[AEON] HOW-TO extend Aeon fonts to display unicode glyphs font characters
#1
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Since I saw various posts asking about unicode glyphs in aeon and no good answer really. So I came to my own solution and I decided to post the info in a separate "tutorial" rather than answer a single post.

I first tried to replace some of the fonts with Arial Unicode where necessary, but this proven to be suboptimal and bad looking.

So I decided that I would take the original aeon fonts and complete all the unexisting unicode glyphs of these fonts with the unicode glyphs of another unicode font. I chose Arial Unicode as replacement since the glyphs are similar to the aeon fonts, although any other font could be used, as Aquafont for example.

For this I used FontForge (http://fontforge.sourceforge.net/) for Linux, I guess a similar tool can be found for Windows users.

So the procedure was:

1. Load Arial Unicode in FontForge and first rescaled the font to be the same size as the Aeon fonts:
Element -> Font Info -> General

Then changed:
Ascent: 800
Descent: 200
Em Size: 1000

(If this isn't done, the unicode characters will be double the size than the aeon characters for a given font size)

2. Load aeon_title.ttf without closing the modified Arial Unicode font

3. On the aeon_title.ttf font go to:

Element -> Merge Fonts

and select Arial Unicode MS

This will import all missing glyphs in aeon_title.ttf from the rescaled Arial Unicode font.

4. Save the font, it will give some errors that I sincerely don't know what they mean. I ignored them and everything works perfect, although I'm sure these fonts are not properly formated in a purist way.

5. Repeat with every font.


Hope it helps, for me works perfect and I could do it in about 20 minutes for every font. The down side is that fonts not are 23 Mb in size each, maybe this has some impact on the memory usage of XBMC, although I didn't verify it.

Some examples:

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#2
could you share those fonts?
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#3
I uploaded the file here:

http://rapidshare.com/files/317217930/Aeon_uni_fonts.7z

Hope it helps!
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#4
downloading now, thanks
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#5
saving didn't seem to work i think you have to generate the fonts to output the ttf file you will need.
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#6
pcvii Wrote:saving didn't seem to work i think you have to generate the fonts to output the ttf file you will need.

I don't understand your comment.
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#7
I think what he's trying to say (as I'm having similar difficulty) is after downloading the .7z file and extracting it. Where do you place the fonts in order to be able to use them with AEON?
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#8
ryuuchiba Wrote:I think what he's trying to say (as I'm having similar difficulty) is after downloading the .7z file and extracting it. Where do you place the fonts in order to be able to use them with AEON?

You need to replace the original Aeon fonts (that you had to download separately also) with these ones. I guess it depends on the platform, but should be something like "XBMC dir/skin/Aeon/fonts"
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#9
This is an old thread but a very important one. Thanks so much franciscohs for figuring this out and sharing your work. I'm running Aeon65 now and I noticed there were some fonts that your set didn't cover. I fixed those per your instructions and put them on rapidshare as well for those who need them.

http://rapidshare.com/files/445962165/Ae...i_fonts.7z

Note: I run Aeon MQ2 occasionally and these fonts should work just as well for that skin too.
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#10
anyone happen to have the fonts for aeon showmix evolution before i take a crack at this?
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#11
sayo Wrote:anyone happen to have the fonts for aeon showmix evolution before i take a crack at this?

Gave adjusting the showmix fonts a shot. I couldn't get it to work. When I tried to fix the main menu font, kenyc.ttf, it would replace all the characters, not just add the ones missing. If you figure it out let me know. That showmix skin is pretty cool.
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#12
joe, hmm i got lazy and ended up using the fonts that you posted. that file didn't have all the fonts in aeon showmix evolution, but apparently it had enough fonts to display my unicode text where i needed it (music artists, albums, song names).

maybe try just replacing the fonts you have (keeping the other original fonts of course), and see if that's enough for your needs?
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#13
sayo Wrote:joe, hmm i got lazy and ended up using the fonts that you posted. that file didn't have all the fonts in aeon showmix evolution, but apparently it had enough fonts to display my unicode text where i needed it (music artists, albums, song names).

maybe try just replacing the fonts you have (keeping the other original fonts of course), and see if that's enough for your needs?

Cool, glad they worked out for you. I'll probably just stick with Aeon65 for now and maybe give showmix a shot again later.
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#14
@Joe4TheRecord: Do you still have a copy of the modified fonts for Aeon65? The link you provided is no longer valid. I was able to get the fonts that franciscohs provided, but they don't cover every place that glyphs may show up e.g. the titles in the info area at the bottom of wall/showcase views. If you can't link the fonts again for whatever reason could you at least list all of the font files you modified along with a good freeware font editor for Windows? Thanks!
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#15
+1
I would like to have those font's too.
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[AEON] HOW-TO extend Aeon fonts to display unicode glyphs font characters2