font finder

This essay is about a suggested student project in Java programming. This essay gives a rough overview of how it might work. It does not describe an actual complete program. I have no source, object, specifications, file layouts or anything else useful to implementing this project. Everything I have to say to help you with this project is written below. I am not prepared to help you implement it; I have too many other projects of my own.

I do contract work for a living, which could include writing a program such as this. However, I don’t do people’s homework for them. That just robs them of an education.

You have my full permission to implement this project any way you please.

This project helps a Java programmer find a suitable Font or set of Font possibilities that either:

Have approximately the desired look.
Support the various strange Unicode characters needed.

It is an Applet that lets you select from a drop down list any of the Fonts supported on the machine. It then displays sample text in the desired font. By default, the sample text is:

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog’s back.
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
0123456789
!"#$%&'()*+,-./:;<=>?[\]^_
uvw wW gq9 2z 5s il17|!j oO08 `'" ;: ,. m nn rn {[()]}

The last line let’s you see how easy it is to distinguish similar characters.

The other problem this Applet is designed to help with is finding a Font that can support a given special Unicode character. You enter the Unicode \uxxxx value on a numeric spinner. Then the Applet displays a grid showing a rendering of that character in all fonts that at least claim they canDisplay that character. Most of these will just be blobs, but some, hopefully will be decent renderings of the desired character. Then the user can click or wave the mouse over that rendering to be told the name of the corresponding Font. If you have a very large number of fonts supported, it may be necessary to scroll or popup a larger JFrame.

To make the task a tad more challenging, put a tiny font sample right in the pull down menu. Don’t put the entire font name in its own font, or it could become unreadable.

Font
FontShower project
Unicode

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