Maptext in Web Client (custom font)

ID:1763424
 
Jan 16 2015, 3:08 am (Edited on Jan 16 2015, 3:15 am)
Hi, I've been working on a single player BYOND game for quite a while now and I decided to try it out on the web client. However, the text looks completely different -it seems to be disregarding my font, etc.

Searched the forum and haven't seen the exact same issue come up (though I've seen a few on maptext in the web client.)

I'm sure this is a simple fix for someone who is more clued up about the web client than I am; I'm not the greatest programmer so it's almost certainly something I've overlooked (or maybe it doesn't like the format of the font I made?)

Here's a screenshot to show what I'm referring to:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/v3y97owx42xbitu/ Webclient%20Issue.png?raw=1

EDIT: Not sure if I've posted this in the right section. If needed, let me know and I can repost it.
Jan 19 2015, 10:41 am
The webclient currently does not handle custom fonts like DS does; if the font isn't installed on your machine, it won't work.

However, supporting such fonts (at least as long as the browser recognizes it as usable) via a @font-face declaration is high on my to-do list. There's really no reason it can't be added to the webclient and it should be fairly low-hanging fruit.
Jan 19 2015, 11:01 am
That's great to hear! I had wondered if it was something I was doing wrong but that clears that up.

Thanks!
Jan 19 2015, 11:10 am
There are basically two prongs to my approach.

First, on the server side I need to add MIME types for the various font formats that might be used: TTF, OTF, and WOFF. (Screw WOFF2; nobody supports it.)

Second, I'd want to have styles automatically created for all the fonts that were downloaded, based on their filenames (since there's no simple way to read their names from the file). This might require some adjustment on the author's part, namely using both the official font name and its filename as part of the font-family in any CSS. (E.g., "font-family: 'My Font',myfont,sans-serif;")

My understanding is IE is a little flaky about what it allows for TrueType fonts because it requires the font be marked as "installable", but then IE is flaky about all kinds of things so I'm not too worried about it.
Jan 19 2015, 11:25 pm (Edited on Jan 20 2015, 1:51 pm)
I kind of wonder if it's down to the font itself to some degree - I was unable to get my font to show up at all in Chrome for example.

Is there maybe a flag that needs to be set during the creation of a font that will enable it for the web?

(As an aside, to anyone who is brought here by trying to use the forum search to find fonts for their game, here's the font I made for my game, and anyone is free to use it for any commercial or non-commercial games.)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/crojdm00f2labj7/rayjt9-8bit.zip
Jan 20 2015, 5:58 am
In response to Rayjt9
Rayjt9 wrote:
I kind of wonder if it's down to the font itself to some degree - I was unable to get my font to show up at all in Chrome for example.

Is there maybe a flag that needs to be set during the creation of a font that will enable it for the web?

According to caniuse.com, IE and Chrome have a same-origin policy when it comes to fonts, and will only install them from the same domain unless CORS is in use. This isn't an issue for the webclient, as it would be delivering the font directly from its same domain (the host) and also uses CORS.

Other sources I've read said that IE only works with TTF fonts when they have an "installable" flag set, or some kind of embedding permission.

(As an aside, to anyone who is brought here by trying to use the forum search to find fonts for their game, here's the font I made for my game, and anyone is free to use it for any commercial or non-commercial games.)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/6liqis16xfa9rqb/Font.zip?dl=0

Looks like the file has been deleted or is inaccessible, sadly.
Jan 20 2015, 1:55 pm
Ahh that makes sense! Hopefully it'll be fine then. Definitely looking forward to playing around with the feature when it becomes available.

Also somehow I managed to paste the wrong link, I've edited the correct link into the post: https://www.dropbox.com/s/crojdm00f2labj7/rayjt9-8bit.zip
Jan 26 2015, 5:22 pm
In response to Lummox JR
Lummox JR wrote:
Other sources I've read said that IE only works with TTF fonts when they have an "installable" flag set, or some kind of embedding permission.

That is correct, if you're using a webfont you shouldn't have that issue anyway. There are also a few programs that remove the flag, doing that could be illegal in some cases.