Re: No TrueType 141?

[Robert Holmgren holmgren@xxxxxxxx]

** Reply to note from Wolfgang Bechstein Tue, 11 Nov 1997

> It seems like Peter Evans still hasn't got a satisfactory answer to
> his--in my opinion eminently sensible and not that hard to grasp--query
> about how to enter certain ANSI characters in XyWin...
> Robert Holmgren has made valiant attempts,
> but pardon my saying so, it seems that some of what he said is bogus

Thanks!

> (possibly because he is not using Windows at all--correct
> me if I'm wrong).

I'm running Windows v3.1 in an OS/2 v4.0 FixPack4 VDM (Virtual DOS
Machine). I'm using the original WingDings TTF, dated 1992, that came with
MSWin v3.1, derived from my genuine MSWin v3.1 installation. If any of
this were relevant, I would have mentioned it; but because this is the
environment for which XyWin is designed, results generated within it, and
duplicated precisely under MicroSoft Write, can hardly be said to be
"bogus" -- WHEREAS if they were produced under a Unix emulator or, say,
Windows 95, using editors fonts & tools designed for Win95, then, all
bets would be off. Obviously. Right?

> To recapitulate, Evans is running Windows 95 without any special code
> page specified.

Evans didn't even HINT that he was running Windows 95 until his fourth or
fifth droll msg on the subject (by which time I had dropped out, or rather
dead).

> (And frankly, I was rather surprised to hear guru par excellence Holmgren ask
> "what XyWrite character set?". Has he never, I wonder, looked at the
> 35-page long Appendix B in the XyWin manual, which starts thus: "XyWrite
> has a unique character set that is designed to support a wide range of
> languages. The following pages show all 909 XyWrite characters.")

Yeah, I'm vaguely familiar with it. IMO, the "XyWrite character set"
exists >255 exclusively; chars <256 are mighty generic. We could go on,
but...

How about a deal? I give you the big black circle with the 2 in the
middle; and we stop talking about this?

Do you know how to generate a three-byte character? I'm talking non-
standard 3-byte chars here; there are 131,000 of them, give or take, that
XyWin recognizes. The specific character that you want is 255-252-13. If
you don't know how to make it, then there's a package called PUTCHAR.ZIP at
XyWWWeb http://users.datarealm.com/xywwweb/ that will do it for you,
automatically. Search for "MAKe3BYTeR.PM" and download the file. Inside
PUTCHAR.ZIP are two frames, PUTCHAR and MAKE3BYTER (or M3); load both
frames in U2, then command "m3 255-252-13", and your ANSI 141 will
pop into XyWin text. (There are other 3-byte $trings that would generate
ANSI 141 also -- 59 others, to be exact -- but let's stick with this one.)
Note that in non-graphic modes, this character displays (in reverse-video,
so that you know it's ANSI) as i-grave (141d); in graphic mode, it displays
as a black circle surrounding numeral 2. This is, I assume, what you're
looking for.

Want to see XyWin's translation of the ANSI character set? I published it
in January '95 on the XyQuest BBS. It is still available at XyWWWeb;
search for "CHARSET" and download CHARSET.ZIP. At the tail end of enclosed
file CHARSET.REV there's an *untitled* table of all the ANSI characters 0-
255 (in eXPanded mode this table is just four lines long; it immediately
precedes another table titled "Complete Table of the Ascii 0-255 Character
Set, expressed in classic 3-byte codes"). Slap UFWingDings, SymbolSet 8M,
and a nice large SiZe in front of this (untitled) table, and you'll view
the whole thing. You can copy and paste characters out of this table. They
print properly, too, on my LJ2. What I would do, if you want to find out
what XyWin can extract from Wingdings TTF, is JuMP to  24912 in
CHARSET.REV, and print everything from that point to EOF.

Want to generate ANSI characters on the fly? Carl Distefano's program REV
does just that, although only for ordinary "keystroked" text (works like an
ANSI keyboard file). Search for "REVerse-video characters" at XyWWWeb, and DL
file REV.ZIP. REV.PM has been part of SmartSet since the first edition.

Want to generate *any* ANSI character on the fly? Try ANSI.PM (ANSI.ZIP on
XyWWWeb -- search for "ANSI"). This works for all characters. Command
"ansi 141" and the character is put at the current (CMline|Text)
cursor location. Command "ansi 236" and you'll get your bold NE
arrow. (The program probably works in Neanderthal RUN mode also, e.g.
RUN ANSI.PM 141 -- I didn't test it.)

And I _still_ get all 256 characters in WingDings to print out under
XyWin -- standard edition, standard 1-byte characters. Notwithstanding your
skepticism or your book. "Secrets" my foot.



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Robert Holmgren
holmgren@xxxxxxxx
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