[Oberon] Global font change on OLR

Sat Apr 2 20:49:18 CEST 2016

The commands in the Edit tool operate on documents in the user track. Select
a stretch of text in the user track, select one of the font names in
Edit.Tool, execute Edit.ChangeFont. Oberon changes the font of the select
document text to the selected font.  

This is also how word processors and other text editors which support fonts
work, by and large. For example, in Outlook, which I am using now, if I want
to change the font of this text I select it, click a dropdown menu in the
ribbon, and choose one of the fonts from the list. 

One thing that modern text editors have that Oberon doesn't (as far as I
know - I don't know all the versions) is the notion of a stylesheet and
semantic mark-up. The system could probably be extended quite
straightforwardly though, if somebody wanted to make the effort, by
introducing a new text element type and a Styles module. 

I don't think anybody minds you asking questions, it's that we think you
will make more progress, more quickly, by going straight to the source where
you will gain some understanding of the fundamentals very quickly. Speaking
for myself, it feels as if you are fumbling in the dark, and we are telling
you where the light-switch is.

You are however quite correct that Oberon doesn't always live up to its
promises with respect to visible state. In its defence I say that this is
probably true of every system I have ever known, but it is generally better
in this regard than most. You also have to consider that when you compare
Oberon with Linux or any of the other major OSes, you are comparing a system
which has a user base probably numbering in the hundreds worldwide, against
user bases of hundreds of thousands, if not millions. However, the
equivalent information of the man pages is available, and we are telling you
where to find it. 

The tool concept in Oberon is a brilliantly simple way of dealing with
things that are over-complicated in other OSes - I only really appreciated
how over-complex they were when I started to learn Oberon. I recently
designed the wire-frames for some browser-hosted software at work, heavily
influenced by the Oberon tool style (albeit non-editable). As standard
procedure a half-day's training course was set up for the users, but they
finished it in 5 minutes because everything was clear, visible and obvious.
The disadvantage, career-wise, is that everybody else thinks afterwards that
you miraculously get all the easy stuff to do.

B

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Oberon [mailto:oberon-bounces at lists.inf.ethz.ch] On Behalf Of
> Srinivas Nayak
> Sent: Saturday, 2 April, 2016 4:03 PM
> To: ETH Oberon and related systems <oberon at lists.inf.ethz.ch>
> Subject: Re: [Oberon] Global font change on OLR
> ont 
> Dear Chris,
> 
> I am grateful for your quick help.
> Following your help, I found System.ChangeFont, which changes the font
> globally.
> Hope you implicitly referred me this.
> 
> Dear Members,
> 
> Looks like, seeing many more simple/silly questions from me, all the
senior
> members in this list are irritated/bored of me.
> I apologize and beg your pardon.
> 
> Here are my feelings.
> 
> It is never the case that I don't want to study or trying to learn things
of my
> own.
> But sometimes I feel, I miss some points and hence that arises as a doubt.
> Also I don't implicitly complain that, good texts on the topic are absent,
or
> already some members answered to a similar questions  earlier.
> But at times, I might have skipped them unintentionally or forgot.
> 
> Not sure how members long associated with ETH and Oberon feel, but to me
> Oberon is still little difficult.
> May be that is due to my long time active acquaintance with Windows/Linux.
> I have some knowledge how to use GUI of Windows and CLI of Linux.
> But still, Oberon is a little challenge to me, though it has GUI/CLI both.
> I have seen people, who don't even know "C" of Computers, navigate and do
> many magics in Windows.
> I don't think I am able to do similarly in Oberon.
> In Linux, one simply goes to google and search for a command, reads the
> man page and done.
> I haven't seen such a facility here for Oberon.
> Again, these are not my complain against Oberon.
> I understand that Oberon is Oberon and not meant to be Windows and
> Linux.
> It has its own beauty and simplicity, but may be not the way common man
> thinks of.
> That is why I am here and still love Oberon, at least for its ability to
offer GUI
> within a fraction of a floppy disk size.
> 
> May be, a long time association with Oberon and developing programs within
> it for years, has raisen you all to a point, where things are at your
finger tips.
> But I don't think I have acquired a fraction of such a experience, in last
4-5
> years of my acquaintance with Oberon.
> So faults are mine, and I too feel that some times my questions are too
> simple.
> 
> Regarding the books/papers...
> It is true that we have everything in literature, but to get desired
information
> at the desired moment, one has to master or remember all the stuff from
> the books/papers.
> Again this comes by re-reading and practical experimentation which takes a
> little time.
> At the same time, (I feel) to ease the things a bit more, and to lessen
the the
> time to get the desired information, we have forums/groups, where we get
> a friend circle where we can ask questions and get answers from friends in
a
> minute which takes at least 5 minutes to get it from book.
> I feel, this is (though not whole, at least one of) the idea behind
> forums/groups.
> So sometimes I feel to ask in forums, even though I have a simple
question,
> rather than having an ego of self-taught-professor (who likes finding
answer
> of his own, spending days, but not asking others for the fear of loosing
self
> esteem).
> Again, sincerely, these are not my excuses for asking silly questions, but
the
> way I see it.
> In case our forum doesn't believe in this, it is again my fault and excuse
me.
> 
> Here I present the flow of my thoughts, to show how my recent doubt
> arised.
> This is never to express that "so, I was right to ask such a doubt", but
rather
> to express the fact that "here is how I fall into trap and so asked for
help".
> I would like to not to cite exact page number or section number of a
> book/paper here, for that may create a feeling that, thought I deny
explicitly,
> implicitly I like to express my ego in lines of "so, I was right to ask
such a
> doubt".
> 
> I wanted to change the font size globally so that it would be easy to read
the
> code inside Oberon.
> I vividly remember that there is somewhere I had read about changing font.
> So a command for changing font must be there somewhere explicitly with
> such a name.
> I went on to Tools in a hope that all available commands of Oberon are
> available in some Tools.
> [Not sure by thinking so I am right or wrong.] I found one in System Tool,
> Script.ChangeFont.
> Immediately I clicked it! To be frank, I didn't even care to check, what
this
> does.
> To my luck, nothing happened. :-(
> Observing the command name, I thought this command may be for changing
> the font of System.Text which I opened using Script.Open.
> Anyway, when nothing happened, I was not worried.
> Because if it would have worked also, (I thought,) it would only change
the
> font of the Script opened.
> But I need to change the font of Oberon itself.
> So I proceed to look for some other Changefont command somewhere else.
> One more I found in Edit Tool; Edit.ChangeFont and System.SetFont.
> Name says System.SetFont is the one I am looking for.
> Immediately I clicked it! Again Nothing happened. :-( Good. Time to think
> little more. Why it doesn't work?
> I remember, somewhere I read, Oberon prefers to present machine states
> visible than to keep things hidden.
> Here I am dealing with fonts; this is a visible stuff. But why nothing is
visible?
> Why then Oberon announces so...if nothing is visible, neither the action
> taken nor the error made!
> Now time to open the books... after failed for twice or thrice.
> I opened my books. Found that, it says, click the command, after that if
you
> type anything anywhere, it will be with a bigger font! Good.
> Is it that why I am not seeing anything?
> Being curious, I typed something in System.Log. Wow, big fonts appeared!
> But I am not happy this time even.
> I wanted to see each character on my display of Oberon screen to be
bigger.
> So now, how to do that?
> I didn't find any more clue from my head. :-( Being hopeless, I thought,
it
> would be better to ask rather than more trial and error!
> 
> 
> Sorry for a long mail.
> If at least one member cares to read this so far, I shall be happy.
> If he extends his helping hand, I shall be grateful.
> 
> 
> With thanks and best regards,
> 
> Yours sincerely,
> Srinivas Nayak
> 
> Home: http://www.mathmeth.com/sn/
> Blog: http://srinivas-nayak.blogspot.in/
> 
> On 04/02/2016 04:54 PM, Chris Burrows wrote:
> > Dear Srinivas,
> >
> > I recommend you do yourself a favour and follow the advice that Bob
> > Walkden gave you a couple of days ago: read Martin Reiser's book "The
> > Oberon System
> > - User Guide and Programmers Manual". I can't imagine how many hours
> > Reiser must have spent working on that book to help people like
> > yourself to use the system. You cannot hope to do anything except
> > scratch the surface unless you study it (not just speed-read it) from
> > end to end as there are a significant number of novel concepts that
> > you wouldn't even dream of asking questions about.
> >
> > However, if you prefer to learn by experimentation, trial and error
> > you can still get good use out of the book as a reference. It has a
> > good Table of Contents and an Index that you can use for that purpose.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Chris Burrows
> >
> > CFB Software
> > http://www.astrobe.com
> >
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: Oberon [mailto:oberon-bounces at lists.inf.ethz.ch] On Behalf Of
> >> Srinivas Nayak
> >> Sent: Saturday, 2 April 2016 8:48 PM
> >> To: ETH Oberon and related systems
> >> Subject: [Oberon] Global font change on OLR
> >>
> >> Dear All,
> >>
> >> I found OLR easier to use while I am on Linux.
> >> I think the font size of OLR Oberon is small.
> >> How can I change the font size to a bigger one?
> >>
> >>
> >> With thanks and best regards,
> >>
> >> Yours sincerely,
> >> Srinivas Nayak
> >>
> >> Home: http://www.mathmeth.com/sn/
> >> Blog: http://srinivas-nayak.blogspot.in/
> >> --
> >> Oberon at lists.inf.ethz.ch <mailto:Oberon at lists.inf.ethz.ch>  mailing
list for ETH Oberon and related
> >> systems https://lists.inf.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/oberon
> >
> > --
> > Oberon at lists.inf.ethz.ch <mailto:Oberon at lists.inf.ethz.ch>  mailing list
for ETH Oberon and related
> > systems https://lists.inf.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/oberon
> >
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