fenix 5X fonts and the user experience guide

Does anyone know when the User Experience guide will be updated for the Fenix 5 range? I'm developing a widget for the 5X and although ciq 2.2.3 has been updated for the 5X, the documentation that comes with it has not since there is nothing for these devices in Appendix A or B. Therefore I cannot find information about the available fonts and sizes.

It seems to me that FONT_TINY and FONT_XTINY are the same size, but they are bigger than I want.

Comparing them with the fenix 3 fonts, it seems that both fenix5X tony fonts are larger than the fenix 3 FONT_TINY and much larger than the fenix 3 FONT_XTINY which give me roughly the size I am after. Is it possible that the simulator is not showing the fenix 5X fonts correctly?

Former Member over 8 years ago

Hey,

Thanks for reaching out. I'm glad to see that people are utilizing the resources we have. You are correct. There was a documentation hole. This has been addressed and should be fixed with our next release. In the mean time. You are also correct that TINY and XTINY are the same size, however XTINY is a regular font and TINY is bold (as are the rest). Fenix 5S and Chronos share font sizes and are a bit smaller due to the 218x218 screen resolution as opposed to the 240x240 screen of the other fenix 5 variants. These fonts are being displayed correctly in the simulator to mimic what will be seen on the device hardware.

Thanks,
-Coleman

gasteropod over 8 years ago

Thanks for the quick response. That explains why when I overlayed XTINY on top of TINY to compare, there was a slight difference although the size seemed the same.

I had hoped for a smaller font like the fenix 3 XTINY but I did not really want to have to create my own. I guess I'll either have to make do with XTINY or do this. I needed a small font for some headings which do not really need to be easily readable but I wanted to take the minimum space.

Do you know when the next release will be or is it possible to get a copy of these appendixes elsewhere before then?

gasteropod over 8 years ago

I'd be interested to see the specific sizes for the fenix 5 fontsas there seems to be little between SMALL, TINY and XTINY.

jim_m_58 over 8 years ago

In the sim, you could just throw in a bit of code that uses getFontHeight() to display the height of the font.
You can also look at the devices.xml file in the SDK's bin directory. Search for the Fenix 5, and see how the fonts are defined. (small is 29 high, tiny and xtiny are 26, for example)

gasteropod over 8 years ago

Thanks Jim,

I remembered there was a file somewhere but had forgotten and failed to find it. My mistake was searching for font_tiny rather than just tiny! But I can see all the sizes now.

jim_m_58 over 8 years ago

Devices.xml is a important file if you have questions about devices, as it's what (among other things) tells the sim about the devices. Also things like minVersions for the various devices (by part number) so you'll also see things about devices that aren't specific targets you can't enable/disable, such as the APAC versions of devices.

The thing to note is that you can't just change things there and have things work differently on real devices (such as changing the font sizes...)

gasteropod over 8 years ago

In the end I solved my problem by creating my own font; I thought this would be complex but it turned out to be simple.

I was able to download the font family from Google Fonts after seeing the fenix 5X uses Roboto Condensed from the devices.xml file. I used BMfont to generate a bitmap font of the size I required and then loaded this into my widget. Even with anitaliasing enabled the extra memory used is minimal and in the simulator I cannot discern any difference between my font and the built in font.

Drake1969 over 2 years ago in reply to Former Member

Please after 6 year i think is time to have tiny and xtiny font as all the other devices!!!!!

jim_m_58 over 2 years ago in reply to Drake1969

Things vary on devices. It's not just the tiny and xtiny. You'll find with number fonts, white space above and below varies between devices, At this point in time the fonts won't change on the f5/f5x.

gasteropod over 2 years ago in reply to Drake1969

Many new devices in the past 6 years, and many more differences across these devices now. The only solution if you want consistent fonts across watches is to use your own custom fonts. But then of course, your app may not look consistent with system apps depending on the watch.