[Feature request] Selectable font/font_filename for MessageClip

[qyot27]

Source: https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=2019746#post2019746

MessageClip on Windows can correctly hand over to Arial Unicode for characters that the default of Arial can't, at least if the system codepage is set to UTF-8.

Unfortunately, Terminus does not contain the additional glyphs, so the default behavior on non-Windows OSes breaks in this case. Compounded onto this is that bitmapped fonts are not enabled by default on at least Ubuntu, and when they are enabled, it's not actually using BDF as the format (I think). I was able to find GNU Unifont that does contain the extra characters and ships a BDF version, and Text() can render them correctly thanks to loading the external font using font_filename, but MessageClip lacks this functionality.

[pinterf]

Thanks for the report, followup in the linked doom9 discussion.
Problems revealed:

• MessageClip would also nice to have an "utf8" parameter, like other functions have (along with wht font_filename requested in this issue)
• (C) symbol problem, which is seen as garbage character on Windows+utf8 code page. (From Windows 10 on, we are allowed to set utf8 code page as default, though as of June 2025, it's still called "beta" on Win11)
• Unifont BDF contains both 8 and 16 pixel wide character definitions, so the font is a variable-fixed width :) font. Avisynth's renderer does not support individual font sizes that differ from the header's setting, resulting in 8 pixel wide gaps between Latin/Greek/etc.. characters. This must be fixed as well.

[pinterf]

Update: The issue with Unifont BDF containing both 8 and 16 pixel wide characters, resulting in 8 pixel wide gaps between Latin/Greek/etc.. characters, is now resolved.
Next steps: cleanup and memory optimization.