ZSNES Custom GUI Fonts

Deathlike2 · Post by **Deathlike2** » Sun Jun 25, 2006 1:29 am

Download the font that ipher provided for testing:
http://aerdan.is-from.us/~deathlike/zfont.txt

Clements · Post by **Clements** » Sun Jun 25, 2006 1:52 am

Looks great.

With ipher's font, I like the majority of letters, apart from Y. I changed it back to the old one:

(Y
10001000
01010000
00100000
00100000
00100000)

Deathlike2 · Post by **Deathlike2** » Sun Jun 25, 2006 2:07 am

Some pics in action (filtered in HQ2x).

http://aerdan.is-from.us/~deathlike/zfont1.png
http://aerdan.is-from.us/~deathlike/zfont2.png

xamenus · Post by **xamenus** » Sun Jun 25, 2006 3:05 am

Small bug:

Custom Font
Click Enters GUI

Both options use the 'C' shortcut key, resulting in a conflict.

Deathlike2 · Post by **Deathlike2** » Sun Jun 25, 2006 3:39 am

Ah.. I see.. I might look into fixing that...

Clements · Post by **Clements** » Sun Jun 25, 2006 3:48 am

One other thing I noticed was that the framerate of the GUI drops dramatically when a dropdown menu is selected with a custom font enabled, which is particularly noticable with the a GUI effect on.

Deathlike2 · Post by **Deathlike2** » Sun Jun 25, 2006 5:34 am

I'm not sure if I can fix the shortcut key... there are too many letters/numbers taken to make this possible...

As for the performance issue, hopefully this is fixed now.

Clements · Post by **Clements** » Sun Jun 25, 2006 5:41 am

Performance issue is confirmed to be fixed.

Aerdan · Post by **Aerdan** » Sun Jun 25, 2006 4:55 pm

Deathlike2 wrote:I'm not sure if I can fix the shortcut key... there are too many letters/numbers taken to make this possible...

'o' isn't used.

Deathlike2 · Post by **Deathlike2** » Sun Jun 25, 2006 6:56 pm

Aerdan: I already figured that out.

Thanks Jonas_Quinn1 for the shortcut fix.

Post by **Agozer** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 1:29 am

That's a pretty cool font you got there. Just compiled with Zget and noted that the config files have gone though quite an overhaul. Nice.

xamenus · Post by **xamenus** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 6:39 am

Well, it is going to be fun adding this feature to the docs. I'll probably end up making it sound more confusing than what it really is. :(

Just to make sure, is this feature in the DOS port also?

Also, would it be possible if ZSNES could auto-generate this file with the default values upon first run, so that newcomers without ipher's file would have something to work with? I don't think anyone is going to want to write their own file from scratch.

Deathlike2 · Post by **Deathlike2** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 6:46 am

xamenus, it is actually easier that it looks codewise (ipher's custom font idea was pretty damn cool to begin with)

Yes.. this feature is in the DOS port as well (I've tested it myself).. I can't test SDL (but it should probably work too).

I think it can/will be done, but I'd have to port the default font values somewhere... and that will be a pain in the ass (seriously, it is). It wouldn't be hard though.

Porting the default values is not on my priorities at the moment.. I want to add something to the DOS port first hopefully (it's not new stuff or anything).

Post by **Agozer** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 4:08 pm

I started tinkering with the custom font and came up with this:

Looks best with blur filters, the image above is filtered with Super 2xSaI.

http://koti.welho.com/ahesso/Data/Zfont.zip

I also made two different versions of the letter G in case you don't like how it looks now. The other is like a mirrored lowercase E.

Post by **Nach** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 4:19 pm

Nice to see ZSNES has the most customizable GUI out there

byuu · Post by **byuu** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 4:57 pm

Cool, can we all submit 5x5 fonts? I'd like to make one, too. Preferrably all lowercase, my favorite :)

Or perhaps if I haven't already said it, make ZSNES look for "font.dat" or something, and if not there default to the original internal one?

Well, darn. Can't do lowercase i or j. And G looks pretty bad, too. Hmm, what say you bump that font up to 5x7? Heh.

Post by **Agozer** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 5:56 pm

If there is no zfont.txt and you enable 'Use Custom Font', all text dissappears. :/ So yeh, it would be nice to for the option to be greyed out/disabled (or maybe a message box would be displayed) if zfont.txt is not found.

xamenus · Post by **xamenus** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 6:07 pm

Agozer wrote:If there is no zfont.txt and you enable 'Use Custom Font', all text dissappears. :/ So yeh, it would be nice to for the option to be greyed out/disabled (or maybe a message box would be displayed) if zfont.txt is not found.

Well, eventually ZSNES might automatically generate zfont.txt (with the default fonts) if it doesn't find it.

byuu · Post by **byuu** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 6:13 pm

Ah, yes. 5x7 would work great.

( http://img468.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... ull1wp.png )

And please, don't say "that's impossible". I was told the same thing about adding a VWF to the GUI and that was far more difficult :P

The only thing is that the load menu would have to go from 15 items to 13. I believe it is well worth it for being able to enter caps+lowercase letters and have an overall much more readable font. The problem with the load screen has always been the horizontal width, anyway. But I'm sure you guys have your reasons for not merging the filename and directory fields and/or using a variable-width font for that window alone.

Those horizontal red lines would obviously need to go under letters other than 'g,j,p,q,y' ortherwise the red will be slightly obscured. That, or one could "mask" against the letters (eg combine the red+bottom line of these letters).

Anyway, if you guys like this, and want to use it, but won't do the work... then if you promise me you will use it, I can try and work on modifying ZSNES to support this 5x7 font system.

Post by **grinvader** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 7:38 pm

byuu wrote:Ah, yes. 5x7 would work great.

And please, don't say "that's impossible". I was told the same thing about adding a VWF to the GUI and that was far more difficult :P

<stuff>

Anyway, if you guys like this, and want to use it, but won't do the work... then if you promise me you will use it, I can try and work on modifying ZSNES to support this 5x7 font system.

Or you could wait for me to find the time to actually pull the GUI upsize and make a semi-VW font (semi because it would max horizontally at 10 for limited width reasons).
Of course, finding the time could be tough. Heh.

byuu · Post by **byuu** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 7:45 pm

Indeed, I could. Mmmm, 10x10 font in a 512x448 GUI. I'm half tempted to make a concept markup of it.

Any wildly rough estimate as to when this would be ready? Heh.

Post by **grinvader** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 8:02 pm

Some wild months ? It depends on so many parameters, it's worse than weather forecasting.

byuu · Post by **byuu** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 8:41 pm

Aww. Well at any rate, here's my submission for the 512x448 GUI :

( http://img389.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... 5123oh.png )

Yeah, yeah, no icon on the titlebar... oh, the limitations of VBA :(

Post by **grinvader** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 8:47 pm

*chuckles*

You forgot the colour intensity values on the right of the slidebars... but they wouldn't even be used in such a GUI, now would they ? ;)

Post by **Agozer** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 9:02 pm

That just looks fugly.