Font Help

I am trying to create a custom font for use in my data fields. The first issue is that they look awful in the sim but do appear to work. When loading the APP the watch resets so not sure what is going on there (I will have to dig more). So I have the following questions:

- Steelfish set to 54 in BMFont seems to match Gfx.FONT_NUMBER_MEDIUM (which is defined as 40 in the devices.xml);
- What settings are people using in BMFont and do the fonts look like the ones provided in the default set within the sim?

I am really trying to get a consistent font and sizing for the data fields but font generation is not my thing and other than TXT/PNG format, I can't find any other guidance on appropriate and correct font configuration settings to use when generating them. Any help would be great!

Nikeow over 9 years ago

steelfish costs USD60. U paid for the licensing? Wow..

jim_m_58 over 9 years ago

Maybe post the .fnt and .png files here? Someone can help figure out what is wrong.

lcj2 over 9 years ago

I went back and re-read the license, I thought since we were generating a PNG for the fonts that is still fell under the desktop license based on the readme since we don't actually use the font file. But I guess it is not the case so I won't be using it. But my question still stands on what options everyone is using when the create the font files. I will need to generate a font example tomorrow which doesn't use Steelfish to upload for you to review.

Nikeow over 9 years ago

i have anther thread here talking about fonts.
Roboto - the google font.

Anyways - I can't get the same look/feel either of the fonts based in the same same pixels/sized noted officially. So......

As for the font embedding - well, u need the PNG and the FNT file right? So, that's considered embedding?

lcj2 over 9 years ago

I am not sure how embedding is being interpreted but without being able to get it to work correctly I didn't bother asking for clarification from the vendor. Clearly I am doing something wrong since other applications seem to have got it working right. Font handling is one of the features that makes me bonkers since I shouldn't have to work this hard for something so simple. I don't have windows so I went through getting the tool up and going and then find the default options aren't working and I don't know which combination to select. If one of the Garmin developers could outline the correct Font Settings and Output Options that would be great. The documentation on the web is very sparse in the developer site.

julienvm over 9 years ago

Fonts

Hi all,

I'd like to know how to get the fonts displayed in the stock Digital watch face. They look taller than the THAI_HOT font, plus, there's one in bold and the other normal.

Any clue how to get these great fonts? Can Garmin make them available? This would be great to keep consistency while adding functionality.

Thanks!

jim_m_58 over 9 years ago

Hi all,

I'd like to know how to get the fonts displayed in the stock Digital watch face. They look taller than the THAI_HOT font, plus, there's one in bold and the other normal.

Any clue how to get these great fonts? Can Garmin make them available? This would be great to keep consistency while adding functionality.

Thanks!

To use these fonts in CIQ, just use their standard names (like Gfx.FONT_NUMBER_THAI_HOT, or Gfx.FONT_SMALL for the small device font)

Or do you mean these fonts but in different sizes?

lcj2 over 9 years ago

I think he means that it looks like they have a Gfx.FONT_NUMBER_THAI_HOT and a Gfx.FONT_NUMBER_THAI_HOT_BOLD. To me, the font situation is a real road block and I must be a little thick since I can't seem to figure it out. I haven't had a chance to try again but I am close to tossing in the towel on this ...

Brandon.ConnectIQ over 9 years ago

The UX Guide details all of the built-in fonts that are available on each device, along with the sizes assigned to the Gfx constants and the available glyphs. If you need something beyond what's available to Connect IQ by default, it's necessary to use custom bitmap fonts.

Many of the watch faces designed in-house at Garmin use custom bitmaps. For example:

https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/apps/f8eb6203-b8ef-4e34-8944-18dad6094e8c

You can see that this app mimics the bold/thin look seen on the default digital watch face, but the designers needed a white outline on the numbers to avoid the digits from getting muddied by the contours in the background. The solution was to use a custom bitmap (whether they drew it themselves or found a font that fit what they needed, I don't know).

julienvm over 9 years ago

I meant that THAI_HOT (the largest available to us) is actually smaller than the stock clock numbers.

In other words, if you use the stock Digital watch face, you'll get really large numbers on your watch face. These numbers are larger than THAI_HOT.
Plus, there's a bold one and a normal one.

I was wondering if there was any way to get these, either with THAI_SUPERHOT and THAI_SUPERHOT_BOLD ids, or with bitmaps from Garmin.
I could make bitmaps as suggested by Brandon, but I don't know where to get those fonts (numbers stretched vertically). Any clue?

Thanks a lot!

To use these fonts in CIQ, just use their standard names (like Gfx.FONT_NUMBER_THAI_HOT, or Gfx.FONT_SMALL for the small device font)

Or do you mean these fonts but in different sizes?

I think he means that it looks like they have a Gfx.FONT_NUMBER_THAI_HOT and a Gfx.FONT_NUMBER_THAI_HOT_BOLD. To me, the font situation is a real road block and I must be a little thick since I can't seem to figure it out. I haven't had a chance to try again but I am close to tossing in the towel on this ...