dropDownMenu Widget does not update custom font in menu (2021.13610 Win 10 x64)

dylanroscover · June 17, 2021, 3:07am

The dropDownMenu Widget (version 2021.10.1.041) doesn’t appear to pass a custom font (parent.Widget.par.Font) to the menu:

Digging into the network, it appears that the par doesn’t update as expected:

After manually toggling the expression to a constant and then back to expression on the dropDownMenu/dropmenu0/config/master Text TOP, it then selects the correct font:

I’ve seen this happen before–when expressions do not update as intended. Why is this? Perhaps this par can be updated by an extension instead of an expression? That method always seems more stable in my experience…

ben · June 17, 2021, 6:37am

This is just a bug, a dependancy is not being setup correctly. Logged and will try to get a fix into the next posted build. Thanks for your patience.

dylanroscover · September 19, 2021, 9:47pm

@ben There seems to be a related bug where it is difficult or impossible to load in a custom OTF font file for the dropdown menu font (specifically, the one inside the popup window). I have tried doing so via the Text TOPs in dropDownMenu/dropmenu0/config, as well as inside the popMenu, and none seem to update it.

Is there a special trick or hack I can do to get this functioning in production, or should I give up on custom font files with Widgets altogether?

selina · September 20, 2021, 4:14pm

Sorry for the delay in reply. Is there a particular OTF font you are using? We tried Montserrat (double click->install, restart TD) and had no issues. Does the font load if you specify it via the FontFile? Do you have the same problem with .ttf? I’m assuming the same issue occurs in a Text TOP and this is not specific to the widget. If that’s not the case can you attach the .toe and the .otf file as well?

dylanroscover · September 20, 2021, 7:41pm

Yes, we are using TeleNeo:

The font loads correctly in the rest of the TouchDesigner project, so it is very much specific to this Widget.

The font also appears to load correctly in the Text TOPs within the Widget, in which I am referencing above (the ones in the dropDownMenu/dropmenu0/config COMP); that is to say, it does load if I specify it via Font File.

It does not, however, display in the actual window render of the drop down menu, which is essentially the bug I am reporting here. Here’s a screenshot for reference:

Here’s the project depicted above, toe + otf: Dropbox - dropDownMenuFont - Simplify your life

selina · September 21, 2021, 4:02pm

If you install the font, can you select TeleNeo from the widget dropDownMenu’s Widget parameter page? That is where the drop down menu which is a list COMP displaying the drop down gets its font from, unfortunately it does not currently use the Font File parameter specified by the text TOP.

dylanroscover · September 21, 2021, 4:58pm

Ah OK, got it: Font File still isn’t supported by List COMP. I reported this over a year ago here: Lister 1.9 doesn't display custom fontfile par in listerConfig

The Font File parameter is brilliant. It saves us the headache of installing 10+ fonts onto 5+ systems, not to mention any developer’s machine, of which there are usually several. It’s nice to be able to just open a TouchDesigner project without any pre-configuration; that’s the essential beauty of TouchDesigner, imo. As you suggest, if I install the font that will probably work but I don’t want to go down that road. Font File par is my development preference by a mile.

Ergo, I made my own workaround by spinning my own custom dropDownMenu component. Once again, I love TouchDesigner because there is always another way to do it .

Thanks for looking into it and I really hope that List COMP can someday support Font File pars. If that wasn’t already an RFE from me, it definitely is now. Cheers.