Working with Fonts and Calibre

kiwidude · 03-04-2011, 09:58 AM

I'm working on a "Generate Cover" plugin which allows all sorts of customisation of a cover that gets generated. As part of that I wanted to offer the ability for the user to choose fonts for the rendering using magick of the title, author, series.

The issue is whether it is possible to make use of the QFontDialog as a UI for selecting a font to then pass to the drawing code in the magick namespace. As far as I can tell, the magick stuff takes a physical file path, whereas a QFontDialog gives you a QFont from which you get a font family.

Is there any suggested way of reconciling the two? In a cross platform way? I saw some code via Google which queried the registry for font matches but obviously that is a windows only option.

Or should I just use a file chooser dialog and get the user to navigate to a .ttf file instead?

GRiker · 03-04-2011, 10:39 AM

Take a look at gui2.convert.mobi_output.py, I use a combo box there to list available fonts, that might be of some assistance.

G

user_none · 03-04-2011, 10:46 AM

The font file has to be read at some point to populate the font dialog. I would first look to see if QFont stores the file path. Then I would look at the Qt source to see how it loads the font list. It would have to handle it per platform and might have some cross platform method.

kiwidude · 03-04-2011, 11:53 AM

Thanks guys.

@user_none - I found a feature request on the web for QFont to have this info and it was rejected by the devs as not worth the effort. My reading of what is going on is that Qt deals with the font abstractions it is passed by other layered components underneath, so it doesn't actually know the file path. So I think I will abandon QFontDialog - I think if I used the Qt drawing ability it would be useful but I'm trying not to start from scratch on the image stuff.

@GRiker - thanks for pointing me at that font combo, I'll try to figure out some sort of UI using similar code.

kovidgoyal · 03-04-2011, 11:55 AM

There's already a tweak to specify the font paths. If you want a UI for the tweak, use the FontFamilyModel from gui2.widgets, see the lrf output or mobi output plugins for an example.

Qt doesn't make paths to fonts available, because of DRM (windows tries to prevent programs from accessing font data unless they have the embed bit set).

kiwidude · 03-04-2011, 12:08 PM

Thx Kovid, yeah I have seen the tweaks for covers. Originally I wasn't going to bother with offering font choices at all since they existed. However I wanted both more granularity and also to not force users to have to go through separate dialogs/calibre restarts to switch a font. I still will fallback to respecting that value if the user does not bother in my plugin.

kiwidude · 03-04-2011, 03:34 PM

All working now, thanks for the pointers guys.

GRiker · 03-04-2011, 04:01 PM

That looks awesome, looking forward to trying it.

G

theducks · 03-04-2011, 07:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kiwidude

All working now, thanks for the pointers guys.

Wow!
Now if I only had artistic TALENT

Got a plug-in for that?

03-04-2011, 09:58 AM	#1
kiwidude Calibre Plugins Developer Posts: 4,635 Karma: 2162064 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Australia Device: Kindle Oasis	Working with Fonts and Calibre I'm working on a "Generate Cover" plugin which allows all sorts of customisation of a cover that gets generated. As part of that I wanted to offer the ability for the user to choose fonts for the rendering using magick of the title, author, series. The issue is whether it is possible to make use of the QFontDialog as a UI for selecting a font to then pass to the drawing code in the magick namespace. As far as I can tell, the magick stuff takes a physical file path, whereas a QFontDialog gives you a QFont from which you get a font family. Is there any suggested way of reconciling the two? In a cross platform way? I saw some code via Google which queried the registry for font matches but obviously that is a windows only option. Or should I just use a file chooser dialog and get the user to navigate to a .ttf file instead?

03-04-2011, 03:34 PM	#7
kiwidude Calibre Plugins Developer Posts: 4,635 Karma: 2162064 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Australia Device: Kindle Oasis	All working now, thanks for the pointers guys. Attached Thumbnails

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03-04-2011, 10:39 AM	#2
GRiker Comparer of the Ephemeris Posts: 1,496 Karma: 424697 Join Date: Mar 2009 Device: iPad	Take a look at gui2.convert.mobi_output.py, I use a combo box there to list available fonts, that might be of some assistance. G

03-04-2011, 10:46 AM	#3
user_none Sigil & calibre developer Posts: 2,488 Karma: 1063785 Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Florida, USA Device: Nook STR	The font file has to be read at some point to populate the font dialog. I would first look to see if QFont stores the file path. Then I would look at the Qt source to see how it loads the font list. It would have to handle it per platform and might have some cross platform method.

03-04-2011, 11:53 AM	#4
kiwidude Calibre Plugins Developer Posts: 4,635 Karma: 2162064 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Australia Device: Kindle Oasis	Thanks guys. @user_none - I found a feature request on the web for QFont to have this info and it was rejected by the devs as not worth the effort. My reading of what is going on is that Qt deals with the font abstractions it is passed by other layered components underneath, so it doesn't actually know the file path. So I think I will abandon QFontDialog - I think if I used the Qt drawing ability it would be useful but I'm trying not to start from scratch on the image stuff. @GRiker - thanks for pointing me at that font combo, I'll try to figure out some sort of UI using similar code.

03-04-2011, 11:55 AM	#5
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 43,826 Karma: 22666666 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	There's already a tweak to specify the font paths. If you want a UI for the tweak, use the FontFamilyModel from gui2.widgets, see the lrf output or mobi output plugins for an example. Qt doesn't make paths to fonts available, because of DRM (windows tries to prevent programs from accessing font data unless they have the embed bit set).

03-04-2011, 12:08 PM	#6
kiwidude Calibre Plugins Developer Posts: 4,635 Karma: 2162064 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Australia Device: Kindle Oasis	Thx Kovid, yeah I have seen the tweaks for covers. Originally I wasn't going to bother with offering font choices at all since they existed. However I wanted both more granularity and also to not force users to have to go through separate dialogs/calibre restarts to switch a font. I still will fallback to respecting that value if the user does not bother in my plugin.

03-04-2011, 04:01 PM	#8
GRiker Comparer of the Ephemeris Posts: 1,496 Karma: 424697 Join Date: Mar 2009 Device: iPad	That looks awesome, looking forward to trying it. G

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