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How does "Assign" work, especially how does it care about subfolders of "add-on" assigns.

I have a case of a subdirectory not being read in from an "add-on" assign.

The case:

I have a primary FONTS: assign set to Sys:Fonts (in there is a _TrueType subdir)
I also have a secondary FONTS: assign "added" which points toward Tools:System/fonts/ (in there is a _ttf subdir)

The assign command from a console displays them as this:
Fonts System:Fonts
+ Tools:System/fonts


Now, if i choose FONTS:_TrueType in a console it's accessed just fine
but if i choose FONTS:_ttf it's not even seen as directory

Every program (e.g. Odyssey) who wants to access truetype fonts which are inside that _ttf folder can't find it.

Is that a bug in FE or the way "assign" is designed?

A workaround would be to copy the _ttf subdir to Sys:Fonts/, but i really would like to keep the System: partition from gathering too much extra files (which i would need to recopy on an OS update).

If it's a bug, could someone please open a ticket for it?
If it's a missing feature, could someone please open a ticket for it?

I just tested under 4.1.6 and FE, it doesn't work in both OS level.

Therefore at least, it's not a FE bug

Raziel wrote:How does "Assign" work, especially how does it care about subfolders of "add-on" assigns.

I have and "assign add" Fonts: directory and the fonts show up in font requesters. The console prefs fonts requester only shows mono-space (fixed width) fonts, so I think either your _ttf fonts have no mono-spaced fonts or you do not have your _ttf fonts installed correctly. Did you install your fonts with SYS:System/TypeManager?

xenic wrote:

Raziel wrote:How does "Assign" work, especially how does it care about subfolders of "add-on" assigns.

I have and "assign add" Fonts: directory and the fonts show up in font requesters. The console prefs fonts requester only shows mono-space (fixed width) fonts, so I think either your _ttf fonts have no mono-spaced fonts or you do not have your _ttf fonts installed correctly. Did you install your fonts with SYS:System/TypeManager?

Oh?
Yes...i need TypeManager to make them available to AmigaOS4...but do i also need TypeManager to make them available for Odyssey?

Hmm, seems like it...need to test

Thanks for the hint

Nope, still the same after TypeManager.
The added subdir is not seen or found.

Raziel wrote:Nope, still the same after TypeManager.
The added subdir is not seen or found.

I just noticed that most of my fonts in the main FONTS: directory don't show up in the Odyssey font selection dropdown lists. The only fonts I see are some of the BitStream an DejaVous fonts. Maybe it's an Odyssey issue and not an assign issue.

Hmm, yes, it seems like it.

Just tried with MUI and all the fonts are there (inlcuding the add-on assign)

@Raziel:

I have made a bit of research into this matter, and also asked around internally for how things are expected to work.

Sorry it has taken a while, but I wanted to make sure I could see the same things happening on a clean FE system as I initially did on my beta setup.

First of all, handling a multi-assign situation is not something any program automatically has given to it, at least not in all situations. It depends on which DOS functions it uses.

If it opens a specific file using DOS' Open() function, it should automatically find the file in any of the multi-assigned components. But if it tries to iterate through all the files with MatchFirst()/MatchNext(), using the assignment as path (e.g. "FONTS:"), it needs to a) use a pattern in the path (e.g. "FONTS:#?") for MatchFirst(), and b) set a special flag in the MatchNext() call to allow it to span all components of a multi-assign.

Some commands already do this, or has a switch which can make them do it. For instance, you can try "List FONTS:#? multi sort n", it will show you both parts of your FONTS: assign.

The Shell autocompletion does not, in my experience, find the second part of the assignment, i.e. you cannot enter FONTS:_tt, hit TAB and get it to expand to FONTS:_ttf. But if you enter FONTS:_ttf and hit Enter, it will CD to the directory all right.

As for your example with Odyssey, I think it may be a case of a usage error. I made a new directory on a separate partition, called Store:ExtraOdysseyFonts, and assign ADD'ed it to my FONTS:. Then I installed a few TTF fonts (which I hadn't been using before) into it with TypeManager. Afterwards, I renamed the subdirectory _TrueType (created by TypeManager) to _ttf, and then I ran FixFonts.

When I started Odyssey after this, it picked up that it needed to refresh the font config (it showed the progress window for a short while before opening the main window), and when I then went into Preferences->Fonts, I could select my new fonts in the list for one (any) of the font types. I could also see the new font being used on an appropriate web page.

So Odyssey (or its font config setup routines) is able to see all the parts of the multi-assign, and whatever it calls to load the fonts afterwards is clearly also able to see it.

Hope this explains at least some of the issues you have been seeing.

Best regards,

Niels

Thank you very much for the in-depth explanation.

I need to dig deeper into that, it does seem as i'm missing astep on the font installation process, can't see it quite yet, though