Rainmeter reading font file on every update

[RicardoTM]

Hey, so.. I've been optimizing my skin and I found out that one of the fonts is causing issues.

Captura de pantalla (54).png

Software: Process Monitor

As you can see, Rainmeter is reading the font file every update. This only happens with this font (The skin has 3 different fonts and this is the only one that is showing this behavior). The thing is that I don't want to change it (I already looked for similar fonts but I really like this one). I was wondering if somebody knows what's going on. At first I thought it had something to do with the code but nope, at the end the only explanation (that I can think of) is the font. At first I thought it was because it is TTF and the other fonts are OTF, but I already changed that with FontForge (I downloaded it just to do that, I don't really know how to use it) but the problem persists, the program actually says there are some errors with the font before generating it. Most of them say "Wrong Direction". I tried with the font installed on windows and uninstalled with no change.

Captura de pantalla 2024-02-08 100430.jpg

(I did fixed these problems on FontForge by right clicking on them and fixing them with no change.)


So.. I just want to know if anybody here has an opinion on this, and if knows how to fix it.

Here's the font in case you want to test it:

DS-DIGIB.rar

Thanks in advance.

[SilverAzide]

I've been using v1.0 of that font (although not the bold version) for years with no problems. ProcMon shows Rainmeter loading the font once when the skin is loaded then never again.

[RicardoTM]

I've been using v1.0 of that font (although not the bold version) for years with no problems. ProcMon shows Rainmeter loading the font once when the skin is loaded then never again.

Mmh, could you please upload that version so I can test with it?

[SilverAzide]

Mmh, could you please upload that version so I can test with it?

Here you go...

[RicardoTM]

Here you go...

Thanks, pretty interesting. Your font didn't fixed it though. I got the same font from here on .otf format and it stopped happening, at least with that font. However, it started doing it with a font that is not even used on the skin at all, but it's installed on windows by default, Segoe UI Light.

Captura de pantalla 2024-02-09 010413.jpg

So I started commenting out options on the meters but nothing helped until I realized the problem was (is) linked to a hidden string meter. This meter starts hidden on load, shows on mouse over and hides again on mouse leave. The font issue starts on a Refresh|First Load and stops until I hover over the meter to show it and hide it again (Only when the particular digital font is used).

However, if I assign Hidden=0 to that meter, I can't reproduce the problem again (with the new font, it keeps happening with the the old digital font). So the problem is both related to the font and the Hidden=1 option.

After a while of testing the Segoe font thing stopped happening, so my bet still was on the Digital font. So I made a test skin but nothing, couldn't reproduce it. So... it's linked in someway to the code...

At the end I just gave up and left the new font (which seems to have fixed the problem).

[Yincognito]

Fonts are always unhappy when starting hidden and not given the importance they deserve in code. In the inner circles of the font industry, this is known as the "font wars". Nobody dares to talk about it though, in order to not upset fonts even further. An offended font is a serious threat to software - Microsoft even tried to release a security patch addressing the issue, but nobody knows what happened with it (some suspect font agents interfered with it). This is the main reason this post to raise font awareness is not hidden in a spoiler - we wouldn't want angry fonts to mess with the forum software too.

[RicardoTM]

Fonts are always unhappy when starting hidden and not given the importance they deserve in code. In the inner circles of the font industry, this is known as the "font wars". Nobody dares to talk about it though, in order to not upset fonts even further. An offended font is a serious threat to software - Microsoft even tried to release a security patch addressing the issue, but nobody knows what happened with it (some suspect font agents interfered with it). This is the main reason this post to raise font awareness is not hidden in a spoiler - we wouldn't want angry fonts to mess with the forum software too.

This explains a lot whats happening D:

[Yincognito]

This explains a lot whats happening D:

Yep, but don't tell anyone - them fonts are suspicious by nature...

Joking aside, I tested your font too and Rainmeter didn't seem to have a problem with it, according to ProcMon. Sure, there was a long list to query all available fonts at one point (quite normal), but other than that, the process didn't insist on any particular font, including this one (just a couple of occasional patches of at most 10 successive entries in ProcMon regarding this font). By the way, if I'm not mistaken, Segoe UI is the default font in Windows 10 and 11, so even if not used in the skin, it might explain the issue switching to it at one point.

[RicardoTM]

Yep, but don't tell anyone - them fonts are suspicious by nature...

Joking aside, I tested your font too and Rainmeter didn't seem to have a problem with it, according to ProcMon. Sure, there was a long list to query all available fonts at one point (quite normal), but other than that, the process didn't insist on any particular font, including this one (just a couple of occasional patches of at most 10 successive entries in ProcMon regarding this font). By the way, if I'm not mistaken, Segoe UI is the default font in Windows 10 and 11, so even if not used in the skin, it might explain the issue switching to it at one point.

I'm a rock!

I'm pretty sure it has a lot to do with my skin's code and its low update rate (20ms), dynamic variables and the font. Anyway I'm remaking it so it doesn't need that low update anymore. I "wasted" 4 days optimizing it to end up starting over again lol.

[Yincognito]

I'm pretty sure it has a lot to do with my skin's code and its low update rate (20ms), dynamic variables and the font. Anyway I'm remaking it so it doesn't need that low update anymore. I "wasted" 4 days optimizing it to end up starting over again lol.

Yep, the only thing you'll lose is the list moving in "real-time" after the gadget. As for optimizing, many of the things reside in very small details that are relatively hard to spot. It took me a while to optimize my skins after I wrote them for pretty much the same reasons.