At times I have a ? mark appear where I’ve used a FontAwesome character. It’s often one that has displayed previously and has even been one used in multiple files. When it does this I can’t seem to correct it other than to copy and paste the whole object from another file or form.
Currently I have several that work on my computers, but not on some of a client’s computers. We’ve checked versions of Panorama and they’re full up to date. The OS doesn’t seem to be a factor, especially since it’s sometimes working in one form and not working in another on the same computer at the very same time.
And yes, Rich Text etc is all set and checked again.
Any ideas about how to avoid this apparent corruption?
Panorama X includes the font file fontawesome-webfont.ttf in its application bundle Panorama X.app > Contents > Resources > Fonts. Maybe you or the client should make sure this font file is successfully copied into ~/Library/Fonts.
Good thought, but it doesn’t account for it to be both working and not-working at the same time. I’ve had them go from working to broken in a form and could only correct it by copying the same from another form or by recreating it.
This isn’t necessary. Since the font is only used within Panorama, being in Panorama’s application bundle is enough.
I sure hope whatever problem you are encountering isn’t contagious. Font Awesome is used extensively within Panorama itself, including in the tool bar and many different windows. Have never had any reports of problems.
Note - In a Text Display object, Rich Text is only compatible with the Line Break options Word Wrap and Don’t Wrap. It is not compatible with Character Wrap, Clip, or any of the Truncate options. I have just now updated the documentation to include this information. Thanks to Gary Yonaites for bringing this to my attention – I knew about it but did not remember to put it in the documentation.
Below is an example of what I was talking about. Some of the FontAwesome icons are displaying, others are not and simply show as a question mark. According to the user, those not displaying had been showing up previously.
As previously noted, I’ve had occasions when the ? mark would appear and could only overcome it by copying and pasting an identical button from another form or file.
Unfortunately, a screen shot doesn’t really provide any additional information over your original post, other than being pretty.
I don’t suppose there’s any chance that the user has installed an incompatible version of Font Awesome on their system? Seems unlikely, but I don’t have any other ideas. And in that case, why would it later work if you copied/pasted?
Remember, Font Awesome is not a character pasted into the text, it’s a tag. When you say you are pasting in an identical button, do you mean you are pasting a new tag?
Is your tag a constant? Or is the value computed somehow? If the computation was wrong, you’ll get this symbol, like this:
I know this is probably a tough issue to pin down and fix and my expectations of a solution are fairly low. For the most part I’m hoping to offer meaningful clues and documentation that might lead to an eventual fix. The screenshot was only intended to be a visual aid for my previous descriptions.
The problem occurs frequently on the user’s computer where the graphic fails in one form, even as it simultaneously displays correctly on another.
My reference to copying and pasting from another form is due to the fact that I use some of these in multiple forms. When one goes bad on my own computer, I can’t seem to fix it. I referred to them as buttons because I use them with scripts; making them buttons.
Here are the two that were broken in my previous screen shot along with the code to generate them. The Text Display object is what I copy and paste when they fail in a form.
It would seem that they become corrupted, but how or why?
The only remaining possible description I can think of would be if there was code that was changing the text in the object, something like this.
changeobject "My Button","Formula","<char:0xffff:FontAwesome>"
Before you even answer, I’m sure you’re going to tell me you don’t have code that does this. But I can’t think of any other explanation.
Is there any chance you have two objects on top of each other? and somehow you are looking at the wrong object? Maybe look at the form with the blueprint dialog to make sure you are seeing exactly what is in there.
Please note that
<char:0xf1fa:FontAwesome:18:4c3C4B>
is equivalent to:
<font:FontAwesome:18><color:4c4c4B><char:61946>
or even
<font:FontAwesome:18><color:4c4c4B>
I made that box on the end by creating a font awesome text display object and selecting and copying it (in data mode). You could also use:
<char:61946:FontAwesome:18:4c3C4B>
This is because 61946 and 0xf1fa are simply two representations of the same numeric value, the first in base 10 (decimal) and the second in base 16 (hexadecimal).
I’m now thinking the idea of an extra object stacked on top could be a likely culprit. When you select and cut you could be cutting both of them, then you paste back in only one. So that could fit the described symptoms. I don’t know why that might work on one computer and not another, but I’ll bet that will become apparent once you figure out what exactly is going on. I would really recommend going over the blueprint with a fine tooth comb. I’ll bet you are going to find an extra object that you weren’t expecting. That has happened to me at least once.
There’s really nothing magical about font awesome, it’s just a font with unusual looking characters.
I will often have the text of my Text Display Object set to FontAwesome and have the special characters paste into the text string. It seems that #SystemFont is used for the normal text that FontAwesome does not contain in this situation so this works just fine in most cases that I have used. In the Formula pane for the Text Display I can have something like this (the squared ? marks are the pencil and the heart):
The Text pane of the Properties panel looks like this:
Note that I had a version of FontAwesome in my Font Book and deactivated it and did a restart to see if FontAwesome would be listed in the Panorama X font list using Panorama’s builtin version - and it was indeed listed. Don’t know if this method would alter the problem or not.
