Windows 7 Fonts

As an integral part of taking the graphics capabilities of Windows 7 to the next level, Microsoft has also catalyzed the evolution of text, both in relation to typography and text rendering, in the next iteration of the Windows client. According to Microsoft, over 80% of the time spent in front of a computer is related to either reading or writing text. This is why the Redmond company has poured resources into improving the quality of text in Windows 7, quality which is synonymous with typography. “As a platform, the role of Windows is to deliver great presentation of text and offering software developers great tools for creating the best presentation possible in the context of the software they develop,” revealed Worachai Chaoweeraprasit, a development lead on the Graphics feature team.

First off, Windows 7 is designed to kick ClearType up a notch. Taking advantage of the LCD pixel architecture and leveraging the human visual system, ClearType manages to spread the energy associated with a single pixel to the neighboring sub-pixels in, making text appear sharper. In Windows 7, ClearType comes with increased clarity, allowing end users to opt from a wider variety of granular choices via the ClearType Text Tuner.

“One of the graphics improvements we made in Windows 7, therefore, is to move from the physical pixel model of the past, and instead creating a new design around what we call the “device independent pixel” unit (or “DIP”), a “virtual pixel” that is one-ninety-sixth an inch in floating-point data type,” Chaoweeraprasit added. “In this model, a glyph (or any other geometric primitive for that matter) can size to fractional pixels, and be positioned anywhere in between the two pixels. The new ClearType improvement allows sizing and placement of glyph to the screen’s sub-pixel nearest to its ideal condition, creating a more natural looking word shape and making text on screen look a lot closer to print quality.”

Users will be happy to know that in Windows 7 they will be able to enjoy an estimated 40% more fonts than in Windows Vista, which in its turn also delivered 40% more fronts over XP. Microsoft currently plans to ship no less than 235 fronts with Windows 7, having offered just 191 in Vista and 133 in XP. “The default common controls’ font dialog and the font chunk in Windows 7 Ribbon are also updated to be more intelligently selective of what fonts to be present to the user of the current user’s profile. Depending on a number of settings including the current UI language, the user locale, and the current set of keyboard input locales, the font list hides fonts of languages not typically used by the user of different culture and locale,” Chaoweeraprasit said.

At the same time, the evolution of the Windows 7’s new font system now allows the operating system to group fonts. In Vista’s successor, collections will dictate how fonts are organized, based on the stylistic root of fonts. Chaoweeraprasit explained that “the notion of “font collection” allows partitioning of fonts sharing the same usage into a separate namespace. The system collection is similar to what exists today and is created and managed by the system whereas custom collection can be created and managed, as many as needed, entirely by the application program.”

In Windows 7, users will notice that Microsoft has added a new font, namely “Gabriola,” developed by John Hudson. The addition is just an accessory to the new level of OpenType support introduced in the next version of Windows. An offshoot of the TrueType Open technology Microsoft, OpenType controls the interaction and transformation of glyphs in stages.

“Windows 7 new text system not only uses available OpenType features internally but also allows access to any feature made available in the font in the high level programming interface, making it easier for application developer to discover and exercise the font feature in mainstream scenario,” Chaoweeraprasit said. “Gabriola makes heavy use of contextual letterforms and offers an unprecedented number of stylistic sets for different usages of the font in different occasions.”

According to Microsoft, Windows 7’s new text system has been assembled into what the company referred to as the DirectWrite self-sufficient system. This because, even in the early stages of development the company labored to resolve the shortcomings of non-homogeneous text processing.

“The [DirectWrite] API is provided in four layers – the interfaces for font data, rendering support, language processing, and typesetting, each built upon the others with the lower layer makes no requirement to the upper one, and none depends on a specific graphics model. To illustrate the latter point, the figure below shows a sample application that uses the new typesetting interface and language processor while the final rendering happens as an extruded filled 3D geometry from the 2D graphics environment also new to Windows 7 called Direct2D,” Chaoweeraprasit said.

XP to Windows 7

Users currently running Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) or earlier, and Windows Vista RTM, SP1 or the upcoming SP2, will be able to upgrade to Windows 7, Microsoft informed as it introduced the SKU lineup for the next version of the Windows client. There will be essentially three upgrade models for Windows users according to the Redmond company, depending on the source operating system, namely XP to Windows 7, Vista to Windows 7 and of course Windows 7 to Windows 7.

As far as Windows XP users are concerned, Microsoft indicated that upgrade licenses of Windows 7 will be available to them, superseding the existing XP licenses, and that the upgrade media can be used in order to move to Windows 7. However, the transition implies a clean installation of Windows 7 rather than an actual in-place upgrade. Still, the deal has to please XP users, as they will get the full Windows 7 bits at a discounted upgrade price. Users are advised to back up all their data from the partition where XP is installed before deploying Windows 7, just to be on the safe side.

For Vista, users will indeed be able to enjoy in-place upgrades to Windows 7. In this context, Windows 7 deployments on top of Windows Vista will leave everything in place, from installed applications to data. The upgrade process however is extremely slow compared to a clean installation of Windows 7. The software giant revealed that Vista editions (Home Basic, Home Premium, Business and Ultimate) can be upgraded to the corresponding or higher editions of Windows 7 (Home Premium, Professional or Ultimate).

At the same time, just as was the case with Vista, users will be able to jump from one edition of Windows 7 to another, provided that the upgrade is done to a superseding SKU, thanks to the Anytime Upgrade feature. Just a reminder, the full line-up of Windows 7 editions is: Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate.

“For Windows 7, we are using a single image for all SKUs. This means the bits for all the editions are already on your computer if you are running Windows 7. With Windows Anytime Upgrade, users can unlock and upgrade to a different SKU much easier than before,” revealed Brandon LeBlanc, Windows Communications manager on the Windows Client Communications Team. “In Windows 7, each SKU is a superset of the previous SKU. No features are lost on upgrade.”

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Download : Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility 9.1.0.1007

K-Lite Mega Codec Pack 4.3.4

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Fedora 10 Final

Fedora Core is intended to be a logical upgrade path for previous users of Red Hat Linux whose needs are consistent with the objectives of the Fedora Project. It is a return to Red Hat's roots; 2-3 releases per year, and freely-available downloads that can be called by name even when media containing those bits are sold by third parties (within the constraints of trademark guidelines).

BT Download : Fedora 10 Final

Http File Server(HFS) v2.2b Build 150 Final / v2.3 Build 160 Beta

Http File Server (HFS) is an easy to use drag and drop file server for personal file sharing. It runs as a standalone executable and does not require any installation. The program is very easy to use, just drag a file into it to share it with the world. You can customize the port it is running on, specify the IP address and monitor connections from the tray icon. HFS presents the shared files on a simple HTML page, that includes the file name and size. With some HTML knowledge, you can completely customize the HTML template to meet your preference. HFS can also integrate into Windows Explorer, allowing you to easily share files from the right-click menu.

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[FIX] %item-ext% was not working with enabled "Hide file extension in listing"
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[FIX] incorrect behaviour accessing /~
[FIX] incorrect handling of // in URI [related forum topic]
[FIX] incorrect behaviour adding an empty CD drives
[FIX] bad URL for links with ?recursive [related forum topic]
[FIX] archive for subfolders of real folders had a wrong path
[FIX] fixed unicode support for uploading file names
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