The Utilities Palette

Type Case Tab

Like the letterpress compositor's type case, this one lets you enter any character just by clicking on it. The character appears in the edit window at the current selection point. The first 32 characters are greyed-out because they are mostly non-printable control characters and are not normally accessible.

As you mouse-over each character, the status display at the bottom tells you the character name, ASCII code and Hexadecimal value.

Tip: If you want your email address to be hidden from spammers, convert the '@' to its hexadecimal value (%40) and any other characters you like - such as the dot in dot com (%2e).
       

Extras Tab

Similar to the Type case, this tab lets you build-up rules, borders, frames along with various arrows and bullet characters. Most MiniFonts come with an 'Extras' font of the appropriate size. Note that the Extras fonts are also used for entering pixel accurate spaces but as these are invisible, they are best entered from the keyboard.
       

Patterns Tab

This facility allows you to produce repeating patterns from individual font characters. The characters shown here are from the Tiles12 font.

If you choose the 'Patterns' tab in the Utilities Palette, you will see a set of characters from the currently active font. Although you can tile any font character and produce a pattern, you will find that characters from iconic and pictorial fonts work particularly well.

New MiniFonts pattern fonts called 'Tiles12' and 'Tiles16' designed by Paul Wootton are available to produce backgrounds for your web pages - stripes, grids, ornate backgrounds and lots more.

Just click on any character in the 'Patterns' tab and it will automatically tile to fill the editing area in the current foreground and background colours. Background patterns work best if they are not too obtrusive. Choose foreground and background colours that are very close in tone to produce subtle backdrops that add richness and interest without detracting from the main subject matter.
 

Making Web page background images.

Any background image on a web page will tile automatically to fill the page but the size of the image is important. Small files download faster but if a background image is too small, it increases the amount of processing necessary to make it fill the page. A 4 x 4 pixel background image might be insignificant in terms of file size, but it will cause a very slow screen refresh, especially on older computers that don't have accelerated video cards.

SimpleSetter 1.1 provides three preset automatic guide settings under Guides in the Tools menu. Auto Small, Auto Medium and Auto Large. Not only do these setting provide sensible background image sizes, they make sure that the patterns tile properly - they are exact multiples of the individual character dimensions. Note that Auto Guides are only appropriate for fonts specially designed to tile.

SimpleSetter 1.1 can export pattern images in PNG-8 format that will work in version 4 browsers and up. If you need a GIF file, you will have to paste or import the image into a graphics editor that supports GIF format. The GIF format is based on the proprietary LZW compression algorithm licensed by Unisys Corporation and it is just not feasible to provide GIF support in a freeware utility.
 

Installed Fonts Tab

Shows a list of all your installed MiniFonts.

Clicking on items in the list shows a short text sample in the sample pane opposite.

Alt-clicking puts a complete character set in the sample pane.

From here, individual characters can be dragged into the editing window. This is most useful for pictorial fonts like 'WebIcon' and saves your having to remember key presses.
       

FontList Manager

In SimpleSetter 1.0, a list of current MiniFonts was stored in an internal database. When new fonts were introduced, they were not in that database and could only be used by switching off "Show MiniFonts only" in the Preferences tab.

The list of fonts is now in an external file 'FontList.flf' that can be edited from the FontList Manager tab in the Utilities Palette. Not only can you add new MiniFonts but also pixel fonts from other designers.

In the FontList Manager tab, you have a list of fonts with Remove, Add and Save buttons.

Remove

Removes the selected font from the list.

Add

Adds a new font installed on your system to the list. You have to provide the correct pixel size by typing it into the 'Size' box.

When you have Added or Removed a font, click 'Save' to create the new fontlist file. The new list of fonts will be available from the font list pop-up menu when you relaunch SimpleSetter 1.1.
 

Preferences Tab

Some of the programs behaviors can be saved in a preferences file and some are only relevant to the current operation.
       

Show MiniFonts only

By default, the pop-up menu only shows MiniFonts. If you want to see your full font set, uncheck this item. When you restart the program, all your fonts will show up in the menu. Note that using fonts that are not designed as 'pixel' fonts will give unpredictable results.
       

Auto-open
Utilities Palette

With this item checked, the Utilities Palette opens just below the main window automatically when you relaunch.
       

White is Transparent
(Not on Windows)

When checked, white backgrounds (or text) become clear in copied or saved graphics. This only works in programs that support transparent layers. Unfortunately, this feature is not possible in the Windows version.

The above options are saved when you exit the program.
       

Color Depth

Normally, all you will use is 32-bit. This is for internal processing and nothing to do with your screen's colour depth.

Using 8-bit will reduce the anti-aliasing of regular printer fonts but might shift colours.

1-bit will give a black and white image that is useful for making alpha masks or completely eliminating anti-aliasing in MacOSX.

This choice is not saved as a preference.
       

Guide Colors

By default, the guide colours are red and blue. On certain coloured backgrounds, these colours become difficult to see so you can choose from 'Grays' or 'Pale' to get a better colour or tonal contrast.

This choice is not saved as a preference.