Re: [Flightgear-devel] screen.nas FONT size

[Curtis O. <cur...@gm...>]

On Tue, Jan 31, 2012 at 12:23 AM, Torsten Dreyer <To...@t3...> wrote:

> Am 30.01.2012 23:57, schrieb Curtis Olson:
> > I want display my text *REAL BIG!!!!*
> I know exactly what you mean. That started for me some years ago, too.
> Newspapers, books, price tags in the supermarket - decreasing font sizes
> EVERYWHERE!
>

Hi Torsten,

I know what you mean -- I'm worried that day is not too far off for me too
-- but I'm not sure how far off because I'm losing my depth perception too.
:-)

However, in this case I'm actually trying to help someone with a small
project.   There is a theory that if you present a message one word at a
time, with each word flashing up in the same fixed location (like the
center of the screen) you can actually increase reading rates and
comprehension.  This allows you to read without having to move your eyes to
scan a page -- apparently you are not able to glean much visual information
while your eyes are moving -- so scanning a whole sentence word by word is
inefficient.  I know in the speed reading courses you are taught to not
look word to word, but instead jump through chunks of words and read
several words per eye jump -- even to the point of taking in a whole line
at a time if you can.

I would like to do a rough prototype of such a system and I've been
successful in building something with functionality from the screen.nas
"window" class combined with a listener and a timer.

If it worked with text -- what if we tried it with gauges too?  Rather than
scanning a "classic" instrument panel in a vague state of trance, the
system could present the instruments in sequence -- at the appropriate rate
and sequence to accomplish your scan for you.  I know I'm getting a little
bit "out there" with this, but I was contacted by some researchers that
would like to play around with some of this stuff.

However, now that I have all the mechanics working of presenting a message
word by word in rapid sequence, my problem is that the font is too small
and the word takes up a tiny bit of the screen.  I'd like to use a much
bigger font so the word takes up a much larger proportion of the screen --
and eventually maybe this would be appropriate for a panel mounted device
-- or smaller display -- where the "default" font size wouldn't be big
enough to read -- even with 20-year old eyes.

I see (from git) that you are to blame for the liberation fonts in the data
tree.  However, I can't find any info or docs referencing them or
explaining how to use them.  Are they used anywhere?  Are they just there
to look pretty?  Am I missing something obvious?  Or is larger fonts
something beyond the capability of the gui and only something available for
2d/3d objects?

Thanks,

Curt.
-- 
Curtis Olson:
http://www.atiak.com - http://aem.umn.edu/~uav/
http://www.flightgear.org - http://gallinazo.flightgear.org