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https://github.com/quasilyte/bitfontier

A bitmap font maker for Go
https://github.com/quasilyte/bitfontier

bitmap bitmap-font command-line-tool ebiten ebitengine font font-generator go golang

Last synced: 4 months ago
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A bitmap font maker for Go

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README 

        
# bitfontier



## Overview



`bitfontier` is a tool to generate bitmap fonts for Go programs.



To be more specific:



* it takes a set of images organized in a particular way for an input,

* generates a Go package that can be used to create [font.Face](https://pkg.go.dev/golang.org/x/image/font#Face) objects



These `font.Face` objects can then be used to render text in your Go programs. One example would be using [Ebitengine](https://pkg.go.dev/golang.org/x/image/font#Face) - the fonts generated by this program are suitable for videogames!



This tool takes a lot of inspiration from [hajimehoshi/bitmapfont](https://github.com/hajimehoshi/bitmapfont).



Features:



* Efficient bitmap generation

* Outputs a ready-to-use Go package

* Produced Go packages ("fonts") can be bundled as Go modules

* The generator has options to fine-tune the produced font behavior

* Uses separate images for glyphs as input (easy to edit)



You can basically create a bitmap font for your Go app by using just this tool and some sprite editor (GIMP, Aseprite, etc).



## Installation



```bash

$ go install github.com/quasilyte/bitfontier/cmd/bitfontier@latest

```



## Fonts



Ready-to-use fonts created by bitfontier:



* [bitsweetfont](https://github.com/quasilyte/bitsweetfont)



## Usage



First, you need to create a set of images that would form a bitmap font. The font can have multiple base sizes and support multiple languages. We'll start with a single-size English set of images.



The general layout expected by this tool is:



```

$size/

  $tag/

    65.png

    66.png

    ...

  ...

...

```



> The root of this folder structure is called `data-dir`.



* `$size` is a base font size (e.g. `1`, `1.3`)

* `$tag` is an arbitrary tag for the set of glyphs (e.g. `en`, `common`, `symbols`)



The image filename consist of an utf-8 code (in decimal form) and extension (it's advised to use PNGs).



All images inside the size folder should have identical bounds (e.g. `8x16`). Images can use any non-transparent color for the letter mask: this library only checks for alpha channel to build a bitmap.



After you're ready, run the tool:



```bash

# Use --help to learn about the other flags!

./bitfontier --data-dir ./_data --pkgname myfont

```



This will produce a folder called `myfont` containing a Go package. Copy that package to your app's folder and use it as an ordinary package. Or push it as a Go module on GitHub and install it in a proper way.



> Hint: if you want to bundle a font as a module, make sure to install the dependencies like `golang.org/x/image/font` to the font module.



After installing the generated font package, you can instantiate `font.Face` objects:



```go

func example() {

    // ff is a font.Face, the "1" suffix comes from the

    // data dir, there will be more constructors if your

    // bitmap font defines them.

    ff := myfont.New1()



    // It's possible to create programmatically scaled versions

    // of your base font sizes. It won't be blurry.

    // Only whole scaling factors are available (2, 3, 4, ...)

    ff2 := myfont.Scale(ff, 2)

    ff3 := myfont.Scale(ff, 3)

}

```



Let's assume your font has both `size=1` and `size=1.3` base variants. We can squeeze a wide range of font sizes out of it using `Scale`:



* 1 (base size)

* 1.3 (base size)

* 2 (1*2)

* 2.6 (1.3*2)

* 3 (1*3)

* 3.9 (1.3*3)

* 4