🚀 go-pugleaf

[Sorry this is late; our last two months' postings went to /dev/null!]

Gordon Van Huizen writes
> In article <1gqa6tINNham@menudo.uh.edu> sears@tree.egr.uh.edu (Paul S.  
> Sears) writes:
> > I guess that everyone misunderstood my question.  I know
> > how to use   buildafmdir and cacheAFMData to install new
> > fonts.  I also know about   FontInstaller.app from Adobe. 
> > Apparently they do not do exactly the same   thing, because
> > after I install fonts with FontInstaller.app, the
> > following   directories are created: 
> > 
> > afm
> > bitmap
> > outline
> > 
> 
> These are old directories - this is the way the NeXTSTEP
> had these files organized prior to NeXTSTEP 2.0. I don't
> know of any app that requires these directories to be
> there (except perhaps FrameMaker which has some sort of
> anlternate font installation scheme - I can't say). 

I can help a little with this (my name's in the Info panel on Adobe's
installer :-)

The afm, bitmap, and outline directories were indeed the NeXTSTEP 1.0
method of organizing fonts, which were obsoleted by NS 2.0 and the
"font wrapper" files, which are much better.  The afm, bitmap, and
outline directories are created by the Adobe Font Installer, but only
the afm directory has its contents updated.

The sole reason for this extra step was that FrameMaker reads all the
AFM files at startup, and the old version of FrameMaker (I think it
was version 1.0 or 2.0) used to crash immediately on startup if the
afm directory wasn't there.  I don't know of any other application that
requires these directories.

The current (and previous) versions of FrameMaker DO NOT have this
problem, and these directories can be safely deleted if you don't have
the old version of FrameMaker.

It has been long enough since NS 1.0 that the Adobe Installer could be
modified to not create these directories without any particular ill
effect, I imagine.  On the other hand, a few symbolic links don't hurt
much :-)

--
 Glenn Reid        		NeXTmail: glenn@rightbrain.com
 RightBrain Software		415-326-2974 (NeXTfax 326-2977)
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