This is a proportional font for the micro:bit. The font is more condensed than the system font, because most characters are less than 5 pixels wide.
Here are the features of this package:
- Narrower text, i.e. more efficient use of the LED display.
- The "interval" of the show number/string blocks are settable.
- A show space block, that scrolls a specified number of blank columns.
- Text/number is always scrolled regardless of its length.
Two blocks are available to show number and string.
proportionalFont.showNumber(1234, 150)
proportionalFont.showString("test okay", 150)
The next one shows the specified number of empty columns. This is needed to add space between two show number/show string commands.
proportionalFont.showSpace(1, 150)
And two more blocks are available to calculate the width (in pixels) of a string/number:
let width1: number = proportionalFont.getWidthOfNumber(1234)
let width2: number = proportionalFont.getWidthOfString("test okay")
These widths can be used to calculate the time needed to show the text. The time is calculated by the formula.
time needed = width of text in pixels × interval.
Consider the following code:
proportionalFont.showString("Prop. Font", 150)
In this case, the text “Prop. Font” is 35 pixels wide. And the time needed to show the text “Prop. Font” is 35 × 150 ms = 5250 ms.
(P.S. the actual time elapsed will be a little bit higher than the calculated time.)
// Output to LED. The second number is the per-column interval in milliseconds.
// If the interval is not specified, it is 150 ms (same as the core).
proportionalFont.showNumber(1234)
proportionalFont.showNumber(1234, 100)
proportionalFont.showString("test okay")
proportionalFont.showString("test okay", 100)
// Output the given number of empty columns to the LED. Again, the second number
// is the interval in milliseconds, which defaults to 150.
proportionalFont.showSpace(2)
proportionalFont.showSpace(2, 100)
// Get the width in pixel of the specified number or string.
let width1: number = proportionalFont.getWidthOfNumber(1234)
let width2: number = proportionalFont.getWidthOfString("test okay")The code is available via MIT license.
- for PXT/microbit