google and MSDN.

Excellent find Richard! Can you show me where you found this information? I have checked the TrueType and OpenType specifications but was unable to find a reference to this font naming convention. Is this standard or Microsoft only?

Take my 5,
-David Delaune

Richard MacCutchan3-Sep-09 2:04