Why have GameSalad been unable (due to time, presumably) to implement free choice of fonts?

Armelline

A question aimed at the GameSalad team more than anything. I've been pondering the issue of custom fonts. Right now we have a choice of 14 fairly standard fonts. For the life of me I can't figure out why, though. It would seem that there are two possibilities:

1. GameSalad don't use the font files but essentially "recreate" the fonts using the vector data that a font is essentially composed of. For each font added, there is considerable work bolting it on to the GameSalad framework.

2. GameSalad don't want enter any mess of legal/financial issues regarding the inclusion of other fonts.

I have no doubts possibility 3 is what's really happening, though.

I had assumed that GameSalad just grabs hold of a font (stored inside the Gamesalad binary, as they don't seem to pull it from the system at runtime, and don't store it anywhere else I can see in the application bundle Scratch that - they DO seem to pull it from the system library at runtime). I took a look at the NIB for the display text behaviour and it seems to support that conclusion. If so, though, adding fonts shouldn't be more than a minor amount of work, and 2 must presumably be the reason more aren't added. If that's so, though, there are plenty of CC fonts that would make an amazing addition to GameSalad.

Being able to take any font on your system and pump it into GameSalad to be used, as most applications allow, would be the idea situation. So, for the nosey and curious of us out there, why do we only have 14 fonts? Please get as technical as you want!

Edit: Further experimenting has resulted in me being able to confirm that fonts ARE pulled at runtime, and it is possible to deny GameSalad access to fonts. This presumably means that it is in fact possible to trick GameSalad into thinking one font is another font.

The_Gamesalad_Guru

If I remember black cloak once commented on this topic and if I remember correctly #1 is why It's difficult.

Armelline

Well if you disable a font in FontBook, it ceases to be available to GameSalad. So they do seem to be pulling fonts out of /Library/Fonts. I don't have any tools to edit font metadata handy and don't have time to find one, but if someone does, it might be worth trying.

1 does indeed seem the most logical conclusion nonetheless.

The_Gamesalad_Guru

That may be true in creator but maybe not during the publishing process.

Armelline

@The_Gamesalad_Guru said:
That may be true in creator but maybe not during the publishing process.

That's a good point. Can't do more than speculate how it's handled on their end.

tenrdrmer

Yes from what I understand that is the case. For GS to support it as a text don't the device has to have it in its font library.

Armelline

http://iosfonts.com/

Hopscotch

Maybe their problem is in trying to stay cross platform?

Armelline

@Hopscotch said:
Maybe their problem is in trying to stay cross platform?

I'm sure there are better ways to handle that then arbitrarily limiting us to 14 fonts.