Font Viewer - AMP vs Nexus

English: Screenshot of KDE font viewer taken with ksnapshot and cut up with GIMP. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

21-Feb-2014

2 days ago I posted my short article on the Font Editor software that I used, and which one gave me the speed and quick tweaks that I needed.

This time, it is on the font viewer applications, and I ended with 2, again: AMP and NexusFont Font Viewer.

This one was quick. What I needed is a no-brainer font viewer, and one that can and will read and display the full list of fonts from a specific directory.

Too bad, NexusFont only reads from the Windows Font folder - and there are many font viewer apps that can do this.

It was AMP Font Viewer that gave me that flexibility.

Decades ago, when I was still using Windows 95, that would have been FontLister, which is simply an executable file that you keep anywhere and run, and it would do the same thing of displaying the full list of fonts, installed or uninstalled.

Things have changed, and while I think that FontLister.exe is still in circulation, it is no longer in the discussions, so it doesn't come up anymore.

So AMP Font Viewer will be my choice of being the software that displays the full list of fonts in my Windows 8.1 laptop, installed or uninstalled.

Till then!

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My GT-i9103 on OmniROM vs CWM ROM

SAMSUNG GALAXY R (Photo credit: Monkeyy78)

I have been using  CyanogenMod ROM in my android phones for quite some time now, and perhaps I got a bit tired of it, and I started checking on the other custom ROMs.

A check on some details and features, and I was off to trying OmniROM.

To be honest, I was impressed. I am actually using it in my Samsung Galaxy Note II.

But in my Galary Royale unit, it wasn't that smooth-running as in my Note 2 phone. There is one big problem that I actually found out - and only until 2 days ago - I confirmed where it was coming from.

OmniROM causes my Galary R phone not be to recognized by my laptop. And that is some major problem to me. While the unit isn't sporting some fancy features, this problem of 'unrecognized device' occurred at some critical time: just when I was starting on my self-study of Android mobile device programming.

And I thought it was the USB driver that was the issue. Or the unit itself.

Until I tried to look for Android 4.4 from CWM.

Since the unit isn't recognized, I had to disassemble the cover and the battery out in order to remove the SD card, so I can plug it in to another adapter, insert it into my SD card slot, and copy over the zip files.

And rightly so, after flashing my Galaxy R with a CWM customer ROM, it was immediately identified by my laptop. I didn't have to verify this 'restored' USB recognition with another laptop.

At any rate, I still run into some quirky problems. Yes, quirky.

With OmniROM, I am able to get the keyboard (AOSP) up and running. That doesn't work in CWM ROM. So while I am able to get the device recognized by the PC, I am not able to get google apps working, since I cannot connect to WiFi, or enter my user credentials.

Until I again found out that my CWM ROM 4.4.x must go with the GApps 4.4.x version. I was simply 'forcing' the one I already have, JB GApps 4.3.x, to work with the new CWM 4.4.x ROM.

After several tries, and confirming that CWM ROM gets my Galary R recognized by my PC, I looked for the rightful mate, GApps 4.4.x. I did another flashing, and this time, using the two 4.4.x versions, and voila!

The unit is recognized by my laptop, and at the same time, my Google account I can enter, and my apps all restored, and all.

This is my experience, so it doesn't mean it applies to all... but then again, I believe it is not an isolated incident.

Till then!

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Font Editor - one that suited my need

FontCreator (Photo credit: TZA)

19-Feb-2014

This will be my first article for 2014, and it will be a short one.

I have been working on m Android programming self-study, and part of that is to adjust the font size, both horizontally and vertically, for each Android device.

I am specifically working on the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 device, and I like 3 fonts, namely: Advent, Hattori Hanzo and Yanone Kaffeesatz. These gave me the squarish look and the neatness that I so desired, specially when the font size gets smaller.

Of course, I did a number of Google searching, and I came up with 3, but ended to testing 2 only: FontCreator and Fontographer.

Fontographer can't open the C:\Windows\Fonts folder, however I tweaked the privileges in the program shortcut, and that is not a problem with FontCreator, so it became easy for me to start working and trying FontCreator.

I found that it gave you full control of the dimensions, kerning, etc., to name a few controls or dimensions usually set, reset, fine-tuned and finalized when creating fonts, but later on, some errors came up - one that I can't do anything anymore, even after troubleshooting and searching the web for corrections and/or related issues and the resolutions.

Nada.

And that is some undefined script tags.

Nothing really came up.

At this juncture, I turned to the other application: Fontographer.

And I think at this time, I began using this program taking the right steps: consulting the manual. Or to honestly say, I went straight to what I wanted to do - adjust the font size.

I found that section in the manual, and while it is for Mac, the instruction is the same, with only the machine-based commands being different.

It was easy to follow, so a few mouse clicks, a number of dialog boxes opened, and I was able to try, try again, and finally to do it correctly.

A few tries after that, and a number of font installation in the Android device, and testing of various apps, I was done!

So while FontCreator gave me control, Fontographer gave me a quick and easy way of doing what I wanted, without even bothering about the numbers.

C'est tout!

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