Mighty Pegasos Mighty MorphOS

7. Final Remarks
Fonts & Browsers
DoctorMorbius_FP

1. Introduction 2. The Nature Of Fonts 3. Amiga Browsers 4. Installation Of TrueType Fonts
5. Cloning Firefox Webfonts 6. AWeb Enhancement 7. Final Remarks

F. A. Q.

You have written this huge article and made AWeb users happy with your plugin. And IBrowse and Voyager users? Can you distribute at least a table of optimised fonts for us? I mean the most suitable sizes for cloning Firefox fonts at any screen resolution.
No, I can't! WebfontManager.awebrx can calculate 1050 font sizes [(7 HTML font sizes) × (6 distinct types of HTML size ranges that cover all the webfonts) × (25 basic sizes for dynamic font scaling)]. If you take into account all the variations generated by custom settings available in the program (14 possible thresholds, 48 possible distances, 2 alternative HTML scales), the total number of font sizes is larger than 50,000. Of course I never calculated explicitly all these values: I only provided WebfontManager.awebrx with suitable formulas and the knowledge of 7 basic HTML sizes and 25 basic sizes for dynamic font scaling.
OK, but I do not pretend all the data necessary for dynamic font scaling etc. within IBrowse and Voyager. Give us only the tables necessary to adjust font sizes at the most common screen resolutions like 800×600, 1024×768, and 1600×1200.
Even excluding most customisations and dynamic font scaling, you need at least three distinct ranges of sizes for minimal customisation (do you like small, medium, or large fonts?), which means 378 font sizes. Too much for my patience... But there is a simple solution. Follow the instructions of the previous sections and install AWeb MAX, run WebfontSetter.awebrx, and activate WebfontManager.awebrx. Then run AWeb and find the font sizes that best fit your visual taste and screen resolution. Now read the file ENV:AWeb3/browser: therein you will find the table of sizes that you need. Insert those values into the preferences of IBrowse and/or Voyager. OK?
I'm an AWeb user, but I have a classic Amiga and can't use your programs!
Who gave this false information to you? Both WebfontSetter.awebrx and WebfontManager.awebrx are ready to work on a classic Amiga with webfonts managed by ttf.library. There is only one difference between MorphOS and AmigaOS in this context: the default filenames used for .font and .otag files by ft2.library and ttf.library. For instance, plain Arial font files are named arialregular.font by ft2.library and arial.font by ttf.library. WebfontManager.awebrx automatically compensates these filename differences. WebfontSetter.awebrx only requires that you specify ttf.library as argument in the command line:
7 Ram Disk: >> Rx WebfontSetter.awebrx ttf.library
That's all.
Will your ARexx routines run in my WinUAE installation?
Are you kidding? You may run Firefox in the PC/Windows environment! Anyway, if you really want to know, the answer is yes, if you have at least AmigaOS 3.1 installed and run WebfontSetter.awebrx as shown above.
What happens when I activate the dynamic font management?
When you press one of the new buttons created in AWeb you start a very demanding sequence of operations. The first action is performed by WebfontManager.awebrx, which calculates and changes the sizes of all the webfonts and pseudo-webfonts. This program is very fast on a PegasosII G4, and takes a few seconds on an Amiga 4000/060. When AWeb reads the new ENV:AWeb3/browser configuration file created by WebfontManager.awebrx, it first asks the OS for rendering of the webfonts present in the HTML pages currently displayed. This task is performed by ft2.library and causes hard disk activity when the webfont .ttf files are read and used for font rendering. Finally, control returns to AWeb for actual display of these fonts.
Can I speed up dynamic font management?
First of all, you need plenty of RAM, which is not a rare case on a PegasosII. In fact rendered fonts will be stored in RAM, and any further recall of these fonts will be immediately satisfied without a new rendering. With enough RAM, the rendering phase will be a task that typically requires time only once, for fonts that were not already rendered. Another speedup can be obtained if you do not install the pseudo-webfonts. The rendering of only 11 webfonts instead of 16 (or more) webfonts + pseudo-webfonts gives at least a 30% speed gain.
Dynamic font management is too slow on my classic Amiga and/or WinUAE installation!
The font generation task is power hungry: you need a fast processor. For normal use (i.e. any HTML file except the webfont test file) there should be no speed problems with a BlizzardPPC/CyberStormPPC board, if you use the PPC version of ttf.library. A 68060 processor is still acceptable, although font generation will be slower. If you use WinUAE, a 500 MHz Pentium probably is the minimum requirement.
I use ttf.library on my Pegasos, can I run your programs with AWeb?
Ehrm... You are an anomalous user. Anyway, run WebfontSetter.awebrx as shown in the black strip above, and be happy.
I am an AmigaOS4 user!
Welcome in the realm of blue people. We are famous for our kind hospitality. I have no AmigaOne for testing my programs but, as far as I know, AmigaOS4 uses ft2.library, too. So everything should work without changes. If not, I am sure that there will be someone of the red people who can patch my programs for you. Good luck.
I am an Amiga user. I have no Pegasos, no AmigaOne, no PPC board, no 68060 processor, but I want to enjoy better fonts in my browser. Can you help me?
Well, download one of the AWeb MAX archives from BigGun 's web site (you need the font-upgraded versions, not older than 2005.12.15), and copy the Fonts directory to your directory FONTS:. This action will install three types of bitmap fonts in your computer: AWebArial.font, AWebCourier.font, AWebTimes.font. Then set your browser as I explained in this subsection. Use AWebArial.font as "Normal" or "Default" font, and even as "sans-serif" font; use AWebCourier.font as "fixed width" font, and even as "monospace" font; use AWebTimes.font as "serif" font. Set the following values for the seven HTML sizes:
  • 1280×1024 screen resolution: 16, 19, 22, 26, 34, 42, 66; if you like larger fonts;
  • 1280×1024 screen resolution: 15, 18, 21, 24, 32, 40, 58; if you like smaller fonts;
  • 1024×768 screen resolution: 14, 16, 19, 22, 28, 36, 52; if you like larger fonts;
  • 1024×768 screen resolution: 13, 15, 18, 21, 28, 34, 52; if you like smaller fonts;
  • 800×600 screen resolution: 12, 14, 16, 18, 24, 32, 46; if you like larger fonts;
  • 800×600 screen resolution: 12, 13, 15, 17, 22, 28, 42; if you like smaller fonts.
Please note that some of the font sizes shown above will be available only in the fonts that will be distributed in the next release of AWeb MAX (coming soon). You should obtain results similar to those shown in this picture (1280×1024, smaller fonts).
I have an Amiga 500 with OS 1.3 and 500 Kb of RAM. Help me!
Urk! Go to the nearest museum and ask for a reserved box in the "Ancient Age of Computers" exhibition...

Acknowledgements

  • This article is dedicated to Dave Targhan Crawford, the mighty webmaster of MorphZone and, above all, a friend.

    Targhan did not know the truth until now, but he was the primary cause of this article. Since he optimized MorphZone for Amiga browsers, he had less care for Firefox, that displays MorphZone with microscopic fonts. So I first was forced to set at relatively high values the minimum font size in Firefox, but as a consequence other web sites started to look ugly. Then I started to set high font sizes with Firefox preferences just to read comfortably MorphZone, but doing this every time was long and boring. Finally I discovered the hotkeys that can increase font sizes on the fly in Firefox and started to be more happy with MorphZone, but... (the rest of the story starts here).

    Targhan did not know the truth until now, but he was the primary goal of this article. I hope that, after the efforts done by BigGun for the creation of the AWeb MAX distribution, and by me, DoctorMorbius_FP, with this extended tutorial, he will be able to use AWeb on his Pegasos without problems.

    So... what can I say now to the man who is the alpha and omega of my work?

    Go, Targhan, go!

  • I would like to thank Gunnar BigGun von Boehn for his extraordinary friendliness, and for comments and betatesting.

  • Many thanks also to Andrea Guruman Maniero for careful betatesting.

  • And of course I would like to thank the AWeb team for continuing the development of this browser. AWeb is still alive thanks to your work: this article is my personal contribution to your efforts.