Fun with MacOS (NOT) [was Re: Announceing subsurface 1.2]

[Lubomir I. Ivanov]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dirk Hohndel" <dirk at hohndel.org>
>
> So it turns out that apparently only a few of the fonts on the Mac
> correctly render the UTF8 characters that I used for the star rating.
>

looks like the stars aren't rendered on my winxp as well.
(and very portable in that sense across os's/fonts)
these glyphs seem quite exotic, infact:
http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/2605/fontsupport.htm

the only windows font i recognize in the above list is
"Arial Unicode MS", yet i don't have it installed (not sure why).
apprently fonts that are default (i think) on gnome like "dejavu sans" and 
"libertine" have them.

i can suggest the white/black circle (or square) instead, which seem much more 
portable:
http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/25cf/fontsupport.htm

#define UTF8_WHITESTAR "\xe2\x97\x8b"
#define UTF8_BLACKSTAR "\xe2\x97\x8f"

but the default subsurface UI font - "Sans" is a bit silly and has the white 
cicle bigger (for the square as well), over here - which does not make any 
sense, considering these are part of the "Geometric Shapes" table.

this looks nicer:

#define UTF8_WHITESTAR "\xe2\x80\x8d"
#define UTF8_BLACKSTAR "\xe2\x97\x8f"

where "white star" in this case is 
http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/25cb/fontsupport.htm
"zero-width joiner". BTW, i've previously forgot about the zero-width codes, but 
this might have been a solution to the issue we were having with the blank 
combo-boxes, which are now fixed i believe.
only in the case if such render, of course.

on the other hand, if stars are really prefered, perhaps gtk supports loading an 
image / icon in the list or combobox. this could end being being "a lot of 
fun"...

> The good news (off topic, given the Subject: of this email) is that I
> have a working Windows installer up on the website (please test when you
> get a chance... so far this has only been run in a VM with Win7)
>

the installer seems to be missing the xslt runtime - libxslt-1.dll,
but it works ok: installs into "program files" and ask if the user he wants to 
store the settings.

lubomir