From: zimerman@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Jacob Ben-david Zimmerman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system
Subject: Sys7 font suitcases problem - a case summary
Date: 24 Jul 92 14:52:38 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Princeton University
Originator: news@ernie.Princeton.EDU

This post details a problem which my site had with System 7, Suitcase II
2.1.1 suitcases and a bunch of Adobe screen fonts...I guess the problem
is attributable to the Finder, so I am posting it here in case anyone
else runs into it.  My apologies if this has been discussed before.

  Our site has a standard font package which runs to about 315 Type 1
fonts (production dept. for large Advertising agency).  Recently, while
updating the font package, we ran into a weird problem.  Our screen
fonts are divided into ten suitcases for manageability, with the
suitcases being split over the alphabet.  For example, a suitcase might
be named Palatino-Stempel and contain the appropriate fonts.  In fact,
it was this suitcase that caused the problem.  We had just finished
copying two new Stempel Schneidler variants into this suitcase- Stempel
Schneidler Light and Stempel Schneidler Medium- to join the base font,
Stempel Schneidler, which was already there.  Suddenly, we got a
message:
"Warning: The name 'Stempel Schneidler ... (bol' is already in use.
PLease pick a different name' or some such.  This may not be the exact
wording.  In any case, the suitcase would no longer open, and we could
not drag copy to it either, for in each case we'd get the same message.
After about twenty minutes, I finally dragged ResEdit in and found the
following:  WHen the Finder displays the fonts available in a Suitcase,
it does not always use the names of the font resources.  If you have
dragged in a font family (NFNT resource) named for example 'Stempel
Schneidler Light' the Finder will give you four lines in the font
suitcase window: Stempel Schneidler Light, Stempel Schneidler ...(bol,
Stempel Schneidler ...(bol.ita and Stempel Schneidler ...(ita.  And
herein lies the problem.  The Finder itself is truncating the name of
the font to make room for the modifiers (bold, ital, etc.) and is
putting in the ellipse to let you know that it has truncated the cont
name.  However, with some fonts (Stempel Schneidler is one) that are
exactly the right length, more than one version of the font (in this
case, the Light and Medium variants) will truncate *to the same name*.
That is, both Stempel Schneidler Light and Stempel Schneidler Medium
will have an entry named 'Stempel Schneidler ...(bol' which causes the
Finder to complain because it is not allowed to display two items int he
same window with the same name!

SOLUTION:  Two possibilities offhand.  One, put the different versions
in different suitcases.  Tw, you can rename the fonts using ResEdit (I
used Stempel Light Schneidler and Stempel Medium Schneidler,
respectively) as the pointer to the Postscript font is encoded within
the font resource and is not dependent on its name.

Whew.  Would this be classified as a Finder bug?  :-)

-JBZimmerman!

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