Am I must install ttf to make custom font label on windows?

cocos2d-x C++
#1

I am developing on windows.

Recently, I spend much time to use custom font label.

I fixed engine code that reference with http://www.cocos2d-x.org/forums/6/topics/32189, http://www.cocos2d-x.org/forums/6/topics/14665.

But it wasn’t fixed.

Today, I found IF install that ttf, then I can use that font to make label.

But I think that it’s so strange… isn’t it?

#2

And it looks like when I create CCLabelTTF, it needs FONT NAME not font file name. Is it right?

#3

Hi,
I’m a noob. But digging in the code for Win32. But yes there seems to be a problem there to display fonts that are not already installed on windows

Looking at the windows specific code for BitmapDC there seems to be a few bugs in the code.

I did find a workaround that requires no code chages: Call setFontName on the label like this

   `CCLabelTTF* pLabel = CCLabelTTF::create("Hello World", "fonts/Felt.ttf", 24);`
   `pLabel->setFontName("fonts/Felt.ttf");`

Note
The name of the ttf file MUST match the font face inside. So Mark_Felt.ttf that is provided by the examples can’t be loaded and must be renamed to Felt.ttf the name of the font

#4

The reason this happens:

  1. The code to add the Font Resource from file is incorrectly placed in a block that is only called when removing a previously loaded font: see BitmapDC::setFont in platform/win32/CCImage.cpp:160

  2. The font-face to load in the call CreateFontIndirectA is generated from the file name (taking the file name without the extension) however TTF files contain the font-face name in the definition. That means that if the font-face is not the same as the file name the operation will fail.
    An example it the Marker Felt.ttf provided as an example. The font-face in the TTf file is Felt so it will not load correctly without renaming.

Additional Issues:

  1. Windows errors are not reported. For instance if AddFontResource fails to load the ttf file the error is not reported anywhere

  2. The windows documentation says that the WM_FONTCHANGE should be sent with HWND_BROADCAST to inform all windows of the new font however the SendMessage is called with to a single specific window

  3. The current design has additional Fonts generated for every Label instead of loaded once to the application and then reused.

#5

Finally if you fixed the engine code according to the thread above then your problem is most likely due to a font_file_name / font_face_name mismatch.

open the ttf font with Windows Font Viewer and make sure that the Name of the file matches exactly the ‘Font name’ that appears in the first line

#6

Thank you, Oded Sharon. I want to fix that and contribute to cocos2dx with commiting, but I have too many works to do. TT

#7

I added a pull request for v3. It works for me now if I make sure that the ttf files are named correctly

#8

Coool!

Oded Sharon wrote:

I added a pull request for v3. It works for me now if I make sure that the ttf files are named correctly