Appropriate Fonts for a dialog

[Tim Lakinir]

Hi all, being new in programming I have been using the ARIAL font and sometimes ARIAL Unicode MS in my dialogs.
On this forum, I found that some members are using Segoe UI and Tahoma and I have began testing them out and found them to be better refined than ARIAL
which is fat and big?

Hence, what would be the most appropriate fonts that you experienced programmers would use for your dialogs?
appreciate your comments on this

[Stuart McLachlan]

Segoe UI (9pt) is the default font for dialogs in Windows 10 (In WIn11, it's "Segoe UI Variable")
The default used to be Tahoma on earlier WIndows versions.
Unless you have a reason to change it, it's best to stick with it.
For more info, see:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...uide/vis-fonts

Note from that link:
If you do only one thing...
Respect the user's settings by always using the system font, sizes, and colors.

[Dale Yarker]

At 8, 9 or 10 points for labeling in images (using like MS Paint) ARIAL works well.

Used Tahoma many times in HTML. Cosolas is monospaced, so is handy for PBCC and source code in HTML.

Lately have often been using Microsoft Sans Serif for PBWin dialogs/controls. (Do not confuse it with MS Sans Serif which is ANSI only (you are now using WSTRINGs, right?))

Cheers,

[Stuart McLachlan]

Lately have often been using Microsoft Sans Serif for PBWin dialogs/controls. (Do not confuse it with MS Sans Serif which is ANSI only (you are now using WSTRINGs, right?))

Cheers,

Not to mention that MS Sans Serif is real skinny and looks like sh*t as well as not having many of the higher ANSI characters common in Western Code Pages such as CP 1252.

[Dale Yarker]

Had considered editing my previous post to mention Character Map Accessory, now I don't have to

[Stuart McLachlan]

If you want to use different symbols other than standard alphabetic characters, it's worth considering how many different glyphs there are in each of the fonts:
Microsoft San Serf and Segoe both have around 3,000
Arial Unicode MS has over 51,000

[Steve Hutchesson]

The general drift with font choice is to use a font that is available in the OS, nothing custom or other users will not get the correct display. Nothing beats eyeballing the result, try different fonts of different weights and sizes until you get one that looks the way you want.

[Stuart McLachlan]

If you want to use a font that is not available by default in WIndows, it's trivial to include it in your application as RCDATA and create and use a memory resident font in your application. Just call AddFontMemResourceEx. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...tmemresourceex



DSEG7Modern-Bold.ttf is in the attached zip along with the source file.
'

#COMPILE EXE "7SegClock.exe"
#DIM ALL
%UNICODE = 1
#INCLUDE ONCE "WIN32API.INC"
#RESOURCE RCDATA, ResFont, "DSEG7Modern-Bold.ttf" '

ENUM ctrls SINGULAR
    IDC_Minutes = 1001
    IDC_Seconds
    IDC_Date
END ENUM

GLOBAL ghResFont AS LONG
GLOBAL ghFont1 AS DWORD
GLOBAL ghFont2 AS DWORD

FUNCTION PBMAIN() AS LONG
      ghResFont = AddMemResFont("ResFont")
      ShowClock 0
END FUNCTION

FUNCTION SHowClock (hParent AS DWORD) AS LONG
    LOCAL lRslt,BGColour AS LONG
    LOCAL hDlg AS DWORD
    FONT NEW "DSEG7 Modern", 24, 1, %ANSI_CharSet TO ghFont1
    FONT NEW "DSEG7 Modern",12, 1, %ANSI_CharSet TO ghFont2
    BGCOlour = RGB(220,248,255)
    DIALOG NEW hParent, "Clock",,, 120, 56,%DS_MODALFRAME OR %WS_BORDER OR %WS_CLIPSIBLINGS _
                                                 OR %WS_DLGFRAME OR %WS_POPUP OR %WS_SYSMENU OR %WS_MINIMIZEBOX  TO hDlg
        CONTROL ADD LABEL, hDlg, %IDC_Minutes, "", 10,5,75,20
        CONTROL ADD LABEL, hDlg, %IDC_Seconds, "", 90,12,20,10
        CONTROL ADD LABEL, hDlg, %IDC_Date, "", 14,40,100,20

        DIALOG SET COLOR hDlg,-1,BGColour
        CONTROL SET FONT hDlg, %IDC_Minutes, ghFont1
        CONTROL SET COLOR hDlg,%IDC_Minutes, %BLUE,BGColour
        CONTROL SET COLOR hDlg, %IDC_Seconds, %BLUE,BGColour
        CONTROL SET FONT hDlg,%IDC_Seconds, ghFont2
        CONTROL SET COLOR hDlg, %IDC_Date, %BLUE,BGColour
        CONTROL SET FONT hDlg,%IDC_Date, ghFont2

    DIALOG SHOW MODAL hDlg, CALL MainDlgCB TO lRslt
END FUNCTION

CALLBACK FUNCTION MainDlgCB()
    LOCAL strT1 AS STRING
    STATIC strT2 AS STRING
    LOCAL strT3 AS STRING
    STATIC COLONON AS LONG

    SELECT CASE AS LONG CB.MSG
        CASE %WM_INITDIALOG
            settimer CB.HNDL, 1,500,0
            colonon = -1
            strT1 = LEFT$(TIME$,5)
            strT2 = RIGHT$(TIME$,2)
            CONTROL SET TEXT CB.HNDL ,%IDC_Minutes, strT1
            CONTROL SET TEXT CB.HNDL ,%IDC_Seconds, strT2
            CONTROL SET TEXT CB.HNDL,%IDC_Date,RIGHT$(DATE$,4) & "-" & LEFT$(DATE$,2) & "-" & MID$(DATE$,4,2)
            settimer CB.HNDL, 1,500,0
            strT2 = LEFT$(TIME$,5)


        CASE %WM_TIMER
            IF CB.WPARAM = 1 THEN
                strT1 = LEFT$(TIME$,5)
                strT3 = RIGHT$(TIME$,2)
                IF strT1 <> strT2 THEN 'if minute has rolled over
                    strT2 = strT1
                    CONTROL SET TEXT CB.HNDL,%IDC_Date,RIGHT$(DATE$,4) & "-" & LEFT$(DATE$,2) & "-" & MID$(DATE$,4,2)
                END IF
                IF colonon THEN
                    colonon = 0
                ELSE
                    REPLACE ":" WITH " " IN strT1
                    colonon = -1
                END IF
                CONTROL SET TEXT CB.HNDL ,%IDC_Minutes, strT1
                CONTROL SET TEXT CB.HNDL ,%IDC_Seconds, strT3
            END IF

        CASE %WM_DESTROY
            FONT END ghFont1 ' end font
            FONT END ghFont2 ' end font
            RemoveFontMemResourceEx(ghResFont)

    END SELECT
END FUNCTION

FUNCTION AddMemResFont(sResName AS WSTRING) AS LONG
    LOCAL sBuffer AS STRING
    LOCAL numfonts  AS LONG
    IF sResName = "" THEN EXIT FUNCTION
    sBuffer = RESOURCE$(RCDATA, sResName)
    FUNCTION = AddFontMemResourceEx( STRPTR(sBuffer), LEN(sBuffer), %NULL, numfonts)
END FUNCTION
'

[Tim Lakinir]

Thank you Sir Stuart, where can I download the ttf files so that I can use other types of fonts?

[Dale Yarker]

put free font ttf file download in Google and pick one.
I typed "free ttf" and that popped up as a choice

[Steve Hutchesson]

Some time ago I needed some specialised fonts so after downloading a few of the free ones that had missing characters and were squarking for money, I found a source that had 10 thousand fonts so I bought the package. The next PHUN part was wading through a massive number of fonts to find the ones that were useful.

The only catch with adding a TTF or OTF font to a resource section is you app gets bigger by the size of the font.

[Stuart McLachlan]

Thank you Sir Stuart, where can I download the ttf files so that I can use other types of fonts?

Font Squirrel and 1001 Fonts are very popular sites and are almost universally top picks in "best free font sites" articles.

[Steve Hutchesson]

Be careful of what you wish for, most things are worth the price you pay for it. While you may be lucky in download free fonts, you can also get junk that does not work well or is not complete. There are big collections available that cost peanuts, $20 USD or similar. Saves a lot of wasted time testing fonts.

[Stuart McLachlan]

Those $20 font bundles are the same fonts that you find on sites like 1001 Fonts and Font Squirrel. A lot of them are pretty rough and limited in the glyphs available.. You are just paying the seller for indiscriminately grabbing a bunch of free fonts and consolidating them into a zip file. And many of them will only be free for personal use. If you use them commercially, you are supposed to licence them separately

It's actually more convenient and you get a better selection by using one of those site's search engine to narrow down what you are looking for, view them online, including the licencing, and just download the one(s) you want.

[Steve Hutchesson]

I have no doubt you have exhaustively tested the entire range of paid font downloads to make an observation of this type.

> A lot of them are pretty rough and limited in the glyphs available.

Strange I have never had that problem out of the 10 thousand I have available, I have probably picked my way through some hundreds of them over time and none of them suffered from the problems you imagine. The virtue of buying them is you have them locally and can very quickly scan through them using the standard Windows display to see what they look like. Certainly beats some sloppy and slow interface with money squarking along the way.

[Fim Wästberg]

Essentially, I only use its three fonts.
From what I understand they are modern and have been developed on behalf of Microsoft and therefore should be included in newer Windows version.
I recommended them.

[Stuart McLachlan]

Essentially, I only use its three fonts.
From what I understand they are modern and have been developed on behalf of Microsoft and therefore should be included in newer Windows version.
I recommended them.

For a full list of the dozens of fonts that come with WIndows and details of the first WIndows version that they came with, see https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/font-list/
Each font there has a description page, many of which explain the features and suggests areas where the font would be useful.

[Fim Wästberg]

I have read https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/font-list/ for some fonts.
Microsoft's recommendation to use Cambria for on-screen reading is, quite frankly, completely wrong according to my typographic knowledge.
I strongly recommend the following rules, it was what Tim Lakinir wanted.
1 Use Calibri for screen.
2 Use Cambria for paper.
3 Use Consolas for tables, layouts, program code.

[Tim Lakinir]

Very informative, Thank you Everyone