Microsoft Font Validator runs native on Mac OS X!

LeMo aka PatternMan aka Frank E Blokland

if you are not an open-source purist

Who? Me?

Hin-Tak Leung

LeMo aka Frank E Blokland said:

if you are not an open-source purist

Who? Me?

Well, some people ("open-source fanatics") really don't want to run any closed source software, and that includes installing windows binary bits using winestricks under wine. There are a few of those in the wine community - one of them would close any bug report which mentions winestricks, for example. So bug reports need to be carefully worded . Hence my delay in filing them.

There are many more of them among DebIan linux users. I forgot this is the mac os X thread so obviously people here are comfortable using closed-source OS .

Hin-Tak Leung

LeMo aka Frank E Blokland said:
...using the original FV installer under Wineskin (with manually adding the ‘var’ folder stuff to the C: drive):

...

You can use the original 2003 binary under wine, provided you ripe out wine-mono and put dotnet v2 in instead. While you do that, you might also rip out wine-gecko and replace it with ie8.

I don't test the latter with the 2003 binary anymore, but the former (removing wine-mono and replacing it) is necessary to get the rasterisation tests to work under wine. The rasterisation tests is the last part which Microsoft did not release and my only help is to study how the old binary works and hope to do similar things with freetype eventually. That's the major TODO item left.

Dave Crossland

Mark Simonson said:

You can change the location of the reports in the menu Validation>Options to a directory of your choice or the same directory as the fonts you're validating.

Hin-Tak, I suggest making the same directory the new default. 

Hin-Tak Leung

Dave Crossland said:

Hin-Tak, I suggest making the same directory the new default. 

The current default (temp then view then delete) is clearly not satisfactory when the viewer doesn't work - it is also bad for the command line tool (where basically you only get to time the run and see if any errors results...) but I don't like the font location, as that clutter up where I keep the fonts (relatively permanent) with reports (relatively temporary), and don't work if font location is read only. The other option (multiple fonts all strip of their directory and put into same specific one) suffers from collision potential...

Of course ideally it would be nice if built-in viewing works soon . I only have so many hours per day...

Dave Crossland

Hin-Tak Leung said:
I don't like the font location, as that clutter up where I keep the fonts (relatively permanent) with reports (relatively temporary),

Removing the reports is easy, eg setting up .gitignore to ignore them, and you have the option to set the directory if you want. 

I think this is the best default. That or the Desktop.

Hin-Tak Leung

Dave Crossland said:

I think this is the best default. That or the Desktop.

I like the desktop idea. I'll possibly put a test to check that "desktop" exists also...

Hin-Tak Leung

Micah Stupak said:
For what it's worth, not only do I see this in this new version, but the Windows version throws the same error in Windows 10, and unless Windows 10 is considered a non-Windows system... <shrugs>

Micah

Can you tell me more about your windows 10 problem? The pop up message box is a catch-all for failure to get to IE on windows, and webkit on Linux and gecko on wine (the current code can get to those three). Since IE is always on windows, I just assume any failure is non-windows. 

If you do have genuine win 10 (rather than wine configured to be win 10), would you be willing to run a small utility I might write to pop up the actual error from the OS?

LeMo aka PatternMan aka Frank E Blokland

You can use the original 2003 binary under wine, provided you ripe out wine-mono and put dotnet v2 in instead. While you do that, you might also rip out wine-gecko and replace it with ie8.

Thanks for the tips! I got it perfectly (and quite fastly) running under Wine(skin) on the Mac now. After some trial and error I’ve installed dotnet45 and some additional stuff on the system.

Hin-Tak Leung

LeMo aka Frank E Blokland said:

Thanks for the tips! I got it perfectly (and quite fastly) running under Wine(skin) on the Mac now. After some trial and error I’ve installed dotnet45 and some additional stuff on the system.

Argh, am almost offended . A lot of work had gone in to update the current code...

 If you want the fullest functionality, the best thing is the last win32 hybrid branch under wine (with dotnet 2 and ie 8). Note in particular, wine is missing one of arabic code page 708 - this is filed ( see README-extra.txt for the bug id). The 2003 binary would misbehave with one of the OS/2 table tests under wine and this problem is worked around in the current code.

I don't intend to update the win32 hybrid branch much further since it only differs from the main dev code by the rasterisation tests now, and the MS rasterer chokes on about 20% fonts on current mac os X, and it is doubtful how useful keep using it in general...

(edit: the hybrid branch is a series of changes on top of main dev, to allow using a few dll's copied from the 2003 binary to provide for missing functionalities Microsoft did not release in source form. So it gets smaller and smaller over time as missing functionalities are filled - the 2nd last was the xml viewer, so it differs by the rasterisation tests now)

Tobias Kvant

Good stuff, thanks! Works on El Capitan too.

LeMo aka PatternMan aka Frank E Blokland

Argh, am almost offended . A lot of work had gone in to update the current code...

Please don’t be offended! I think you’re doing an excellent job and updating the current code is the only way to improve the tool, after all. When it comes to Wine-wrapping I had some experience with good ol’ DTL FontMaster. For Font Validator I used Wineskin to make a wrapper (.app) for OS X.6 –X.11, which I basically only will distribute among my students –that is, if they are interested.

Hin-Tak Leung

LeMo aka Frank E Blokland said:

 For Font Validator I used Wineskin to make a wrapper (.app) for OS X.6 –X.11, which I basically only will distribute among my students –that is, if they are interested.

If you use it as part of a teaching course and help your students with it, why don't you go a bit further and make it more official? By commissioning/donating at the department budget level for maintenance and development? That would be good from all fronts, you and your students get bug fixes and improvements, and have proper technical support on it.

As I said, the max functionality is to be have by running the win32 hybrid branch under wine with wine-mono and wine-gecko removed and Ms dotnet runtime 2 + ie 8 added. I will keep the configuration privately until I can replace the rasterisation tests ; but I can be persuaded to keep that going for a bit longer if there is a good reason for it.

Saga Söderback

Hin-Tak Leung said:

What kind of error do you see with windows 10? Mind you this is the mac os X thread... Are you running wine configured to win 10? Same comment applies - ripe wine-mono out and put donet v2 in with winestricks.

I see that same error Frank had when running the official downloaded-from-Microsoft versions of FontVal in Windows 10, running as VM.



I know this is the OS X thread, but maybe it's helpful to know that the version straight from MS might have issues too.

Hin-Tak Leung

@Micah Stupak you mean building from https://github.com/Microsoft/Font-Validator , right? That would be expected. Microsoft never opened the XML report viewer part of font validator.

If you build from 
https://github.com/HinTak/Font-Validator after last week, or use the binary from

http://sourceforge.net/projects/hp-pxl-jetready/files/Microsoft Font Validator/FontVal-bin-2016_01_06.zip/download

It should work.
(just unzip somewhere and run - it does not neat any background set up so no need for an installer, unlike the old one which requires registering a com server for the old digital signature check, which wasn't opened either)

I seem to read that Microsoft has published another browser call Edge. So maybe that's why. If you are using the 2016-01-06 binary and still see the not-working xml report viewer pop up, I 'll write a little tool to pop up the proper error message

Hin-Tak Leung

Micah Stupak said:

I know this is the OS X thread, but maybe it's helpful to know that the version straight from MS might have issues too.

That was mentioned in the other thread at the very beginning towards the end about near-term roadmap - 

• replace the missing built-in XML reporter viewer

That was two months ago - so the xml report viewer code *is* replaced, and it still uses MSIE on windows, but automatically switches to use webkit on Linux. That happened just before Christmas so you need the code this side of the new year to have it.

Hin-Tak Leung

@Micah Stupak : also it is probably worth mentioning that there is no such thing as "version straight from Microsoft". What happened was that Microsoft gave me a partial set of source code which had quite a few parts removed, no documentation, and wasn't even buildable. I made it minimally buildable and sent it back ASAP for legal approval to be released to the wider public. So for a few months while they were getting legal approval of having the "minimally buildable version" opened, I kept on filling in the parts which were removed and been sitting on my changes.

So when the "minimally buildable" version finally was allowed to see day light, I had a whole stack of changes to fill some missing pieces, and a number of bug fixes immediately; and also a few missing pieces were already in progress to being filled.

The "minimally buildable" version has 189 out of 194 tests working (and missing the xml viewer and rasterer also). When it was finally opened to the wider public I had fixed 4 more tests to 193, and fixed the last about 2 weeks after it went open.

The xml viewer is re-implemented during christmas, and the rasterer is wip.

I hope this explanation helps.

And it will go up to 200 next, as I added 6 tests on SVG.

Saga Söderback

Hin-Tak Leung said:

@Micah Stupak you mean building from https://github.com/Microsoft/Font-Validator , right? That would be expected. Microsoft never opened the XML report viewer part of font validator.

If you build from 
https://github.com/HinTak/Font-Validator after last week, or use the binary from

http://sourceforge.net/projects/hp-pxl-jetready/files/Microsoft Font Validator/FontVal-bin-2016_01_06.zip/download

Actually, no, I just downloaded the installer from Microsoft directly. I've only tried building your version on OS X.

• replace the missing built-in XML reporter viewer
  

That was two months ago - so the xml report viewer code *is* replaced, and it still uses MSIE on windows, but automatically switches to use webkit on Linux. That happened just before Christmas so you need the code this side of the new year to have it.

I'll have to double-check my source.

I seem to read that Microsoft has published another browser call Edge. So maybe that's why. If you are using the 2016-01-06 binary and still see the not-working xml report viewer pop up, I 'll write a little tool to pop up the proper error message

This is far more likely to be the problem. I couldn't get the XML reports to open in Edge or IE on Windows 10, so there's probably some XML/XSLT hijinks over that that don't work well.

Micah

Hin-Tak Leung

@Micah Stupak :download from Microsoft's typography Web site would be the "antique" 2003 version. It uses a com/activeX bridge to IE. The newly re-implement code (2016-01-06) uses what .net windows form provides, which mono does emulate to some extent.

If you try the 2016-01-16 binary and it won't launch an embedded xml viewer, I'll write a little tool to pop up the actual error message...

But the 2003 version shold not show a pop up box about non-windows at all - that's pop up box is specific to since-opening (early November 2015) to before re-implement (2016 Jan 06)

Saga Söderback

Hin-Tak Leung said:

@Micah Stupak :download from Microsoft's typography Web site would be the "antique" 2003 version. It uses a com/activeX bridge to IE. The newly re-implement code (2016-01-06) uses what .net windows form provides, which mono does emulate to some extent.

If you try the 2016-01-16 binary and it won't launch an embedded xml viewer, I'll write a little tool to pop up the actual error message...

But the 2003 version shold not show a pop up box about non-windows at all - that's pop up box is specific to since-opening (early November 2015) to before re-implement (2016 Jan 06)

You know, when I looked at it yesterday, I saw the date at the bottom, August 2014, and I thought "yeah, this is fine, it's from last year."  My mistake! Sorry. I'll re-install with your version.

Micah

Hin-Tak Leung

2nd iteration is out soon... Here is the bundled readmefirst:

https://github.com/HinTak/Font-Validator/blob/master/ReadMeFirst_MacOSX.pdf

I have pushed the launcher one level deeper so that it is easier to copy, plus a few other improvements.

Georg Seifert

I made a small cocoa wrapper for the command line utility: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3563666/FontValidator0.1-1.zip
Should run on 10.9 and up.
Installation: unpack the .zip and put the app wherever you like.
Validation: Just drag a .otf or .ttf on the app icon and hit the button.

Please have a look and tell me what you think.

I’ll put the source code in the repository when it is stable enough.

Hin-Tak Leung

Georg Seifert said:

I made a small cocoa wrapper for the command line utility: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3563666/FontValidator0.1-1.zip
Should run on 10.9 and up.
Installation: unpack the .zip and put the app wherever you like.
Validation: Just drag a .otf or .ttf on the app icon and hit the button.

Please have a look and tell me what you think.

I’ll put the source code in the repository when it is stable enough.

Thanks a lot! I'll have a look likely tomorrow.

I have started tagging for the upcoming CFF update, and will be testing and packing for mac os X possibly tomorrow. If I like what I see, do you mind if I package it in? 

Georg Seifert

I don't mind.

Georg Seifert

To explain a bit further:
The App will show a dialog that lets you choose what tables to test. How many people will need that? My first ideas where like this: Run the validator right away and show a webview with the results. There could be a menu item "Validate with options..." or a preference setting (to always show the dialog) if someone needs them. Or, even less UI, don't add the webview, just show the file in Safari.

This would mean it is just a droplet. Drag the .otf on the icon in the dock and get the report in Safari.

What do you think? What option you usually use? Or how often do you change the settings. Maybe the selection of test could go to the preferences? 

Ramiro Espinoza

>>I made a small cocoa wrapper for the command line utility: 

Cool! I tested it and I found a tiny spelling mistake ('Validate'). Take a look:

Georg Seifert

fixed.

Mark Simonson

I made a small cocoa wrapper for the command line utility

Ha! That's awesome.

Georg Seifert

I made a small update: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3563666/FontValidator0.1-2.zip 

Changes:
- fixed a typo
- added missing Retina icons
- option to hide all check-boxes

Ramiro Espinoza