UIQ Font

UIQ Font A font utility application built for the Symbian UIQ 2.0 & 2.1 devices

View UIQ Font DOxygen generated source code documentation
Download Sis file
Download Source

Description:

The UIQ Font application gives you an interface to intuitively detect which fonts are currently loaded on the device. UIQ Font also gives the user the ability to modify the font’s configuration to change settings that will alter the font’s appearance on the device.

Features:

Ability to see which fonts and heights are loaded on the device
Ability to select font and height from custom toolbar
Ability to select advanced font settings from dialog
- Print position - Normal, Superscript, Subscript
- Stroke Weight - Normal, Bold
- Underline - Yes or No
- Strikethrough - Yes or No
- Posture - Upright or Italic
- Bitmap Type - Default, Monochrome, Anti-aliased
A view to see the changes to the font
Ability to change the view's text
Ability to change color of font and background

Tested against:

Sony Ericsson P900 & P910

Motivation:

My motivation to write this application was initially started by my frustration of trying to detect which fonts were available on the Symbian devices. The Symbian API provides an interface through MGraphicsDeviceMap that allows a user to platform independently request a font from the font and bitmap server. The font may or may not be anywhere close to the font that you requested, but you will always have a font work with.

I first came across this nuance when porting a MS Pocket PC/Smartphone application to Symbian. The Microsoft devices have a Tahoma font installed that I used in the application. When requesting this font from the Symbian font and bitmap server, we received a font that was about the right size but the typeface was Courier.

The call to GetNearestFontInTwips promises:
The font and bitmap server returns a pointer to the nearest matching font from those available. While this may be true, it shouldn’t be taken too literally. For instance, the font and bitmap server does not keep a table of all the possible font faces in the world and determines which font is the closest.

I also found Eric’s font viewer at NewLC.com, useful on the series 60 and wanted to create a UIQ application that extended the font functionality. Disclaimer: I just realized that Eric has also created UIQ version of his font utility

Helpful classes:

There are a number of ways to inspect the Symbian font and bitmap server for its available fonts. However, the simplest method I have found is to use the utility class that the OS provides to you: FontUtils. This utility class publishes a static API that provides all the services you need to determine the available fonts, font heights, etc.

Source code provided:

I have decided to provide the source code for this project as it may be of help to others that are also struggling with fonts on their UIQ phones. Doxygen documentation for the project is also provided on my web site.

Functionality demonstrated in the source code

Use of FontUtil API
Creation and management of multi-page dialog
Creation and management of horizontal and vertical options lists in dialog
Custom scrolling in a view
Creation of a custom toolbar with two choice lists
Parsing and splitting text with the TLex class
Formatting text in custom view

Support, Warranty, Updates

UIQ Font comes with no support and no warranty. When bugs are found, I will try to post modifications and a new build on my website. Please realize that my time is limited and I will not be able to answer specific questions regarding this application. If you have general questions regarding fonts, direct them to the forums at NewLC.com or the Symbian.C++ newgroup.

Future Enhancements

At this time (May 2005), there are no plans to continue to support this project. I have several other projects I have had on the back burner for too long. I have provided the source code so you can feel free to learn from the project and include the source code into your own project.