Shiny New E-Book Gizmo: The Amazon Kindle


View Full Version : Different Font with iSilo


Alexander Turcic
03-25-2003, 07:58 AM
Some people have complained that iSilo doesn't support different fonts like for instance PalmReader Pro does.

But you can use different fonts with iSilo. Lubak (http://www.pilot.sk/lubak) gives an excellent explanation how to do that. He offers solutions for both, Palm OS 4.x and 5.x users.

For OS 4.x users (like myself), you basically need three things:
[list=1]
A hack manager a la Tealmaster (http://www.palmgear.com/software/showsoftware.cfm?prodID=12167) (Payware) or X-Master (http://www.palmgear.com/software/showsoftware.cfm?prodID=12184) (free)
FontHack 4.0c Beta (http://www.sergem.net/fonthack123/) (make sure you scroll down to the hi-res download)
A font database. Here you have the choice. You can either pick one font database from Lubak's page (http://www.pilot.sk/lubak/cliefonts.htm), or you can get the Swiz (http://www.palmgear.com/software/showsoftware.cfm?prodID=43299) font, or you can use (if you already own it) or buy the Palm Reader Pro Font Packs (http://www.palmdigitalmedia.com/font.cgi).
[/list=1]
In your hack manager you can configure Fonthack to map the new font to your current system font. You can do this either specifically for iSilo, or system-wide.

My favorite Font (which I use since day 2 of my Clie) is the "OS5" font from Lubak's page (http://www.pilot.sk/lubak/down/OS5.pdb). The font mapping for this font is:
HrStandard -> OS5 (0)
HrBold -> OS5 (1)
HrLarge -> OS5 (2)
HrLargeBold -> OS5 (3)

I will post some comparison screenshots in the next few days.

If anyone of you owns a OS 5.x Palm and want to tell us his/her experience with font replacements, please do so here :)

sUnShInE
03-25-2003, 01:09 PM
The only reason I used PalmReader Pro instead of iSilo for reading ebooks (one of my fave past times) was because of the fonts.

Wow. Thanks Alexander! I'm going to dump PRP. :)

radleyp
03-25-2003, 02:01 PM
I use Palm Reader Pro because of the books I can get there and nowhere else, the Webster's Unabridged for example. Tell me how I can get that elsewhere, and I too will consider limiting myself to iSilo alone. RadleyP

radleyp
03-25-2003, 02:22 PM
One further note: I cannot use FontHack anyhow, since it conflicts with cyrillic localization. Either one or the other, not both, works. RadleyP

Alexander Turcic
03-26-2003, 09:43 AM
Webster's Unabridged is also available as stand-alone for PalmOS, but it comes with the awkward Franklin Bookreader.

kstuart
03-27-2003, 01:56 AM
Isilo consistently uses fonts that are too small for me to see (due to using HiRes).

I use FontHack 123 using the same mapping listed above - but the problem is that Isilo doesn't use the "HR___" fonts.

Since the Standard font is used in the menu system, if I map that font using FontHack 123, then the menus become unusable.

If I set Isilo to "Large Font Absolute", then I can map the Large Font to a font that I want to use (and standard stays the same so that menus are okay), but I lose all the formatting - for some reason, it doesn't use then use LargeBold for Bold text, and so forth, it just uses the one font for everything.

That setup works for Shadow Plan, because that program works well with one font and font size for everything, but in Isilo, I lose everything that I want out of a web page reader if I do that.

This looks like a "deal breaker", frankly.

PS Another problem I've encountered is that the synced files don't end up in the categories in the Isilo viewer that are set in IsiloX.

Alexander Turcic
03-27-2003, 02:04 AM
iSilo uses the HR fonts. Have a look at the next two screenshots.

Alexander Turcic
03-27-2003, 02:05 AM
iSilo using original 4.x fontsettings

Alexander Turcic
03-27-2003, 02:06 AM
iSilo using Lubak's OS 5 (http://www.pilot.sk/lubak/down/OS5.pdb) fontsettings (as described here (http://www.turcic.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=1470#post1470))

Alexander Turcic
03-27-2003, 02:10 AM
Originally posted by kstuart
PS Another problem I've encountered is that the synced files don't end up in the categories in the Isilo viewer that are set in IsiloX.

Interesting. I haven't had this problem and am using categories all the time. Can you tell me your current setup (iSilo version, category name, ...)?

Alexander Turcic
03-27-2003, 02:16 AM
iSilo using PalmReaderPro's BELL MT (http://www.palmdigitalmedia.com/font.cgi) fontsettings

Alexander Turcic
03-27-2003, 02:17 AM
iSilo using PalmReaderPro's BELL MT (http://www.palmdigitalmedia.com/font.cgi) fontsettings (another screenshot)

Alexander Turcic
03-27-2003, 02:29 AM
iSilo using PalmReaderPro's Gill Sans (http://www.palmdigitalmedia.com/font.cgi) fontsettings

Alexander Turcic
03-27-2003, 02:36 AM
Originally posted by kstuart
Since the Standard font is used in the menu system, if I map that font using FontHack 123, then the menus become unusable.


If you use Lubak's (http://www.turcic.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=1470#post1470) mappings for OS5 for instance, the menus still look just fine.

Alexander Turcic
03-27-2003, 04:29 AM
iSilo using PalmReaderPro's Utah MT Condensed (http://www.palmdigitalmedia.com/font.cgi) fontsettings

Alexander Turcic
03-27-2003, 04:30 AM
iSilo using PalmReaderPro's Utah MT Condensed (http://www.palmdigitalmedia.com/font.cgi) fontsettings (another screenshot)

kstuart
03-27-2003, 11:24 AM
Hello,

I'm using iSilo v3.3 and the iSiloX beta v3.35b1b (neither is registered) on a Clie NR70 (PalmOS 4.1).

As far as the categories go, the iSiloX properties for a particular document says "Use category - News".

After hotsyncing, the document is in "Unfiled". If I change the category of the document in iSilo on the PDA to "News", it is then in "News".

Okay, now for Fonts. I played around with it some more and what I think is going on is that it uses 4 fonts (as described in the Isilo support web site):

On devices with a 320x320 resolution or 240x320 resolution screen, four font sizes are available: tiny, small, standard, and large. The following is the default mapping assuming that the current display options have the font set to standard and relative mode:

tiny: If the font size is less than 9pt.
small: If the font size is at least 9pt but less than 12pt.
standard: If the font size is at least 12pt but less than 14pt.
large: If the font size is 14pt or greater.

The problem is that I'm pretty sure that some of these are mapped to "standard" fonts and some to "HR" fonts.

The evidence is that if I change the "Standard" setting in FontHack, then some of the fonts in my documents change. And (contrary to what I said above), if I change the "HRstandard" setting in FontHack, then other fonts change. (The reason I didn't notice this is that the ones that changed with "Standard" were the thin ones that I needed to change, and the ones that changed with "HRstandard" were not the ones I was trying to change, so I didn't notice the change).

It's likely that the reason you think it works (assuming that the N760C uses the same font setup for iSilo) is that none of your documents use particularly small fonts that you have tried to change.

One thing that I now positively know, which is the big problem, is that the Menus use "Standard" for the left column, and "HRstandard" for the right column. This means that any change to either font using FontHack123 will change the Menus - which are already fine, and become totally messed up if I use a "Standard" font that looks right in the Documents.

My guess is that iSilo is using something like:

tiny - Standard
small - Large
standard - HRstandard
large - HRlarge

This is with "relative" font sizes.

As I mentioned there is an additional oversight that makes "Absolute" difficult to use, in that "Bold" is not implemented when "Absolute" is selected, ie it uses that one font in all places, and does not use the Bold version of that font when called for. (Otherwise, I might be able to live with Absolute for certain daily News documents.)

Alexander Turcic
03-27-2003, 11:27 AM
Interesting. I will look closer in what you said and check it with my iSilo. I have one question though... why do you want to replace the "Standard" font? If you try to only replace the 4 HR_ fonts as explained for the Lubak OS5 fonts, everything should look still fine. Of course, the tiny font will still be the original Clie tiny font (Standard as you I think correctly pointed out). Same for the small font.

kstuart
03-27-2003, 12:04 PM
To restate, there are Isilo documents created by IsiloX from news web sites that use mainly the "Standard" font on my PDA.

Part of the problem here is that the word "standard" is being used for two or three different things. By "standard" I mean the font name in the left in FontHack123, for example:'

HRstandard > OS5 (0)

is something we both use in FontHack123.

If I change:

Standard > none

to some other font, then the font appearing in the Isilo document created by IsiloX is no longer too thin, but then the menus are messed up.

(If I use relative->Large, then some documents that are otherwise fine, then have too big a font size.)

What may be confusing you is that iSilo is using 8 fonts - tiny,small,standard,large - and the bold versions of each. Your mapping of the OS5 (which I also use) only covers 4 fonts.

Also note the terms "tiny,small,standard,large" are terms that are not used by FontHack123, and one has to experiment to find which 8 fonts are being used by iSilo (in terms of FontHack123's font names).

Here is a web page to convert in iSiloX so that you can see what I mean:

http://www.techbargains.com/pocket/index.cfm

radleyp
03-27-2003, 12:40 PM
K Stuart: I don't understand your categorization problem. If I create a category on the handheld for a particular website, then sync the site back and forth once, the site goes into the correct handheld category thereafter. Is this not your experience? RadleyP

Alexander Turcic
03-27-2003, 04:07 PM
Originally posted by kstuart
To restate, there are Isilo documents created by IsiloX from news web sites that use mainly the "Standard" font on my PDA.

Part of the problem here is that the word "standard" is being used for two or three different things. By "standard" I mean the font name in the left in FontHack123, for example:'

HRstandard > OS5 (0)

is something we both use in FontHack123.

If I change:

Standard > none

to some other font, then the font appearing in the Isilo document created by IsiloX is no longer too thin, but then the menus are messed up.
I wouldn't change the Standard font or any other non-hires font. Only change the HR_ fonts and you don't run into the problem mentioned above.

What may be confusing you is that iSilo is using 8 fonts - tiny,small,standard,large - and the bold versions of each. Your mapping of the OS5 (which I also use) only covers 4 fonts.
Yes, but the mapping is good for the main HR_Standard font, the font that should usually be most used in documents. If you also want to change the tiny fonts, I recommend you have a look at the Swiz fonts (the author also gives an example for a correct mapping).

Here is a web page to convert in iSiloX so that you can see what I mean:
http://www.techbargains.com/pocket/index.cfm
Will take a look at it :)

Cheers!!

kstuart
03-27-2003, 05:20 PM
Originally posted by radleyp
K Stuart: I don't understand your categorization problem. If I create a category on the handheld for a particular website, then sync the site back and forth once, the site goes into the correct handheld category thereafter. Is this not your experience? RadleyP

Aha! I figured out that problem.

If you already have an earlier version of the Document in a different category, the new updated version of the Document is put in the OLD category (in this case "Unfiled"), not in the category specified in IsiloX.

When I DELETED the earlier version of the Document which was in a different category, the new update went into the category specified in IsiloX.

I'm not sure is this is a "bug", but it at least should be a prominently documented "behavior"...

kstuart
03-27-2003, 05:46 PM
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What may be confusing you is that iSilo is using 8 fonts - tiny,small,standard,large - and the bold versions of each. Your mapping of the OS5 (which I also use) only covers 4 fonts.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Yes, but the mapping is good for the main HR_Standard font, the font that should usually be most used in documents. If you also want to change the tiny fonts, I recommend you have a look at the Swiz fonts (the author also gives an example for a correct mapping).


What you are missing is that the SAME Standard font that is used in the menus IS being used by iSilo as either the "Tiny" or "Small" Font. Thus, if I make it look right in the document, then the menu is messed up...

kstuart
03-28-2003, 01:47 AM
One more thing.

The iSiloX documentation says "An off-site link is defined as a link to a target in a different domain."

In actuality, different servers in the same domain are excluded when one excludes off-site links.

For example, I have a Weather URL which starts with http://printer.wunderground.com, and if off-site links are excluded, then http://radar.wunderground.com and http://autobrand.wunderground.com are also excluded.

Alexander Turcic
03-28-2003, 01:48 AM
You are probably right. Thanks for clearing it up.

Will see if I find a solution to this.

gvtexas
03-28-2003, 07:18 AM
Originally posted by kstuart
In actuality, different servers in the same domain are excluded when one excludes off-site links.

For example, I have a Weather URL which starts with http://printer.wunderground.com, and if off-site links are excluded, then http://radar.wunderground.com and http://autobrand.wunderground.com are also excluded. The domains you listed are indeed different....they are all subdomains, and iSilo probably sees these as seperate domains, although they are probably on the same server. The routing for subdomains is a little different, and I think the flow leaves the initial domain to do so. I believe (guessing, really), that iSilo wants to start at a domain address and work within that, not jump out. Maybe iSilo can pop in here and explain further, but I think it's excluding those because they are not technically of the same domain.

kstuart
03-28-2003, 10:29 AM
This is another question of documentation.

When Weather Underground weather information bought the "www.wunderground.com" domain name, they didn't have to separately buy any sub-domains.

Indeed the concept of "sub-" is that it is entirely included within the larger category.

If the software is designed to only include the exact sub-domain, then the documentation needs to reflect that.

Alexander Turcic
03-28-2003, 12:31 PM
I agree. DC should fix this technical finesse in the iSilo manual.