Monday, September 16, 2013
Disabling the é key is legal in Canada
The upshot of being a Canadian Windows user is that your keyboard layout supports the selected number of French keystrokes available - if you do not opt to go with the US English keyboard/language when you install Windows. The latter is often chosen by English-speaking Canadians. None of them furrin' letters will appear when you type, and that's what most people are after. All those extra color coded characters on their keys are quickly forgotten.
I understand the sentiments and the time savings. But having at those extra keys without need of remembering their key code can be handy. It gives you ample opportunity to demonstrate the meandering road words have traveled into English when you use Québec, café, latté and the like. If it causes angst for the few that actually are bothered by it, well, c'est la vie. We're English speaking persons from Canadia, and we have an excuse.
The switch that causes Canadian keyboards to flip between those French characters and their English ones is the key combination of CTRL-Shift. Other locales with similar keyboards and language support in Windows suffer from the same issues. On a full sized keyboard with an adept typist at the helm, this combination rarely occurs. But if you are forced to switch between different keyboards, jumping from laptops to desktops and other devices, it may occur much more frequently.
The Windows Control Panel's Region and Language object is where you can change the system's language setting and change keyboard settings. These functions can be added to the taskbar which permit you to always have a means to switch languages and/or keyboard. For many households, this function is the only way everyone can use the same system and feel at home.
Saturday, September 7, 2013
GIMP is Slow - And So Are We To Act
There are numerous posts on the Internet from people whinging about how long it takes for GIMP to start. Long, tedious wait times are a standard we must accept from all things out of our hands. Read the responses to their queries and discover for yourself. It is part of the development cycle, and ingrained into the fabric of compute environments everywhere.
You can find an appreciable barge-load of similar load-time problems with Adobe Photoshop, Virus Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome, etc. So I am not singling out GIMP here for any unkindness. But I found myself making the same queries about GIMP as were made by others.
Invariably, no matter what the hell I do, GIMP will do the following whether I want it to or not.
1) Query all plug-in files and regenerate the pluginrc file. I can fire up GIMP and close it. If I fire it up again, all plug-ins are queried.
2) Query all font files any time GIMP is executed after a cold start of the machine.
These are both necessary processes for GIMP yet thorny to many users. Most Windows owners have little or no control over their machine's collective of system installed fonts, and none with respect to GIMP's plug-ins. So when GIMP takes it sweet time starting, and any other editors like it, you bite your tongue or head down to the cafe for a latté.
GIMP plug-ins are a necessity. Without them, all file actions involving anything other than the native GIMP XCF file format becomes impossible, and any other functions tied to a plug-in are lost. You might be able to reduce their number to a degree, but each plug-in you remove from the plug-in folder becomes one less available function or file type. Losing tools from your toolbox is not a good idea. Proceed with caution!
A GIMP user's control over fonts is a necessary evil, but the benefits are substantial and far reaching if you take control of them. By limiting or authorizing which font files GIMP accesses, you are likely to also limit and authorize all fonts installed to the operating system, and thus, all other applications on the system.
System fonts tend to be the biggest contributor to long start times for GIMP on Windows. I suspect it is likewise for any operating system GIMP runs on, but Windows users are often quite unfamiliar with font installation habits in their operating system. Because of this, and their lack of control over the fonts and other behaviors of installed software, they are at the mercy of the machine.
When you install software in Windows, any application that desires to have a specific font or set of fonts installed to the system fonts folder, usually C:/Windows/Fonts/, will place them there. This has always been the way for Windows, and it will not change anytime soon. If an application is reliant upon a specific font file in order to communicate to those using the application, the loss of the font may result in an application with no visual queues as to what the application does, can do, or requires you to do. So the behavior, while sometimes intolerable, is just part of Windows ownership.
If you are in the habit of buying or acquiring font sets or collections and installing them, now you know who the real enemy is.
The easiest method of taking control of fonts is to employ a good font management application. It is also a good idea to make an effort to review the font files installed on your system immediately after the operating system is installed, and before you begin installing applications. If you know which files are absolutely necessary for Windows internal operations, and those that are used by Windows applications (Notepad, Connection Wizard, etc.), your use of the font manager will be much more precise. The last thing you want to be doing is using a font manager without any idea as to what can and cannot be excised from your system.
A good font manager will allow you to categorize and group fonts in any manner you like and add/remove fonts to and from the system fonts folder, or any other, at your leisure. You can do this manually in Windows, or with script files. For most people, that method requires meticulous care and script-writing capabilities, and also requires that you understand how your Fonts folder presents font file information to you.
In Windows 7 and other versions of Windows, you do not see font files individually. Ariel, Ariel Black, Ariel bold and all the other variations are collected into a single entry - Ariel. Removing this single font entry from the system removes all of the font files collected into this entry. Removing one variant of seven when all you see is a single icon doesn't make things easy.
Font managers provide an easy way of keeping all fonts the system could ever use in a separate location on your hard drive, away from the system fonts folder, or off the system entirely. If you store your fonts in a folder or your own creation, you will see each file individually and not presented as a set of files together in one icon. Font files that are not in use by the system and it's applications can be organized in any manner you wish without affecting it. You can prune down a system fonts folder with hundreds or thousands of fonts to reflect the actual fonts you use and need.
The key capability of a font management system is control. By limiting which fonts are exposed to the system, overall font-related performance and access issues are limited in the same way. If you only expose forty fonts to Windows, all applications on the system will deal with a maximum forty Windows system fonts.
For GIMP users, this limiting of fonts results in a Text tool window whose font selection drop down list is drawn much quicker on slower machines. GIMP will have a vastly reduced font selection process. Less scrolling through the list will be required. Less font interrogation when GIMP starts will mean less waiting.
All other applications that poll or interrogate fonts in a similar manner will speed up tremendously when you exercise this sort of control over fonts. So the need to manage fonts on your own carries with it far more than a control over GIMP. You'll have a deeper appreciation for your fonts and application installer activities related fonts.
A good font manager immediately presents you an update of new fonts found in the system. You will often have an idea as to which installers were responsible for them once you begin seeing these additions of fonts occur. You'll learn which applications need/added which fonts, and you can of course take action against any application which makes a mockery of your system fonts folder.
Many free and commercial font management programs are available to the Windows user.
Of the free font managers, NexusFont provides the best features. It's a bit wonky to navigate, but don't let that stop you. Once you get the hang of it, you'll be organized in no time and discover it has all the essentials you need, and plenty of extras.
Of the commercial programs I have used, I enjoyed High-Logic Main Type the most. It's feature set is excellent, and supports a font archive maintained on the hard drive. It enables you to recall fonts whose files you have removed from the system - a life saver if your offline collection of fonts is at home and you are across town or the planet. It has a window alerting you to problematic fonts whose content are not in accordance with the file type's specification. GIMP and many other applications are affected by corrupted or malformed font files, and getting them out of your workflow or reducing their exposure to your system is greatly aided by this function.
You can find an appreciable barge-load of similar load-time problems with Adobe Photoshop, Virus Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome, etc. So I am not singling out GIMP here for any unkindness. But I found myself making the same queries about GIMP as were made by others.
Invariably, no matter what the hell I do, GIMP will do the following whether I want it to or not.
1) Query all plug-in files and regenerate the pluginrc file. I can fire up GIMP and close it. If I fire it up again, all plug-ins are queried.
2) Query all font files any time GIMP is executed after a cold start of the machine.
These are both necessary processes for GIMP yet thorny to many users. Most Windows owners have little or no control over their machine's collective of system installed fonts, and none with respect to GIMP's plug-ins. So when GIMP takes it sweet time starting, and any other editors like it, you bite your tongue or head down to the cafe for a latté.
GIMP plug-ins are a necessity. Without them, all file actions involving anything other than the native GIMP XCF file format becomes impossible, and any other functions tied to a plug-in are lost. You might be able to reduce their number to a degree, but each plug-in you remove from the plug-in folder becomes one less available function or file type. Losing tools from your toolbox is not a good idea. Proceed with caution!
A GIMP user's control over fonts is a necessary evil, but the benefits are substantial and far reaching if you take control of them. By limiting or authorizing which font files GIMP accesses, you are likely to also limit and authorize all fonts installed to the operating system, and thus, all other applications on the system.
System fonts tend to be the biggest contributor to long start times for GIMP on Windows. I suspect it is likewise for any operating system GIMP runs on, but Windows users are often quite unfamiliar with font installation habits in their operating system. Because of this, and their lack of control over the fonts and other behaviors of installed software, they are at the mercy of the machine.
When you install software in Windows, any application that desires to have a specific font or set of fonts installed to the system fonts folder, usually C:/Windows/Fonts/, will place them there. This has always been the way for Windows, and it will not change anytime soon. If an application is reliant upon a specific font file in order to communicate to those using the application, the loss of the font may result in an application with no visual queues as to what the application does, can do, or requires you to do. So the behavior, while sometimes intolerable, is just part of Windows ownership.
If you are in the habit of buying or acquiring font sets or collections and installing them, now you know who the real enemy is.
The easiest method of taking control of fonts is to employ a good font management application. It is also a good idea to make an effort to review the font files installed on your system immediately after the operating system is installed, and before you begin installing applications. If you know which files are absolutely necessary for Windows internal operations, and those that are used by Windows applications (Notepad, Connection Wizard, etc.), your use of the font manager will be much more precise. The last thing you want to be doing is using a font manager without any idea as to what can and cannot be excised from your system.
A good font manager will allow you to categorize and group fonts in any manner you like and add/remove fonts to and from the system fonts folder, or any other, at your leisure. You can do this manually in Windows, or with script files. For most people, that method requires meticulous care and script-writing capabilities, and also requires that you understand how your Fonts folder presents font file information to you.
In Windows 7 and other versions of Windows, you do not see font files individually. Ariel, Ariel Black, Ariel bold and all the other variations are collected into a single entry - Ariel. Removing this single font entry from the system removes all of the font files collected into this entry. Removing one variant of seven when all you see is a single icon doesn't make things easy.
Font managers provide an easy way of keeping all fonts the system could ever use in a separate location on your hard drive, away from the system fonts folder, or off the system entirely. If you store your fonts in a folder or your own creation, you will see each file individually and not presented as a set of files together in one icon. Font files that are not in use by the system and it's applications can be organized in any manner you wish without affecting it. You can prune down a system fonts folder with hundreds or thousands of fonts to reflect the actual fonts you use and need.
The key capability of a font management system is control. By limiting which fonts are exposed to the system, overall font-related performance and access issues are limited in the same way. If you only expose forty fonts to Windows, all applications on the system will deal with a maximum forty Windows system fonts.
For GIMP users, this limiting of fonts results in a Text tool window whose font selection drop down list is drawn much quicker on slower machines. GIMP will have a vastly reduced font selection process. Less scrolling through the list will be required. Less font interrogation when GIMP starts will mean less waiting.
All other applications that poll or interrogate fonts in a similar manner will speed up tremendously when you exercise this sort of control over fonts. So the need to manage fonts on your own carries with it far more than a control over GIMP. You'll have a deeper appreciation for your fonts and application installer activities related fonts.
A good font manager immediately presents you an update of new fonts found in the system. You will often have an idea as to which installers were responsible for them once you begin seeing these additions of fonts occur. You'll learn which applications need/added which fonts, and you can of course take action against any application which makes a mockery of your system fonts folder.
Many free and commercial font management programs are available to the Windows user.
Of the free font managers, NexusFont provides the best features. It's a bit wonky to navigate, but don't let that stop you. Once you get the hang of it, you'll be organized in no time and discover it has all the essentials you need, and plenty of extras.
Of the commercial programs I have used, I enjoyed High-Logic Main Type the most. It's feature set is excellent, and supports a font archive maintained on the hard drive. It enables you to recall fonts whose files you have removed from the system - a life saver if your offline collection of fonts is at home and you are across town or the planet. It has a window alerting you to problematic fonts whose content are not in accordance with the file type's specification. GIMP and many other applications are affected by corrupted or malformed font files, and getting them out of your workflow or reducing their exposure to your system is greatly aided by this function.
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