pebble-fctx-compiler

Compiles SVG resources into a binary format for use with the pebble-fctx drawing library.

Release notes

v1.2.1

• Made output less verbose by default.
• Added error handling for fonts that exceed 64kb in size.
• Added installation and usage notes geared towards CloudPebble users.
• Made the presence of a resources subdirectory optional.

v1.2

• Added cap-height to the font metadata. Compatible with pebble-fctx version 1.6.

Installation and invocation

This is a Node.js package. To use it you must have node (with npm) installed on your computer. See nodejs.org for downloads and instructions.

For CloudPebble

Install fctx-compiler globally on your computer with npm:

npm install -g pebble-fctx-compiler

And then, from the folder that contains your SVG font, invoke the compiler:

fctx-compiler <your-file.svg> [-r <regex>]

Output will be written to the current directory, or if a resources subdirectory is present, output will be written to the resources directory.

To update to latest version of the compiler, run:

npm update -g pebble-fctx-compiler

For local SDK

To install as a local devDependency within your pebble project:

npm install pebble-fctx-compiler --save-dev

And then, from your pebble project directory, invoke the locally installed compiler:

./node_modules/.bin/fctx-compiler <path-to/your-file.svg> [-r <regex>]

Output will be written directly into the resources subdirectory, or if that directory does not exist (though it should), output will be written to the current directory.

If you have installed the compiler as a devDependency then the pebble build command should keep your packages, including pebble-fctx-compiler up to date, but if for some reason you need to update it, then, from your project directory, run:

npm update pebble-fctx-compiler

Usage

The compiler only looks for elements defined within the <defs> section of the SVG. It can handle <font> elements and <g d="..."> elements. Output files are named according to the id property of the element.

The -r <regex> option is recommended for selecting a subset of glyphs from a font.

For example, an SVG font definition <defs><font id="OpenSans-Regular"...> ... </font></defs> will be output to OpenSans-regular.ffont.

And an SVG path element defined as <defs><g id="hour-hand" d="..."> ... </g></defs> will be output to hour-hand.fpath.

Example workflow for converting a subset of glyphs from a font.

1. Open the font in FontForge.
2. Select File -> Generate Fonts..., then select SVG Font as the output format, and finally click Generate to convert the font.
3. Open the SVG file in your favorite code or text editor to double check the id of the font and to do any formatting cleanup you like.
4. Invoke fctx-compiler with the -r [0-9:AMP] option to compile glyph data for just the digits 0 through 9, the colon, and the letters A, M and P.