Custom font in a Cocoa application - objective-c

Question

I know you can customize fonts by using Interface Builder and selecting a font. However, I'm curious if I can use a custom font that's not included by default on systems. Is there a way to include a custom font in my application?

Answer 1

While the manual font activation procedure is one option, you might also consider the ATSApplicationFontsPath Info.plist key:
Information Property List Key Reference:
"ATSApplicationFontsPath (String - Mac
OS X) identifies the location of a
font file or directory of fonts in the
bundle’s Resources directory. If
present, Mac OS X activates the fonts
at the specified path for use by the
bundled application. The fonts are
activated only for the bundled
application and not for the system as
a whole. The path itself should be
specified as a relative directory of
the bundle’s Resources directory. For
example, if a directory of fonts was
at the path
/Applications/MyApp.app/Contents/Resources/Stuff/MyFonts/,
you should specify the string
Stuff/MyFonts/ for the value of this
key."
I'd be sure to double-check, but I believe this functionality was added in OS X 10.5.x (which the code posted by Jinhyung Park targets).

Answer 2

ATSApplicationFontsPath uses [NSBundle mainbundle] path as base path, so it does not work when Resources folder is not located there (e.g. for app plugins).
In my Cocoa plugin I need to load custom fonts using CTFontManagerRegisterFontsForURL
#import <Cocoa/Cocoa.h>
static void FGDActivateFont(NSString *fontName)
{
// Can't make ATSApplicationFontsPath in Info.plist work for plugins (non-standard Resources path)
NSArray *availableFonts = [[NSFontManager sharedFontManager] availableFonts];
if (![availableFonts containsObject:fontName]) {
NSURL *fontURL = [[FGDRapidCart bundle] URLForResource:fontName withExtension:#"ttf" subdirectory:#"Fonts"];
assert(fontURL);
CFErrorRef error = NULL;
if (!CTFontManagerRegisterFontsForURL((__bridge CFURLRef)fontURL, kCTFontManagerScopeProcess, &error))
{
CFShow(error);
}
}
}
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
#autoreleasepool
{
FGDActivateFont(#“FontAwesome”);
}
return NSApplicationMain(argc, (const char **)argv);
}
Credits: https://github.com/OneSadCookie/Extendaword/blob/master/Extendaword/main.m

Answer 3

Here is the example for Mac App custom font loading.
NSString *fontFilePath = [[[NSBundle mainBundle] resourcePath] stringByAppendingPathComponent:#"/fonts"];
fontsURL = [NSURL fileURLWithPath:fontFilePath];
if(fontsURL != nil)
{
OSStatus status;
FSRef fsRef;
CFURLGetFSRef((CFURLRef)fontsURL, &fsRef);
status = ATSFontActivateFromFileReference(&fsRef, kATSFontContextLocal, kATSFontFormatUnspecified,
NULL, kATSOptionFlagsDefault, NULL);
if (status != noErr)
{
errorMessage = #"Failed to acivate fonts!";
goto error;
}
}

Answer 4

I have managed to do this using cocos2d (CCLabelBMFont) and hiero tool. You will need to create the font using the hiero, and give this font to the CCLabelBMFont object.