Fix font behavior between windows versions, platforms & executables

[insane$object]

Dealing with fonts in LabVIEW can be a nightmare due to the variations in fonts, types of fonts, rendering variations, resizing, etc.  If you are deploying a LabVIEW application on another machine, frequently the fonts or settings on the target machine don't match; creating a very ugly looking panel.

When developing for Windows in the past I have always edited my LabVIEW.ini file  to include the following:

appFont="MS Sans Serif" 13
dialogFont="MS Sans Serif" 13
systemFont="MS Sans Serif" 13

And when deploying an application; I include these in the app's ini file also.

This seems to work for most windows targets since MS Sans Serif appears to be a common font.  I suspect this will produce unpredictable results in OSX or Vista for that matter.

What I expect as a developer is not having to deal with these font issues.  I expect that when I develop an application that it has the same look and functionality; regardless of where it is deployed; even as a VI being edited on another machine with different font settings.  This means that the font information must be encoded and stored with the VI itself.  I would expect that both the LabVIEW editor and run-time engine would be able to recognize detailed font encoding within the VI and adjust the display accordingly based on the local machines font capabilities.  This is what one expects when printing or viewing an Adobe Acrobat PDF file; and the behavior of LabVIEW code; particularly since it is so graphical in nature; should also be similar.  I wouldn't expect that the actual font bitmaps be stored within the VI itself; but some detailed metrics about the font should be; height, width, kerning, etc.  Thus if a font substitution takes place when being deployed on another machine; at least the text will occupy the exact same extents as the original.

Though I don't know exactly what the detailed implementation would be; it does need to be transparent to the LabVIEW programmer, i.e. zero code; zero hassle; zero worries.  It should just work.  I hope we can all agree on this.

[shb]

Also see this thread and this thread and others tagged with Font.

While developing not only front panels but also block diagrams are often a mess after changing computer. This is a real problem. A work around is to use fixed fonts instead of system, dialog and application font.

[shb]

Idea about the same problem, for Front Panels: Persistent font Settings