FontSmoother and the FontSmoother Registration Data are copyright (c) 1995-2005 Alexander R. Pruss. Portions copyright (c) 2000 Palm, Inc. or its subsidiaries. All rights reserved. The word "FontSmoother" below includes the FontSmoother software proper, the FontSmoother Registration Data and this documentation file.
1. This is a legally binding agreement between you and Alexander Pruss. You agree to this agreement by USING FontSmoother, where "USING" is defined as copying FontSmoother or any portion of it into a PDA's storage (of any sort: permanent or not, hard disk or solid state), or executing FontSmoother or any portion of it, or making or distributing further copies of FontSmoother. If you disagree, you must destroy all your copies of FontSmoother, or portions thereof, including, if you have it, and the FontSmoother Registration Data or portions thereof.
2. FontSmoother is distributed WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY, implied or express, without even any implied MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE warranty. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK. It may crash and burn, destroying your data, but Alexander Pruss may not be held responsible for this. You agree that you know this and you agree that you know that a fully backup of all your PDA data should be made before using.
3. You can re-sell or give away your copy of the FontSmoother Registration Data but only if you delete all of your own copies of FontSmoother's Registration Data and of the registered version of FontSmoother and require the recipient to adhere to this agreement, and only if have never violated this agreement. You may install FontSmoother and, if and only if you have a legally licensed copy, its Registration Data on one PDA (hardware, emulated or simulated). You may make as many backup copies of FontSmoother and its Registration Data for your own use as you wish, providing that (a) you ensure that nobody else has access to these copies or portions thereof (thus, you may not place these copies on a network in a way that allows others to access them), and (b) that only one PDA (hardware, emulated or simulated) at any given time has FontSmoother, its Registration Data and/or a portion thereof ACCESSIBLE to it, where a copy of FontSmoother or its Registration Data is defined as "ACCESSIBLE TO A PDA" providing that it is loaded on any storage, internal, external or networked, that the PDA (hardware, emulated or simulated) is hooked up to, in such a way that it is possible to transfer data from that storage device to the internal memory of the PDA (hardware, emulated or simulated). Sale or transfer under any other conditions is prohibited.
4. You are not permitted to use FontSmoother in an objectively immoral way or in a way that violates copyright, trademark or commercial agreement law, whether international or specific to your location.
5. Any attempts to allow FontSmoother to circumvent the shareware mechanism (the expiration of the trial after eight days except for Alexander Pruss's choice of freebies) without registration is a violation of this agreement. Furthermore, this agreement prohibits you from attempting to find, discover or communicate any methods or tools for such circumvention.
6. As a special permission that may be withdrawn at any time, and that is automatically withdrawn forever (unless explicit notification to the contrary is received from Alexander R. Pruss) whenever any of the terms of this agreement have been violated, you may distribute unmodified copies of the unregistered shareware version of FontSmoother to anyone you wish, providing that (a) all copies include in unmodified form both FontSmoother.prc and this readme.html file, (b) this license is binding on all recipients, (c) any website on which the data is posted neither contains or links to any methods or tools for circumvention of the shareware mechanism. The special permission for distributing the unregistered shareware version may be withdrawn either by personal communication from Alexander Pruss (by voice, email or writing), or by a general notice posted at www.prussfamily.us/FontSmoother.html. You are responsible for reading any such notices before attempting to distribute.
7. The Registration Data for FontSmoother contains a complete computer program copyrighted by Alexander R. Pruss, distributed in source code format. Copying, distribution or re-distribution of this program is absolutely forbidden by this agreement except under the conditions of point 3 as limited by the rest of this agreement.
8. As a special bonus, notwithstanding point 3, you may install FontSmoother and its Registration Data on multiple PDAs as long as you are the primary user (90% of the usage of the PDA) of each of the PDAs and the only user of FontSmoother, but as soon as you do this you surrender the rights granted earlier which would permit multiple users on one PDA to use it. In other words, you have a choice: (1) one user, many PDAs, or (2) many users, one PDA. Once you opt for one of these, you can't change.
9. The fonts are possibly covered by other licenses, especially if you live in a location where fonts are copyrightable. In fact, the Utopia-based fonts may not be legal in some European jurisdiction. See the copyright messages in the various font directories. FontSmoother uses YAHMLib code which is copyright (c) 2003-2006 Igor Nestorov.
You should make a full backup before using this program.
FontSmoother should work on any PalmOS 5 PDA with a high resolution display (but not low- or 1.5x-resolution devices like the Treo 600, Zire 21, QDA 700, etc.).
Before installing, make a complete backup of your system, ideally on a card. This is a good idea for any software you install, but especially for software that affects PalmOS functioning like FontSmoother. (For newer Palms, you can use the free NVBackup utility by the same author.)
To install FontSmoother, hotsync FontSmoother-Installer.prc. This installs FontSmoother and four sample fonts. I recommend hotsync'ing more from the FontSmoother fonts directory. You can browse the included fonts here. (Delete fonts you do not want by choosing "Delete" in the "File" menu.) Do not install on a card or in an Uninstall Manager sandbox (the latter causes crashes).
Then run FontSmoother (depending on system details you may need to run FontSmoother-Installer first). For a quick start, choose a font from the drop-down list, and then press "On". That's all!
Advanced users will want to tap on "Advanced" to control settings for different applications. This also lets you adjust Font Darkness and "More" settings including Mode, eBook Mode, Smart Highlight, 16-bit Force, and Sony Small Fonts, that are described below.
You can very easily generate FontSmoother font packages out of Windows fonts (e.g., Times New Roman and Trebuchet MS look very good) by double-clicking on the "Quick Make Font" program in the FontSmoother shareware distribution after unzipping the distribution. Then, select a base font (note that the font style is ignored), and font packages will be automatically be generated in the FontSmoother fonts, eReaderPro fonts (FontHack 123 style) and Mobipocket fonts directories. These will, among other things, include some packages labeled "ib" where italics are used instead of the bold font--this spruces up the look of menus. Make sure that you abide by all relevant licenses and copyright laws when converting fonts. "Quick Font Make" generates bitmap fonts which are, apparently, not copyrightable in the U.S., but font EULAs may place restrictions on generation of bitmaps and in other countries it is your responsibility to abide by all relevant copyright laws.
In the default "FontSmoother manages" mode, you can install fonts either to RAM or to a card's \PALM\Programs\FontSmoother or \PALM\Launcher directory (\PALM\Programs\FontSmoother will typically work faster). In other modes, fonts must be in RAM.
To go from Easy Mode to Advanced Mode, tap on "Advanced". To go back to Easy Mode, choose the "Toggle advanced" option in the "Options" menu. Advanced Mode lets you have different settings in different applications.
If you select "Defaults for all applications", then the settings (e.g., "Darkness" or "eBook Mode" under "More") you choose will apply to all applications that use the default settings (they are marked with "Defaults") in the list.
To return an application to default settings, simply select it in the list and tap on "Use defaults".
To change the settings for an application to non-default settings, select the application and change its settings--there are more settings under "More".
To disable FontSmoother for an application, disable the "App. active" box. (The "on/off" box determines whether FontSmoother is active at all--it is a global setting.)
To return all applications to default settings, tap on "All to defaults".
This setting applies to all applications.
FontSmoother has three operation modes that decide how FontSmoother's fonts are managed. FontSmoother can perform two different and independent tasks (in early versions it only performed the first of these):
Normally, with "FontSmoother manages fonts" as the operation mode, FontSmoother handles both of these functions. It can even load Fonts4OS5- and FontSubst-specific fonts if you have these applications installed and registered (make sure they are turned off, though; the need for the applications is to check whether you have purchased these applications, since I wouldn't want you to use the fonts from them without purchasing them). (There are also three separate third-party font manager programs that perform the font substitution function: Fonts4OS5, FontSubst and FontHackV. Of these, I like the friendly and sophisticated user interface of Lubomir Veselovsky's Fonts4OS5, but it has some compatibility problems with newer values. These specialized font manager programs are capable of more careful control over your font selection---for instance, they may let you choose fonts from different packages for use in one application, e.g., bold from one package and standard from another.)
If you select "External font manager" as the operation mode, FontSmoother will cease substituting fonts and allow your font manager program to do it instead. You can load smooth fonts in the appropriate format for your font manager program. Fonts4OS5-format fonts are included in the FontSmoother fonts directory. FontSmoother's FontSubst and FontHackV format fonts need to be downloaded separately. You can search for FontSmoother FontSubst fonts or FontSmoother FontHackV fonts on the Internet. The preview you normally get by selecting an application does not work in "External font manager" mode.
Special note on FontHackV: FontHackV must be activated after FontSmoother is to show smooth fonts. If you try to activate FontSmoother before FontHackV, FontSmoother will tell you to reset or to turn FontHackV off and on.
Finally, there is a special operation mode for Fonts4OS5: "Use Fonts4OS5's settings". This is a hybrid between "FontSmoother manages fonts" and "External font manager". In this special mode, FontSmoother manages font substitution, but it uses Fonts4OS5's configuration database to tell it which font is active when. To use this option, you should de-activate Fonts4OS5, but continue to use Fonts4OS5 to select which fonts are loaded in which application. The advantage of this mode over keeping Fonts4OS5 active and FontSmoother in "External font manager" mode is two-fold: (1) any resident applications you have will slow down your system and if you have fewer of them active, things will be faster; (2) last I checked, Fonts4OS5 had some stability problems on newer devices like the Treo 650, Palm T5, TX and LifeDrive, and keeping it off should help system stability.
"Use Fonts4OS5's settings" is not a method for letting you have the advantages of Fonts4OS5 without having to buy a copy of Fonts4OS5. In fact, FontSmoother's support for Fonts4OS5 settings will automatically disable shortly after the Fonts4OS5 trial expires, though it will return as soon as you install a registered version of Fonts4OS5.
You can set how dark or light you want the fonts. People's tastes differ and on some devices, fonts look darker than on others and so minor adjustments might be helpful. Moreover, how fonts look depends on the background color and this may differ from application to application.
This option can be controlled individually for each application, or for all the ones that rely on default settings, by using the "More" panel. It is on by default.
FontSmoother uses "eBook Mode" to optimize display for ebook-style applications with fairly static text. You can safely leave this on for most applications. The result is that more text fits per line. In some contexts, this will, however, result in text somewhat crookedly aligned or cut off, or displays that "shift" around. You may be prefer to disable eBook Mode for such applications. Basically, if text is not quite right in an application, disable eBook Mode and see if it helps.
This option can be controlled individually for each application, or for all the ones that rely on default settings, by using the "More" panel.
FontSmoother compensates for highlighting methods designed to highlight non-smooth texts. In rare circumstances (not yet actually observed) this may have an unfortunate side-effect in some application, such as changing the color of an element whose color should not change. Disabling Smart Highlight will fix this. If you find any application that forces you to disable Smart Highlight, please contact the author. The author is aware that highlighting is imperfect. Unfortunately, many applications do highlighting in a way that is incompatible with smooth fonts, even with FontSmoother's Smart Highlight mode. That is a price to be paid for smooth fonts. The same problem would have occurred under PalmOS 6 with smooth font support with these applications, unless they were updated.
Some color schemes are more susceptible to this than others (free software like Colorize and Khroma can change color schemes, and you can change the theme in the system Preferences on some devices like Treos and the TX).
Changing the font brightness occasionally helps.
This option can be controlled individually for each application, or for all the ones that rely on default settings, by using the "More" panel.
If this option is active (as it is by default) some list heights are adjusted to match font heights. This makes lists look better. But maybe some applications will not like this and will crash? So just in case, this option is optional. You can turn it off for some or all applications.
This option can be controlled individually for each application, or for all the ones that rely on default settings, by using the "More" panel.
There are several color display modes on PalmOS 5 systems. The most common are the 256 colors and 65536 color modes. Smooth fonts in colors other than black and white look best in 65536 color mode. Moreover, Smart Highlight works better in 16-bit mode. On some PalmOS 5 devices, applications run by default in 256 bit mode. The "Recommend" setting tells an application what the system-recommended default color mode is--normally 65536 is the best setting. Unfortunately, some applications override the system default. You can force these applications to go into the correct mode by setting "Force color mode" for them. For some applications this may cause problems (maybe even a crash), so you need to experiment a little. You might not see any difference.
This option has the functionality of the Force16 hack. You can delete the Force16 hack, if you had it installed.
This option can be controlled individually for each application, or for all the ones that rely on default settings, by using the "More" panel.
Some Sony PDAs have special "small" fonts. You can select a substitution for these in "FontSmoother manages fonts" mode if you have such a Sony PDA.
There is a little Desk Accessory called ToggleFS included. This is an entirely unsupported utility to turn FontSmoother on/off in the middle of a program. It may crash or may work. You need a Desk Accessory launcher to use it.
To register the shareware version, purchase the registration at mobihand.com, and hotsync "FontSmoother_Registration.pdb" into your PDA's RAM or Program Memory. Next time any application is launched, you will have a fully registered application.
The shareware version works for 8 days. When it stops working, fonts will no longer be smoothed, except in "Freebie Applications", which are applications in which FontSmoother works for free even after the expiry of its trial period (you will still need to pay for Fonts4OS5, FontHackV, FontSubst or use the global substitution option). Currently, "Freebie Applications" include most Bible programs. If FontSmoother does not work with your favorite Bible or other devotional program after the expiration of its trial, please let me know so I can consider adding it to the freebie list (I reserve the right to decide, at my discretion, whether to add a given program to my freebie list). Current Freebie Applications include: PalmBible+, BibleThumper, Bible Explorer with You, Bible with You, OliveTree Bible Reader, Concordance with You, myBible, BibleReadme, Universalis Liturgy of the Hours, DataCute, Devotions, DailyReader, Virtual Rosary and Plucker. This list is subject to change, or even complete removal, without any notice between versions. Inclusion of a program on this list does not mean that FontSmoother has actually been tested with the application.
If you have developed a program that you would like to use antialiased fonts, you can also pay the author of FontSmoother to include your program on the "Freebie Applications" list so that FontSmoother will work for free with your program. (In that case, of course, you have a guarantee your application will not be removed from the Freebie Applications list)
Some applications, most notably eReader Pro and Mobipocket, can accept external fonts compatible with FontSmoother. Example fonts in FontHack and Mobipocket formats are included in the eReaderPro fonts and Mobipocket fonts directories (they should be installed, if selected, wherever you installed FontSmoother). The eReader Pro fonts are FontHack 123 style and also work with applications that accept FontHack fonts for pre-OS5 devices (the only other application than eReader Pro that I know of is iSilo) and the Mobipocket ones with Mobipocket, but some other applications that accept external fonts may also accept them. Note that each of these font formats requires two files to be hotsync'ed per font.
You can also create your own fonts, for any supported format, with the latest version of EasyConvert or with the included Quick Make Font.exe.
Registered users get free upgrades for the life of the product. Upgrades can be periodically downloaded from mobihand.com. To install an upgrade, turn off the previous version of FontSmoother (uncheck in YAHM for 1.xx versions, or press "Off" for 2.xx versions). Make a backup--this is always smart. Then hotsync the new shareware version.
A large collection of Fonts4OS5-compatible smoothed fonts is at www.lubak.net. While font bitmaps (which all smoothed fonts generated for FontSmoother are) are copyright-free in the U.S., in your locale they may be copyrighted and hence you may not be legally able to use them.
Not all applications are compatible with FontSmoother. There may be applications which will crash when smooth fonts are selected for them. Report these to the developer, please, and simply disable FontSmoother for these applications by tapping on "App. active" in Advanced mode.
The most common kind of incompatibility will simply result in fonts appearing jagged (aliased) instead of smooth (antialiased). FontSmoother is carefully designed to try to show all text that the application attempts to display. If it is for a technical reason unable to display the text in an antialiased version, it will instead show the lower-quality aliased version. It is not technically feasible for antialiased fonts to show up in all circumstances.
Occasionally, smooth font texts will not look good when highlighted. Generally, highlighting will work better in 16-bit display modes. See "Smart Highlight" for more information and highlighting scheme recommendations.
Some applications cannot tolerate a font that is larger or smaller than the normal height of 22 pixels. For those applications, use a font that has that has a normal height, e.g., Utopia 18, or one that is close, e.g., Utopia 16.
Use with systems that support Chinese/Japanese/Korean text is not recommended.
Font rendering with smooth fonts is slower. It is recommended that smooth fonts be turned off for games where lots of text needs to be rendered.
A list of the included FontSmoother (=Fonts4OS5) and FontSubst format fonts is found in FontList.html.
The included sample fonts are generated from several sources. The "Alethe" fonts are generated from Bitstream Vera TrueType fonts which are covered by this license. The "Charter" fonts are generated from Bitstream Charter Type 1 fonts which are covered by this license. The "Utopia" fonts are generated from Adobe Utopia Type 1 fonts which are covered by this license. The monospaced "Courier" fonts are from IBM and covered by this license. Ray Larabie has kindly given me permission to use his fonts (search the web for "Larabie fonts" for more information). Tweaks may have been made to the above fonts while converting to bitmaps. The fonts are to be found in FontSmoother fonts, eReaderPro fonts and Mobipocket fonts directories. Each font filename indicates if this is a kerned font. Moreover, some fonts are marked "italbold" which means that they replace the "bold" component of a Fonts4OS5/FontSubst font with "italics". This makes menus look pretty nice. Make sure that when you hotsync a FontHack or Mobipocket font, you hotsync both the .pdb file and the -resource.prc file.
The number is the font name is an approximate pixel height. If it is followed by "px", it is the height of the whole font line. Otherwise, it is roughly the height of a capital letter. Standard Palm fonts correspond, roughly, to "22px" or "18".
You can double click on the enclosed Quick Make Font.exe. You will be asked to select a base font, and then automatically a number of font packages will be generated for you in the FontSmoother fonts, FontSubst fonts, FontHackV fonts, eReaderPro fonts and Mobipocket fonts directories.
In addition to Quick Make Font.exe, there is Install FontSmoother Font.exe which generates a font in FontSmoother format only and queues it for hotsync'ing. After it is generated, you simply hotsync your PDA.
For finer control, you can use the free EasyConvert utility.
I understand that in the U.S., bitmapped fonts are not copyrightable (though scaled fonts, e.g., TrueType, are), but I am not a lawyer. They are copyrightable, however, in some other countries. Make sure you obey copyright law when copying and converting fonts. Moreover, some fonts may be protected in other ways, e.g., by trademark law or by any licensing contracts you agreed to when you purchased or downloaded them. Thus, even though a font is not copyrighted, a font within an application may be protected from copying and conversion by a license agreement you agreed to when you installed the application. IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO ENSURE YOUR USE OF FontSmoother AND/OR PalmFontConv IS LEGAL.
To uninstall FontSmoother just turn it off and delete it.
The author can be contacted by email at arpruss@gmail.com.