About QuirkLag 0.5 Initial Semi-public beta release 3/9/92
******This version has been tested by the author, and seems free of serious wierdness; however, no warranty of fitness for any purpose whatever is implied or expressed.*********
This is an attempt at a QuarkXPress font-scanning utility. It is designed to identify fonts used in a QXP 3.1 document without having to launch QXP and open the document. Only fonts used in the Quark document itself are identified in this version -- fonts in placed EPS and PICT files are not listed.
This version of QuirkLag is freeware, but the I retain all rights not explicitly granted below. Contributions of whatever amount you feel is appropriate will be cheerfully and gratefully accepted. I reserve the right to add features to QuirkLag (e.g., listing of EPS files used and exporting reports to text files) and to ask for shareware payments for future versions.
QuirkLag requires version 2.x of HyperCard in order to function.
To scan a Quark 3.1 document, click on the top button on the floating palette, or select "Scan File…" from the "QuirkLag" menu. Select the file you want to scan from the following SFGetFile dialog box. The name of the file you've selected (including the complete path name) is displayed in the window. Once the font lists are built, they're displayed in the scrolling field in two columns: one for screen fonts and one for printer fonts. The printer fonts are listed next to the screen font they correspond to. Font names are sorted alphabetically by screen font name.
Once the font list is displayed, you can determine whether a font is currently installed by clicking on its screen font name. If the font is installed, the text of the window will change to that font momentarily, and an alert will inform you that the font is installed. If the text of the field changes to Geneva and an alert saying "Font may not be installed" appears, either the font is not installed or, perhaps more likely, the way the font is reported in the QXP file does not exactly match the way the font is listed in the font menu.
The "Append Report" check box allows you to scan multiple files as part of a single report. The font list for each file will be appended to the current contents of the window, along with the name of the file.
To print a report containing the contents of the font list window, click on the printer button in the floating palette, or select "Print Report…" from the "QuirkLag" menu. An alert dialog will give the option to select a printer other than the one currently selected in the Chooser (so that you don't inadvertently print to an imagesetter or color printer). If you choose to print to the current printer, or once you've chosen a different printer, the report will be printed.
To transfer to another application or HyperCard stack not currently open, use the "Transfer…" item of the "QuirkLag" menu, or click on the transfer button in the floating palette (the one that looks like a generic application icon).
Results when used with QuarkXPress 3.0 documents are unpredictable at best (they really did change some stuff in the file format).
The methods used in this utility to find and list the fonts are kludgey, roundabout, nasty, brutish, etc. I wish I could say that they're short, but that would be lying. Right now the speed is acceptable on fast machines (around 2 seconds or less on a IIci with cache card), less so on slower Macs (around 7 seconds on an SE).
A secondary purpose of QuirkLag is to demonstrate that HyperCard is an exceptional tool for non-programmers to use in developing custom applications, with uses far beyond simple database/address books. QuirkLag was developed entirely in HyperTalk; the function that obtains and returns the font list was compiled into 68000 machine code with Heizer Software's CompileIt! in order to improve execution speed, but all commands, functions, etc. used are native HyperTalk. No explicit use of pointers, handles, or ROM Toolbox calls was necessary.
Acknowledgements, Etc.
CompileIt! is a trademark of Heizer Software. It is also the greatest thing since sliced bread for someone like me who needs to put together custom applications but is too lazy to learn C or Pascal or C++ or whatever.
Quark and QuarkXPress are tradmarks of Quark, Inc. Quark, Inc. has no connection whatever with Rackensack Software, and mention of Quark in this documentation should not be construed to mean that this stack is endorsed, approved, or otherwise sanctioned by Quark, Inc.
This stack was developed without reference to any official or unofficial information about the file formats used by Quark, other than from Greg Swann, another Quark user (not a Quark employee), who posted in CompuServe's Desktop Publishing Forum his findings about the location of font information in a QXP file. Without that hint, QuirkLag would never have been possible.
My thanks as well to all the other members and the sysops of the Desktop Publishing Forum, who have been a never-ending source of information, assistance, friendship, and entertainment for the last two years.
I welcome bug reports, suggestions, feature requests, comments and gripes. Send 'em to me at any of the electronic addresses below or by US Mail. However, if you call me at work about this stack, may "Unexpected end-of-file encountered" follow you all the days of your life.
