Font Change Function

[kaj-se]

A few others and I had an idea to give the user the option to change the font.

This could be done by having a folder for custom fonts in the hackmud settings folder where shell.txt is located and adding a line like "font": "<filename>" to the settings file. If the filename is default or the filename can not be found, the in-game font will be loaded.

It would also be nice to change this in-game like the gui.size script is doing.
Example: gui.font { list: true } and gui.font { load: "<filename>" }
But implementing a font change method that would work while the game is running could be a bit tricky.

All in all, this gives the user the ability to get a bit more customization in the game. This also improves the accessibility of the game itself.

[hmdunce]

Some thoughts:

Supporting fonts with different metrics from the game font seems VERY difficult. I suspect that only derivatives of the current game font will work correctly -- or fonts specially crafted to match the game font's metrics.

This makes the "accessibility" value especially unclear, I think? I don't actually understand the "accessibility" problem with the current font yet... It's something more than people not finding gui.size?

gui.font would require server-side work. It would be easier to avoid this (e.g. by looking for a single HACKMUD_DIR/font.ttf only, and probably requiring a restart if you change it.)

[kaj-se]

Sure like I sad, a simple method would be the goal here.
I like the example you mentioned:

[...] looking for a single HACKMUD_DIR/font.ttf only [...]

[kaj-se]

Another way to get this implemented is by using an optional launch option with a path to the font.

-font "<path>"

Personally, I like launch options.

[kaj-se]

The "accessibility" of the current game font has the problem that the line and letter spacing is very narrow. Some people may find it difficult to read text displayed in this font. It is also a vertically condensed font, which also affects readability. Scaling up the font isn't always the solution for accessibility.

Could you not take a common monospace font like "DejaVu Sans Mono" and replace it, just like you did with the white-bunnybat font for testing the Scandinavian glyphs? Take a look at how it looks and post a picture of it here.