It looks old, especially since I have already used and discarded Verdana and Tahoma, for much the same reason. I never liked Arial (1982): it shipped with Windows 3.1 and has been severely over-used. "MS Sans Serif" is a bitmap font from a 1992 version of Windows. I want my programs to look like they were written recently, not 30 years ago.My first attempt at fixing the fonts in my application didn't work. I was trying to fix things in the wrong place. But I later discovered that I could use a file utility called Search and Replace to fix the Clarion styles and templates. So when I create the app, I don't have to waste time fixing up fonts all over the place. This got me thinking: can't I automate this? Whenever I install new or updated accessories for Clarion, I don't want to have to fix up the fonts yet again.
Introducing clFixer, which is freeware. It's not signed, and some anti-virus engines on VirusTotal think it's a trojan, but I think they are getting false positives. Naturally, it is written with Clarion 11.1, and uses the CapeSoft StringTheory 3 ($97) and WinEvent 5 ($169) accessories. If you have those, you can download and modify the code here. The .rar file doesn't contain any exe or dll files. The zip file contains those. If not, you can read the code in the module files. Extract the zip file into a suitable folder to try it out. The code is also available on GitHub.
The first thing you need to do is make a copy of your Clarion folder, so you can see what changes have been made, and how they work. I have copied mine to "d:\Clarion11.1pe".Exploring clFixer
*.inc;*.clw;*.txa;*.dctx;*.def;*.equ;*.tpl;*.tft;*.tpw;*.red;If you add an action to modify "readme.txt" it will not be modified because "*.txt" is not one of the file name extensions listed.
General Actions
Specific Actions
Line-Based actions
Running the Changes
Checking the Changes
It's important to check the changes, especially if you have added in new ones. before clFixer saves a changed file it checks to see if a "before" file exists. This is a file with the ".bf" added to the end. It's the original file that was renamed, and will still have the original date on it.
Once you apply the changes to your working environment, remember that none of your existing apps' forms and reports will have changed. Only new forms, reports and apps, and template-generated items will be affected by these changes.
Why not just pay CapeSoft $97 for their AnyFont product? My main objection is that this product allows the user to make bad font choices, and select something horrible like "Comic Sans". Horrors! Also, fonts have different widths and spacing, and I don't want text in Verdana to be truncated because someone is trying to fit it into the space intended for Arial Narrow. Legibility is more important than style.
In the next part, we will take a look at some of the programming techniques (good and bad) used in this application.Update 20 October 2023: Following feedback and further insignts from Geoff Robinson and ClarionHub, the download is updated to version 0.2
[ Clarion Fixer (Part 1): Using the App ]
[ Clarion Fixer (Part 2): The Code ]
[ Change Mode vs View Mode ]
[ Clarion Build Events ]
[ Introducing Clarion FileManager (Part 1) ]
[ Introducing Clarion FileManager (Part 2) ]
[ Clarion Resources and Products ]
[ Clarion Fixer (Part 2): The Code ]
[ Change Mode vs View Mode ]
[ Clarion Build Events ]
[ Introducing Clarion FileManager (Part 1) ]
[ Introducing Clarion FileManager (Part 2) ]
[ Clarion Resources and Products ]
Logo credits: Toolbox icons created by Roundicons Premium - Flaticon
