Virtue is my improvement of Apple Computer's "Charcoal" font appearing in Mac OS 8.
About Virtue
There is a lot of controversy about this font, and honestly, I think that most of it is unjustified. Basically, a lot of people did not want this font to appear in the Mac OS 8. I think that this feeling is based on a "reverse-engineered" font developed by Greg Landweber for his Aaron extension and Kaleidoscope control panel. Greg built his font from looking at various screenshots and did a good job at making a very complete font. However, the spacing information and special characters characters seemed a little off to me. It seems that Apple couldn't decide whether Charcoal should have two pixels between the letters or just one. This leads to a cramped appearance on screen.
So here's what I did: basically, I took his work and tried to space it how I would if I was making Apple's next font. I studied the "Chicago" system font and and used it as a template for my font. After about 2 hours of tinkering, I had a bitmap font that looked really good as a replacement font for Kaleidoscope. About a week later, after tinkering some more, I made even more improvements. Now with the release of Mac OS 8, I have expanded Virtue's character set and created an Appearance Extension patch that allows Mac OS 8 users to select Virtue in the Appearance Control Panel.
Installation Instructions (note: this will only work if you have Mac OS 8.0. Also, you do not have to apply the patch again if you have already done so in a previous version of Virtue.)
1. Drag the "Virtue" icon to the System Folder (the Finder will put it where it belongs).
2. Double click on the "Appearance Virtue patch" and follow the instructions on screen for installing the patch.
3. Restart your computer. (This will allow the patched Appearance Extension to load.)
4. Select "Appearance" from the "Control Panels" folder in the Apple menu.
5. Press the "Options" button and change the System Font to "Virtue" in the pop-up menu under Appearances.
6. Restart your computer. (Yeah, this is kinda weird, but Apple decided that you'll have to restart your computer if you want to change the System Font.)
If you are upgrading from a previous version of Virtue, follow these instructions:
1. Select "Appearance" from the "Control Panels" folder in the Apple menu.
2. Press the "Options" button and change the System Font to "Chicago" in the pop-up menu under Appearances.
3. Restart your computer.
4. Open the "Fonts" folder in the System folder. Drag the old "Virtue" font suitcase to the trash can.
5. Drag the "Virtue" icon to the System Folder (the Finder will put it where it belongs).
6. Select "Appearance" from the "Control Panels" folder in the Apple menu.
7. Press the "Options" button and change the System Font to "Virtue" in the pop-up menu under Appearances.
8. Restart your computer. (Yeah, this is kinda weird, but Apple decided that you'll have to restart your computer if you want to change the System Font.)
Feel free to tell me how you feel about this font, good or bad. If you have some specific criticisms, I'd love to hear them, so I can improve Virtue. My email address is <wamozart@teleport.com> Also check my web page for updates at:
<http://www.teleport.com/~wamozart/>
Freeware Notice
You don't need to pay a cent for this font. In fact, I will refuse to take any money for it at all. Please, I'm begging you, NO MONEY!!!!! If you want to spend some money, take a look at some of my other fonts on my web site. I do retain all rights to this font, so don't even think about trying to sell it. I mean really, how tacky could you get.
Version History
1.9--Fixed a spacing problem with the "j" and "’". (September 25, 1997)
1.8—Fixed the leading. Virtue will no longer be cut off in dialogue boxes. (September 23, 1997)
1.7—Fixed a small bug. Virtue is now stable. (August 4, 1997)
1.6—Wrote an Appearance Virtue Extension patch and expanded the character set. (July 24, 1997)
1.5—Even more spacing fixes! Created new non-alphanumeric characters to more closely match Charcoal (e.g., &, $, ?, +, etc.) (May 18, 1997)
1.4—More spacing fixes. Created 9, 10 and 11 pt. bitmaps. (May 13, 1997)
1.3—Fixed the spacing of a few characters. Modified the outline of the "A". (May 9, 1997)
1.2—Fixed even more characters! (mostly lowercase) (May 8, 1997)
1.1—Name change. Fixed some characters. (May 6, 1997)
