Proposal To Design A Better Font Selection Widget

[Pat Suwalski]

I'm glad to see someone is looking at this issue, though I don't know 
the design works the way people would like it too.

While the design addresses UTF-8 issues very nicely, I would suggest 
that to the typical user a menu like the one described in your proposal 
would be "scary."

In my opinion, the idea of an hierarchical-tree-dropdown-menu widget 
could be very awkward. Mixing LTR and RTL information in its columns 
even more so. Perhaps the icon representations of font styles (B, i, bi, 
etc) is too much for such a menu and belongs in a window. I simply feel 
I would get frustrated with a list like this.

In my opinion, it would be more useful to keep the dropdown menu along 
the lines of the OpenOffice menu, though with UTF-8 previews as you 
describe. Additionally, the spec could then have a section for a 
possible common-style text properties window.

I would also suggest you look at how CorelDraw has this. Long before 
OpenOffice or Inkscape existed, nine years ago, CorelDraw 6 introduced 
the best combination of featured between these two. There was/is a 
context-sensitive bar at the top that would have a font drop down akin 
to OpenOffice, and a Text properties window (Ctrl-T) that would show 
something akin to what is in Inkscape, except better refined.

This approach with your UTF-8 considerations would meet my font 
selection needs without the need for an over-complicated menu. The 
window could even have some of the grouping methods you speak of.

--Pat