Bigger fonts mod

[DRG]

Attached is a further refinement. This one spaces the fonts one pixel further apart on numbers, most capitols and lower case vowels. The overall effect is less crowding of the letters making the text a bit easier to read.

This version will make "WinSPMBT Tutorial Scenario" 145x8 pixels wide and high on screen which is about 17% wider and 14% taller than the original font. So far the only place this doesn't quite fit as a replacement for spfont4 is in the preference screen when you get more than 9999 points so this font does most of what using spfont1 does as a replacement without 99% of the problems.

If anyone other than the two(2) guys who have complained the fonts on those screens are too small could give me some feedback on how this looks to people who DO NOT have a problem reading the existing fonts I would appreciate it.

Make a copy of your existing font folder then extract this one to the original FONTS folder. Play the game for awhile then let me know if this seems too big or hard to read or what ever. If you like it, Great.... let me know and you can leave it in, if you don't like it, that's fine, let me know anyway ( we need the feedback )then copy the original spfont4.dat from your back up folder into the FONTS folder and that will restore the original.

I am not planning at this time of replacing spfont4 with this ( for those confused by all this spfont4 is used , among many other places, to display the scenario names , once you put this in you instantly see where the old one was used ). As of now this is intended to be a new font we could use on some screens so FEEDBACK IS IMPORTANT now rather than later. However, there MAY be people who find this more pleasing to read than the standard so once again ----FEEDBACK IS IMPORTANT.


Don

[Rich]

Don, this is the best yet. Could be a shade larger but still very readable, no problem. It also enlarged the font in some windows like hq and encyclopedia where the other one didn't (I'm not sure why that difference). Anyhow I'll be using this one. Thank you for your continued work on this.

[DRG]

If they were any larger they would be spfont1

The original is a 7 pixel font without an "engraved" shadow
SPfont1 is a 9 pixel font WITH an "engraved" shadow
This last one is an 8 pixel font without an "engraved" shadow


I've built other versions that are variations on earlier tests that are "engraved" with a shadow line . The effect of that on the version you like is to make it closer to spfont1 and with all it's disadvantages on many screens becasue the shadow adds width to the font. I've tried other version with the shadow using the first two tests and they fit the game better and space the letters a bit further apart but the end result isn't as readable becasue of the shadow. However, on some backgrounds and in some cases the shadow is desirable and adds a nice effect to the font but not all cases so I've tucked those away for possible limited use.

I will try a version of spfont1 wihout the engraved shadow and see how that looks but for most screens 9 pixels is not really as good a choice for a limited replacement of spfont4 as the last 8 pixel example I provided is

Don

[DRG]

OK..... attached is a version of SPFONT1.dat set up as spfont4.dat without the shadow line and this would be of use to someone who just HAS to have a bigger font for most of these screens

In some ways this one works better on the preferences screen than the last example but for the scenario list it tends to pile the scenario names on top of one another so I would normally reject if for use on that screen. However, it does look good in the HQ menu screen so I may end up naming it SPFONT9.dat and using it for that in the next version of the game.


Don

[Rich]

This little bit extra is better and I think it's now as good as it's going to get. I really appreciate this.

[Brian61]

Originally Posted by DRG

If anyone other than the two(2) guys who have complained the fonts on those screens are too small could give me some feedback on how this looks to people who DO NOT have a problem reading the existing fonts I would appreciate it.

Other than the overlap in the scenarios list, the only other thing I noticed was in purchase and deployment where the units, formations, mines/DT/trench/BW, and remaining air strikes information at the bottom has the titles overrunning the numbers.

The font looks fine to me but then I never had any problems with the old font either. If I notice anything else over the next couple weeks I'll post it.

This is in windowed mode using (full screen) desktop resolution 1600x900 with the CD version and the font from SPFONT4v3.zip.

Brian

[Brian61]

Just noticed at long campaign creation, difficulty level hardest description no longer fits in the box.

Brian

PS: the 0/-5/-10/-20 % repair point normal, hard, harder, hardest progression is too insignificant a progression for experienced players. I'm pretty sure I'd have plenty of repair points left over to buy an occasional extra 750 support points even at -50% repair points. It'd be nice if that difficulty selection also affected the rate at which units gained experience.

[Imp]

Been away is it still the font in post 11 you want feedback on or would you prefer it on one from a later post? Off topic a bit but also something occured to me the other day seems strange that windows taskbar on autohide mucks up Desktop Display Mode when I have several other things that dock & act like it without causing any problems whatsoever. Probably most common is Winamp which hides very inteligently so guessing its because microsoft dont impliment it properly. Right off topic if your still using Windows media player people stop its rubbish virtually any free player is better Winamp the afformentioned for example works far better & puts less of a load on your computer meaning SP plays smoothly.

[Horses]

Just to give a feedback:
SPFONT4v3.zip works best for me.
SPFONT4v4.zip is too large.

Tested Windowed Mode at 1280x768.

[void1984]

SPFONT4v3.zip is best for me also.
It fits best into the available space without overlapping.
I play with 1280x1024.

Tanks for that mod!