WP8 not support FreeType font?

#1

In file CCFreeTypeFont.cpp, you can see codes follow:

unsigned char* CCFreeTypeFont::loadSystemFont(const char *pFontName, ssize_t *size) 
{
    #if (CC_TARGET_PLATFORM == CC_PLATFORM_WP8)
    return nullptr;
    #else
....

Is this mean FreeType font is not supported on WP8 platform?
Don’t we have any solution?

#2

Yes, I think ttf is not supported on wp8…yet.
The solution is to create a bitmap font with Glyph Designer (or similar)

#3

It is indeed not working in the current Cocos2d-x-versions, but someone posted a fix for it. Original post was http://www.cocos2d-x.org/forums/6/topics/37224 but due to the forum upgrade you’ll get a 404. So, I don’t know who to credit. Anyway, here is the fix…

unsigned char* CCFreeTypeFont::loadSystemFont(const char *pFontName, unsigned long *size) 
{
#if (CC_TARGET_PLATFORM == CC_PLATFORM_WP8 || CC_TARGET_PLATFORM == CC_PLATFORM_WINRT)
	//Froxul: Add the ability to use system fonts on WP8 and WinRT
	//http://www.cocos2d-x.org/forums/6/topics/37224
	std::string fontName(pFontName);
	if (fontName.find(".ttf") == -1) fontName += ".ttf";
	std::string fontPath = "C:\\Windows\\Fonts\\" + fontName;
	return CCFileUtils::sharedFileUtils()->getFileData(fontPath.c_str(), "rb", size);
#else

As you can see, I’ve also added WINRT-platform, since systemfonts were also not being loaded on windows 8 by the code in the #else-block. Basically the CCFreeTypeFont::loadSystemFont-function could be replaced by the above 4 lines.

#4

Thank you @froxul. The code snap post original at Can’t create CCLabelTTF with system font!.

I added these four line code into my project, return ..getFileData really works, returned a pointer not NULL.
But any font of Arial, SimSun even Microsoft YaHei can’t be rasterized well.
Latin characters can be rendered well, but Chinese character not.

Please.

#5

You can only use system fonts. Arial, SimSun or Microsoft YaHei are not present on Windows Phone 8. On http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsphone/develop/hh202920(v=vs.105).aspx you can check which fonts are present on every WP8-device.

I use the Yu Gothic-font for Japanese translation. For Chinese you can choose between DengXian for Simplified, Microsoft Mhei for Traditional on WP8. You should use the name of the ttf-file: DengXian.ttf or MSMHei.ttf. I just checked it on my phone and Chinese text was shown correct without any invalid character “squares”.

#6

This is works really. Awesome!
I find my bug is in CCFreeTypeFont::initWithString. cocos’s default font is Helvetica, when this kind of font load fail, Arial is loaded, not any font I set. So I need to intercept Arial before it’s loaded.
Thank you so much @froxul