How much does it cost?

Nothing. You may distribute FontBucket royalty free.

How Does It Work?

FontBucket's API makes calls into FontBucket using launch codes. FontBucket does not do any trap patching or use hacks. It works in ways entirely supported by the Palm OS, and so should be able to work on future ARM processors and other Palm compatible platforms.

FontBucket includes a .c and .h file that gives you a single API to access fonts. If for some reason FontBucket is not installed on the user's machine, the FontBucket API will automatically make calls to standard PalmOS calls instead. You do not need to worry about checking for the existence of FontBucket.

How do I use it?

The general idea is as follows. More complete documentation is included in the download.

Normally, when working with fonts, programmers use an 8-bit FontID. FontBucket's API defines a 32-bit FmFontID that is a uniqueID for a font. FontBucket maps FontIDs to FmFont Ids throught the FmUseFont function. Between launches, the FontID of a font might change, but the FmFontId of a particular font will not change. Therefore, you should save the FmFontId of a font in a preference file, instead of the FontID.

To bring up a font selection dialog box, allowing the user to choose from all installed fonts, call FmSelectFont. This will return an FmFontID. This FmFontID is a unique id associated with the font, and you should save and restore the FmFontID into your preference file.

Before you draw with a font, call FmUseFont to get a Palm FontID to draw with. FmUseFont associates your FmFontID with a Palm FontID in an internal lookup table. You then call FntSetFont with the FontID returned from FmUseFont.

How do I incorporate FontBucket into my project?

Include the FontMgr.c and FontMgr.r files into you project window or build list, and have the FontMgr.h file in the directory path of your include files. When you are ready to run, make sure you install the FontBucket.prc file and any font files you want as well.

Where do I get fonts?

You can get fonts from our Web site (http://www.handshigh.com/fontbucket/), or use the included Windows utility to convert desktop fonts into FontBucket fonts.

Hands High, the Hands High logo, ThoughtManager  and Trip are registered trademarks of Hands High Software, Inc. WiFile, WiFile Pro, FontBucket, Slap, PhoneLog, Memo PLUS, ToDo PLUS and Participate are trademarks of Hands High Software, Inc. Palm Computing is a registered trademark of PalmSource, Inc. HotSync, Palm and the Palm Compatible Logo are trademarks of PalmSoucre, Inc. All other brands and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

Copyright © 2005 Hands High Software, Inc.
All Rights Reserved