FEZ Touch and larger font

Looking for code for a larger font size for the Fez Touch 1.0 LCD on the Panda II. Thought I’d ask if anyone has written any code for this before trying to reinvent the wheel. Would like something 1.5 to 2 times size of the current font.

I’m looking for the same :wink:

It’s very simple to do. The font is a 1 bit per pixel representation of the font. Just draw it up in paint write down the 1s and 0s and put it into a bit converter to come up w the numbers.

Will your library include couple font sizes? If so then they just have to wait :slight_smile:

Yes it will and the ability to import at runtime

Bump!

Really like to have a bigfont on the Fez Touch, any progress on this? I found this library for another display, but there are three different fonts in it: [url]Electronics - Henning Karlsen but I can’t get it to work!

Buy a copy of Spiral from http://skewworks.com/products/Spiral

I’m sure willing to do that, I like to support Skewworks but I need to know one thing, I don’t have the FezTouch but the one from iTeadStudio, the controllers are the same, only pinout is a bit different. Can I change te pinout in the software so I can use this one?

The one from iTeadStudio does not have the same pinout as the Touch. That means you can not plug it straight in to the FEZ Panda II. Since you are going to wire it using a bunch of wires or an interface PCB, try to match the connections to the Touch/Panda II combo.

I’m not going to use on the Panda II but on the Panda… I have altered the FEZ Touch code in such a way that I can use it with the display and shield of iTeadStudio… so I was wondering if I could make the alterations in the Spiral software.

@ skewworks - I respectfully disagree. I tried this approach and got mixed results. The biggest challenge was spacing the characters so they all were lined up just right. Paint lacks the ability to do that easily, particularly once the chars have been pasted/typed in. That’s not to say it can’t be done, it’s just not easy. If you conversion tool took one character at a time, maybe? Also, beefing up the how-to instructions would help. I’ve got a design friend at work I’m going to hit up for suggestions on pixel tweaking the character bitmap image that your conversion tool uses (with PhotoShop or similar).

@ Ramon Yes I built that ability in awhile ago for another user, the ITead display is slower though.

@ EricH Sorry it’s giving you a hard time man, I created the bigger sample font in about 10min using GiMP. I set up green lines to help me me spacing and then erased them when I was done. I could definitely look into per character loading or even variable width fonts. The only reason variable width isn’t in there now is it will use more resources and take longer to render, but if that’s something that’s desired and can certainly add it.

@ skewworks - No need. I’ll take a look at GiMP.

Ok I took the plunge and bought the pizza :slight_smile: but I’m afraid I need a bit of help. I’m trying to get this to work on a Panda (Not the II) and the ITDB02 from iTeadStudio.

I’m trying to get the example out of the SDK pdf to work. I changed the code like this:


private static Skewworks.Spiral.Font fnt = new Skewworks.Spiral.Font(Resources.GetBytes(Resources.BinaryResources.small));
        private static Progressbar prog;
        public static void Main()
        {
            Skewworks.Spiral.Graphics.Initialize(
                new Cpu.Pin[8] { (Cpu.Pin)FEZ_Pin.Digital.Di0, (Cpu.Pin)FEZ_Pin.Digital.Di1, (Cpu.Pin)FEZ_Pin.Digital.Di2, (Cpu.Pin)FEZ_Pin.Digital.Di3, (Cpu.Pin)FEZ_Pin.Digital.Di4, (Cpu.Pin)FEZ_Pin.Digital.Di5, (Cpu.Pin)FEZ_Pin.Digital.Di6, (Cpu.Pin)FEZ_Pin.Digital.Di7 }
                , (Cpu.Pin)FEZ_Pin.Digital.An4
                , Cpu.Pin.GPIO_NONE
                , (Cpu.Pin)FEZ_Pin.Digital.An2
                , (Cpu.Pin)FEZ_Pin.Digital.An3
                , (Cpu.Pin)FEZ_Pin.Digital.An5
                , Cpu.Pin.GPIO_NONE);
            
            Form frmMain = new Form(Colors.LightGray);
            CommandButton btn1 = new CommandButton("Test Btn", fnt, 4, 4);
            btn1.tapEvent += new OnTap(BtnClicked);
            frmMain.AddChild(btn1);
            frmMain.AddChild(new RadioButton(100, 4, true));
            frmMain.AddChild(new RadioButton(120, 4));
            frmMain.AddChild(new RadioButton(140, 4));
            frmMain.AddChild(new Checkbox(4, 28));
            frmMain.AddChild(new Label("< Checkbox", fnt, Colors.Blue, Colors.LightGray, 28, 30));
            frmMain.AddChild(new Label("^> Label", fnt, Colors.Black, Colors.LightGray, 28, 54));
            prog = new Progressbar(4, 78, 222, 15);
            frmMain.AddChild(prog);
            Listbox lst1 = new Listbox(fnt, 4, 102, 232, 100, new string[] { "Hello there, FEZzers!", "This is Skewworks Spiral", "A GUI for Panda II", "Pretty slick, huh?", "More to come!" });
            frmMain.AddChild(lst1);
            Graphics.ActiveForm = frmMain;
            new Thread(UpdateProgress).Start();
            Thread.Sleep(-1);

        }

The problem is that when I start this code, it reboots my Panda… and then quits… with the following error:

Error: a3000000

I’m completely unfamiliar with that error; however I need to do some work for another customer tonight anyway so I’ll try hooking up my iTead LCD with your code and see what I get.

Well it does not exactly popup with that error, but it says that in the output window, there happens nothing. it starts en then stops without doing anything.

I hope you can get it to work, another thing I was asuming that touch is supported is that true? if so, I need to change the pins of that one to because I use the iTead shield, and the shield is not using SPI!

Oops… I think I see what seems to be the problem, the output says:

Link failure: some assembly references cannot be resolved!!

Assembly: FEZ Panda Application (1.0.0.0) needs assembly ‘Skewworks.Spiral’ (1.0.3.0)

Assembly: FEZ Panda Application (1.0.0.0) needs assembly ‘Skewworks.Spiral.Input’ (1.0.0.0)

Assembly: Skewworks.Spiral.Image (1.0.0.0) needs assembly ‘Skewworks.Spiral’ (1.0.3.0)

Assembly: Skewworks.Spiral (1.0.3.0) needs assembly ‘GHIElectronics.NETMF.Hardware’ (4.1.5.0)

Assembly: Skewworks.Spiral (1.0.3.0) needs assembly ‘GHIElectronics.NETMF.System’ (4.1.5.0)

Assembly: Skewworks.Spiral.Input (1.0.0.0) needs assembly ‘Skewworks.Spiral’ (1.0.3.0)

I’m using SDK Version 1.0.15 and the file versions are: 4.1.6.0!

Could that be the problem?

Spiral is a release behind GHI at the moment; I’m updating it tonight.

Great! I can’t wait :slight_smile: I’ll wait for it :slight_smile:

Looks like you didn’t have to wait long; the new version is up. Use the same link as when you purchased Spiral; an email will also be sent out shortly.