1\section{wxFont overview}\label{wxfontoverview} 2 3Class: \helpref{wxFont}{wxfont}, \helpref{wxFontDialog}{wxfontdialog} 4 5A font is an object which determines the appearance of text, primarily 6when drawing text to a window or device context. A font is determined by 7the following parameters (not all of them have to be specified, of course): 8 9\begin{twocollist}\itemsep=0pt 10\twocolitem{Point size}{This is the standard way of referring to text size.} 11\twocolitem{Family}{Supported families are: 12 {\bf wxDEFAULT, wxDECORATIVE, wxROMAN, wxSCRIPT, wxSWISS, wxMODERN}. 13 {\bf wxMODERN} is a fixed pitch font; the others are either fixed or variable pitch.} 14\twocolitem{Style}{The value can be {\bf wxNORMAL, wxSLANT} or {\bf wxITALIC}.} 15\twocolitem{Weight}{The value can be {\bf wxNORMAL, wxLIGHT} or {\bf wxBOLD}.} 16\twocolitem{Underlining}{The value can be true or false.} 17\twocolitem{Face name}{An optional string specifying the actual typeface to be used. If NULL, 18a default typeface will chosen based on the family.} 19\twocolitem{Encoding}{The font encoding (see {\bf wxFONTENCODING\_XXX} 20constants and the \helpref{font overview}{wxfontencodingoverview} for more 21details)} 22\end{twocollist} 23 24Specifying a family, rather than a specific typeface name, ensures a degree of 25portability across platforms because a suitable font will be chosen for the 26given font family, however it doesn't allow to choose a font precisely as the 27parameters above don't suffice, in general, to identify all the available fonts 28and this is where using the native font descriptions may be helpful - see 29below. 30 31Under Windows, the face name can be one of the installed fonts on the user's 32system. Since the choice of fonts differs from system to system, either choose 33standard Windows fonts, or if allowing the user to specify a face name, store 34the family name with any file that might be transported to a different Windows 35machine or other platform. 36 37\normalbox{{\bf Note:} There is currently a difference between the appearance 38of fonts on the two platforms, if the mapping mode is anything other than 39wxMM\_TEXT. Under X, font size is always specified in points. Under MS 40Windows, the unit for text is points but the text is scaled according to the 41current mapping mode. However, user scaling on a device context will also 42scale fonts under both environments.} 43 44\subsection{Native font information}\label{nativefontinformation} 45 46An alternative way of choosing fonts is to use the native font description. 47This is the only acceptable solution if the user is allowed to choose the font 48using the \helpref{wxFontDialog}{wxfontdialog} because the selected font cannot 49be described using only the family name and so, if only family name is stored 50permanently, the user would almost surely see a different font in the program 51later. 52 53Instead, you should store the value returned by 54\helpref{wxFont::GetNativeFontInfoDesc}{wxfontgetnativefontinfodesc} and pass 55it to \helpref{wxFont::SetNativeFontInfo}{wxfontsetnativefontinfo} later to 56recreate exactly the same font. 57 58Note that the contents of this string depends on the platform and shouldn't be 59used for any other purpose (in particular, it is not meant to be shown to the 60user). Also please note that although the native font information is currently 61implemented for Windows and Unix (GTK+ and Motif) ports only, all the methods 62are available for all the ports and should be used to make your program work 63correctly when they are implemented later. 64 65