WingDings Font Problem

If you've done 1., then I'm not sure why you're calling Font symbolsFont = (Font)UIManager.get("symbols.font");
as opposed to defaults.get(). In any case are you sure that:
a) symbolsFont is holding a reference to a WingDings font
b) Your users are running Windows

I am calling the get because the setting of "symbols.font" is just something I do in the defaults for me so I can access it from other classes and not worry about changing it in 100 places if I need to.

A) I am pretty sure. I don't know how to tell but if I do a println(symbolsFont) it states  WingDings along with the attributes I set after my call to get.

B) The problem is on my development machine which is windows, and yes the users will be also.

OK. I wonder if its a CharacterEncoding problem - have you *ever* seen the WingDings appear in your Java guis?

Nope, but I haven't tried before either.

Tell me what you see on the command line when you run this:

public class WingDing {

  public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
    System.out.println(Class.forName("sun.awt.windows.CharToByteWingDings"));
  }

}

class sun.awt.windows.CharToByteWingDings

OK, that's a good sign - stay tuned!

OK, I've had the same problem, hence the commented-out line in paint() down below. This is a mixture of a kludge and a more portable solution! The WingDingFrame is somewhat redundant - I changed my mind about what I was going to do. Please ask if you need more comment:

import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;

public class WingDing {

  public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
    //System.out.println(Class.forName("sun.awt.windows.CharToByteWingDings"));
    WingDingFrame wdf = new WingDingFrame("This is a test!");
    wdf.addWindowListener(new WindowAdapter(){
      public void windowClosing(WindowEvent e){
        System.exit(0);
      }
    });
    wdf.setSize(300,300);
    wdf.setVisible(true);
  }

}

class WingDingFrame extends Frame {
  public WingDingFrame(){
    super();
  }

  public WingDingFrame(String s){
    super(s);
    WingDingPanel wdp = new WingDingPanel();
    add(wdp);
  }

  class WingDingPanel extends Panel {
    public void paint(Graphics g){
      super.paint(g);
      //g.setFont(new Font("WingDings", Font.BOLD, 16));
      g.drawString("\u270E\u2702\u2701\u260E\u2706\u2709\u231B\u2328",10,50);
    }
  }

}
// Unicode-WingDings at http://www.csn.ul.ie/~caolan/wingdings/proposal/

What were you doing with the WingDings anyway?

I am developing a program where I need to replace letters with various symbols or shapes. I'll have a look at the link and example and get back to you.

Hmmm ... it seems to work okay for displaying my wingding type fonts. But, it only works if I never call setFont() on the graphics context -- which means both my wingding characters are too small, and my other characters are in the wrong font.

Hmm ... looks like I'll have to experiment since if I use the SansSerif font it works fine. Thanks.

Thanks. My example works equally well with a serif font actually.

Yeah, but when I specify Lucida Sans is when it doesn't work for me for a lot of the characters.