Java Reference
In-Depth Information
Fonts
The program in Display 18.21 illustrates how the font for the method
drawString
is set.
That program sets the font with the following line in the definition of the method
paint
:
setFont
g.setFont(fontObject);
In this program,
fontObject
is a private instance variable of type
Font
.
Font
is a class
in the
java.awt
package. Objects of the class
Font
represent fonts.
In Display 18.21 , the variable
fontObject
is set using a constructor for the class
Font
. The initial font is set as part of the instance variable declaration in the following
lines taken from Display 18.21 :
private
Font fontObject =
new
Font("SansSerif", Font.PLAIN, POINT_SIZE);
The constructor for the class
Font
creates a font in a given style and size. The first
argument, in this case
"SansSerif"
, is a string that gives the name of the font (that is,
the basic style). Some typical font names are
"Times"
,
"Courier"
, and
"Helvetica"
.
You may use any font currently available on your system. Java guarantees that you
will have at least the three fonts
"Monospaced"
,
"SansSerif"
, and
"Serif"
. To see
what these fonts look like on your system, run the program
FontDisplay.java
on the
accompanying website. It will produce the window shown in Display 18.22 .
Most font names have no real meaning. The names just sounded right to the creator.
However, the terms “Serif,” “Sans Serif,” and “Monospaced” do mean something,
Font
extra code
on website
Display 18.22
Result of Running
FontDisplay.java
Fonts may look somewhat different on your system.
