http://bill.welliver.org/atom/letterpress/monotype/monotype software features electronic.alchemy :: monotype software features 2026-04-08T15:43:18-04:00 Public.Syndication.ATOM (Pike v8.0 release 702) http://bill.welliver.org/favicon.ico http://bill.welliver.org/static/images/alchemy.gif The following list of features is not complete, but should give an idea of the level of development of the software component of the caster interface. Caster Controller easy to use graphical interface support for manually enabling air codes (such as for testing or casting sorts) sample screenshot: /space/letterpress/monotype+adventures/screenshot2.png Ribbon Generator support for italic, small cap, etc alphabets automatic calculation of justification codes can calculate ragged left, ragged right and centered justification on a per-paragraph basis fixed spaces can be added at any point support for quadding a line letterspacing support hyphenation support (us english dictionary available currently) with a preference to avoid hyphenating twice in a certain number of lines (all settings will be made configurable) support for automatically detecting and using ligatures in the matcase in a job. this can be disabled completely for a job, and can also be disabled for a ligature sort by marking it as non-automatic in the MCA when quadding, narrow fixed spaces are placed as far from the end of the line as possible, in order to prevent sorts from toppling over when quadding, en and em quads are alternated in order to minimize line length errors caused by worn wedges Sorts can be adjusted using whatever mechanisms are available on a give caster: wedge adjustment, unit adding, unit spacing. The generator will use the most efficient means available to create sorts of the desired width (within the physical limitations of the equipment). ribbons for generating fonts can be generated for any desired font strength, based on a given sort ratio table a number of "stupid caster tricks" are available, such as tables, multiple columns per delivered line and flowing text into a given shape, with varying levels of success a "soft proof" is generated showing proposed text layout and sort/space widths job settings can be saved for use later TO DO add ability to specify ribbon in a text box rather than a file, such as for quick jobs. (COMPLETE) option to choose minimum justification setting (COMPLETE) when adding fixed unit spacing, make up larger spaces from smaller if exact space not available. (COMPLETE) option to select hyphenation language (COMPLETE, includes english, german, dutch and french) add list of MCA problems (duplicate mats, etc) and make it possible to highlight the problems (IN PROGRESS) header and footer support (COMPLETE) add non-standard line breaks for use in generating font ribbons (COMPLETE) add manual pin control with cycle sensor override (COMPLETE) add cycle sensor indicator in caster controller application (COMPLETE) add "jump to line" feature in caster controller (COMPLETE) figure out why dojo doesn't always load, requiring a refresh of the page (COMPLETE) allow drag and drop in matcase between elements (COMPLETE) recognize when a matrix has been removed from a matcase, and add it to the "not in matcase" list (COMPLETE) make "not in matcase" list configurable (COMPLETE) display markup help when entering text via text box (COMPLETE) add ability to select override settings for a given row (minimum spacing, hyphenation, etc)