How to encode / use additional fonts?

[d4tocchini]

Is there a particular config/command you are using for msdfgen?

Has the included fontencoder source deviated from Chlumsky/msdfgen? wondering if output from latest (v1.4) ought to work.

Playing around with HUD like UI, need me some Inconsolata :)

@makepaddev, if helpful, I can PR in a few more open-source fonts.

[makepaddev]

Hey, so msdfgen i run on a font, and then the only thing i tweak is the 'scale' factor untill the font is artifact free (larger usually something like 1.6 1.8)

[makepaddev]

I made a single file compile out of it (makefile) you should be able to just overwrite some files and recompile it

[makepaddev]

fontencoder.cpp is my own use of msdfgen C++ API which does all my font file generation, so i'm not using msdfgen 'utility' since thats almost entirely useless for this purpose

[d4tocchini]

Thanks! It works.

for anyone curious how, as setup:

cd ./fontencoder
chmod +x ./Makefile
./Makefile

which should compile a fontencoder binary, which can be used like so:

./fontencoder {{path/to/awesome-font.ttf}} ../libs/fonts/{{awesome-font}}.font {{scale}} 0 126

I had to use a scale above 2.0 for inconsolata before it rendered as expected.

Unicodes 0 to 126 covered all the bases, can likely remove unused chars.

Font render quality varies on retina vs non-retina screens.

[makepaddev]

Yeah non retina is extremely hard to do right, its actually amazing that it isnt complete garbage. I'm just kinda waiting out the non-retina to go away tbh.

[makepaddev]

All non-retina fonts really need pixel hinting and all that jazz. Don't have that on a gpu, probably never will.

[d4tocchini]

I can only imagine...

After some tweaking, a little bit extra boldness, looks solid on non-retina. It's amazing you got this far on pure GPU!

[makepaddev]

Well with the great help of the guy that made the msdflib, or before that glyphy. This is font-engine-version 4 for what i'm doing, so i've gotten quite decent at the fiddly bits. But yes besides the drawcall packing shader compiler its definitely one of the enabling cornerstones of why makepad works.

[makepaddev]

What is on my todo is to have some kind of nice nonretina-to-retina curve for that boldness. I can't seem to find a 'single' value that works, like if you pick one that looks good on lowdpi its too bold on hidpi. etc.

[makepaddev]

Btw to answer your first question, i don't really need PR of more fonts, im trying to keep the repo as tiny as possible for as long as possible, big binaries mess that up.

[d4tocchini]

after seeing the compiled font file size, makes sense.

is there a flag set somewhere when retina or not? could be a simple config to the styles files

[makepaddev]

Hi, so the thing is 'retina mode' isnt just a single value its actually the zoom-factor. (browser zoom works perfectly in makepad through this)

[makepaddev]

That way you can just zoom in/out of a UI however you please, its extremely useful for most UIs.

[makepaddev]

Btw the generated fonts do zip quite nicely, so generally you'd use transport compression, since that also is JS-cost free

[makepaddev]

Oh also, in AR/VR mode (what im working on now) this whole 'retina' factor will go away entirely since it will be 3D space, so i really wanna keep things like retina-mode-ness mostly a float