Font upscaling / new font discussion

Thanks!

To me it looks just too small/large in the scroller, but we could maybe resize scroll items?

Yes - that's the ~12px high font, and that is my feeling too. I think as a just-readable 'small' font it's ok, but then if you double-size it, it's too big. For the 'normal' font I think we need something bigger the doesn't need size-doubling.

If anyone would like to experiment, you can use this as a test - the 'font' is just written with Xs in a string the start:

var fontImg = Graphics.createImage(`
  XX   XXXXX   XXXXX     XX          XX  XX        XX XX
 XXXX  XXXXXX XXXXXX     XX          XX  XX        XX XX
XX  XX XX  XX XX         XX          XX  XX        XX XX
XX  XX XX  XX XX         XX          XX  XX        XX XX
XX  XX XX  XX XX         XX          XX  XX        XX XX
XX  XX XX  XX XX         XX          XX  XX        XX XX
XX  XX XX  XX XX      XXXXX  XXXX    XX  XX  XXXX  XX XX  XXXX
XXXXXX XXXXX  XX     XXXXXX XXXXXX   XX  XX XXXXXX XX XX XXXXXX
XXXXXX XXXXX  XX     XX  XX XX  XX   XXXXXX XX  XX XX XX XX  XX
XX  XX XX  XX XX     XX  XX XX  XX   XXXXXX XX  XX XX XX XX  XX
XX  XX XX  XX XX     XX  XX XX  XX   XX  XX XX  XX XX XX XX  XX
XX  XX XX  XX XX     XX  XX XX  XX   XX  XX XX  XX XX XX XX  XX
XX  XX XX  XX XX     XX  XX XX  XX   XX  XX XXXXXX XX XX XX  XX
XX  XX XX  XX XX     XX  XX XX  XX   XX  XX XXXXX  XX XX XX  XX 
XX  XX XX  XX XX     XX  XX XX  XX   XX  XX XX     XX XX XX  XX
XX  XX XX  XX XX     XX  XX XX  XX   XX  XX XX     XX XX XX  XX
XX  XX XXXXXX XXXXXX XXXXXX XXXXXX   XX  XX XXXXXX XX XX XXXXXX
XX  XX XXXXXX  XXXXX  XXXXX  XXXXX   XX  XX  XXXXX XX XX  XXXX
                                XX
                                XX
                            XXXXXX
                             XXXX
`);
var fontStr = String.fromCharCode(0,fontImg.width,fontImg.height,1+128,0)+fontImg.buffer;
  
var menu = {
  "" : {title : fontStr},
  "Old Hello" : function() {},
  "Old Hello when small" : function() {}
};
menu[fontStr] = function() {};
E.showMenu(menu);

Right now that font is:

• 18px high (normally) maybe with a 4px drop-down for letters like 'g' (so 22px, so it can be used in the 24px widget bar)
  
• 2px wide lines
  
• 2px wide gap in letters
  
• 1px between letters
  
  

What does everyone think? Looking at it on a watch on my desk with the backlight off, it feels:

• It's less readable than the current 'normal' font
  
• You do get more stuff on a line - maybe as much as the 'small' font, and it's definitely more readable than that!
  
• Maybe we even need 2 extra fonts - one slightly taller and wider than this for menus, and one very slightly shorter for the widget bar (this one looks a bit cramped)
  
  

I'm trying to work out why it's that much less readable - whether it's the spacing between the letters, the spacing inside them, or it being more 'square'.

... but it's looking to me a little like font doubling isn't really going to work (2x, 3x increments are just to coarse), and maybe the only sensible way to do fonts is just to have a bitmap for each scale level.

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