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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

Dropping some legacy stuff (remove support for original xcom font)


Serge

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Does anybody use the original x-com fonts with ufo2000? They are even disabled in the default config now. If nobody objects, I guess it's better to drop them for good. The point is that the game is supposed to be also perfectly usable without x-com fonts. And keeping support for x-com font has some inconveniences. It is not scalable (has only two fixed sizes) and makes proper multi-language support in the game problematic (it is missing some of the character glyphs). I think it's best to concentrate on making a good and nice looking UI, which should be well scalable to any screen resolutions. Old x-com font is one of the things which hinder progress in this area. Edited by Serge
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I personally think our current font is repulsive, no offense. However, it's just a font in the end, so I don't care if it is removed. If it is to push the UI in a better direction, then I'm all for it. We can always change fonts later on anyway.

 

Perhaps use the current font as default, while allowing for others to import their own fonts in a similar fashion in a customizable map/unit/weapon lua file. Whatever symbols missing will use the default font.

 

I think Nachtwolf suggested a different font before IIRC.

 

http://www.xcomufo.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=242024951

Edited by Kratos
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For us it's better to use freely redistributable fonts with permissive licenses. Dejavu (the one bundled with the game) is one of the options. I did not pay much attention to this lately, but I think I have seen some announcements about developing/sponsoring more free fonts at least for ubuntu, so there might be a bit more choice now. We can also add a possibility of using some external fonts preinstalled in the system, though I would use it only as the last resort. But in any case, old x-com fonts are obviously technically inferior for the reasons described in the my initial post.
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Did some experiments with fonts on last weekend. In addition to ttf format, ufo2000 can support bdf (monospace bitmap) fonts. The candidates for use in the game are terminus (GPL licensed) and misc-misc (public domain) fonts. They are both unicode fonts and support a lot of languages. More suggestions for good looking fonts are welcome.

 

In any case, I will try to make an experimental git branch with the fonts update for preview.

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but could you integrate a option in the config file to go back to the original ufo fonts ?

No. That's the whole point. It is already used this way, and this setup is bad.

 

We have to ensure that the game can work without x-com data, that's out of question. Now if we also need to support using the original x-com fonts, this introduces extra unwanted problems that I have already mentioned: the original x-com fonts are not scalable (only 8x9 and 16x16 font sizes are supported) and they do not work well with unicode and multiple languages. These are quite severe restrictions which are holding us back. Surely, we could keep an option to still use x-com fonts when they are available and when the user explicitly sets an option to use them. But what's the point if the end result would look like crap? Do we need these additional troubles? And as an extra reason, it is one of the oldest and ugliest parts of ufo2000 code which I did not write myself :)

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no sure your right. it was just the nostalgic me that wanted this option ;) terminus is great. Looks technical, easy to read, and it would fit to the game style i think. A very good choice

(and works good in small sizes)

Edited by meodai
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