It's hard to let go but the tools at https://libgdx.com/wiki/tools/hiero#alternatives and https://libgdx.com/wiki/graphics/2d/fonts/bitmap-fonts#tools-for-creating-bitmaps are decrepit and more trouble than they're worth to get running as a new user.
Here is a table of what I'm thinking, with more detailed thoughts beneath:
| Remove |
Keep |
Add |
- Glyph Designer
- TWL Theme Editor
- gdx-fontpack
- FontPacker
- ShoeBox
- JME
- Littera
- gdx-smart-font
|
- BitmapFontWriter
- BMFont
- bmGlyph
|
|
BitmapFontWriter: No reason not to get rid of this, I guess. I'm not very fond of gdx-tools but it's good to have a programmatic example.
Glyph Designer: "At time of writing Glyph Designer is priced at $39.99." I wonder when that was. In 2015, it was $53.99/year. To this day, it still is. My concern with this product is whether it's still usable on modern macOS versions and Apple Silicon. I failed to find a changelog, and the forums are dead (last spambot post was 2020; last human 2019) but the modification dates in the ZIP download are from December 2022 for what that's worth.
BMFont: Bizarrely, it received an update last year. I haven't played with it but there's nothing wrong with a bit of WinForms.
TWL Theme Editor: It's obviously dead. The twl.zip and themer.jnlp downloads work but I don't know what to do with them.
gdx-fontpack: Unmaintained. It looks interesting, especially being able to define multiple sizes (Hiero only does one at a time). Issues suggest it has problems with 5-digit character codes.
FontPacker: Binary downloads are dead and I doubt anyone is about to go building it from source (it's C#).
ShoeBox: The reliance on Adobe AIR sucks. Adobe no longer distributes AIR but HARMAN has taken over so it wouldn't be that difficult to get... if it works.
JME: I don't see a download link and don't know why anyone would choose a work-in-progress from 2011.
bmGlyph: I think this should still be okay? It says it's a Universal Binary. @obigu mentioned using it.
Littera: The website has gone down. I'll check back later in case it's a temporary outage. But requiring Flash is a no-go for many people. If you go to the SWF on Archive.org, it runs in Ruffle but the text layout is too badly scuffed to be usable.
gdx-smart-font: I think it's a clever concept to learn from, generating font based on screen size and caching for future runs. I wouldn't trust that implementation enough to use it as a library.
If we want to maintain a list of alternatives, adding Skin Composer should be a no-brainer, as it can do font stuff. See also: #263
It's hard to let go but the tools at https://libgdx.com/wiki/tools/hiero#alternatives and https://libgdx.com/wiki/graphics/2d/fonts/bitmap-fonts#tools-for-creating-bitmaps are decrepit and more trouble than they're worth to get running as a new user.
Here is a table of what I'm thinking, with more detailed thoughts beneath:
BitmapFontWriter: No reason not to get rid of this, I guess. I'm not very fond of gdx-tools but it's good to have a programmatic example.
Glyph Designer: "At time of writing Glyph Designer is priced at $39.99." I wonder when that was. In 2015, it was $53.99/year. To this day, it still is. My concern with this product is whether it's still usable on modern macOS versions and Apple Silicon. I failed to find a changelog, and the forums are dead (last spambot post was 2020; last human 2019) but the modification dates in the ZIP download are from December 2022 for what that's worth.
BMFont: Bizarrely, it received an update last year. I haven't played with it but there's nothing wrong with a bit of WinForms.
TWL Theme Editor: It's obviously dead. The twl.zip and themer.jnlp downloads work but I don't know what to do with them.
gdx-fontpack: Unmaintained. It looks interesting, especially being able to define multiple sizes (Hiero only does one at a time). Issues suggest it has problems with 5-digit character codes.
FontPacker: Binary downloads are dead and I doubt anyone is about to go building it from source (it's C#).
ShoeBox: The reliance on Adobe AIR sucks. Adobe no longer distributes AIR but HARMAN has taken over so it wouldn't be that difficult to get... if it works.
JME: I don't see a download link and don't know why anyone would choose a work-in-progress from 2011.
bmGlyph: I think this should still be okay? It says it's a Universal Binary. @obigu mentioned using it.
Littera: The website has gone down. I'll check back later in case it's a temporary outage. But requiring Flash is a no-go for many people. If you go to the SWF on Archive.org, it runs in Ruffle but the text layout is too badly scuffed to be usable.
gdx-smart-font: I think it's a clever concept to learn from, generating font based on screen size and caching for future runs. I wouldn't trust that implementation enough to use it as a library.
If we want to maintain a list of alternatives, adding Skin Composer should be a no-brainer, as it can do font stuff. See also: #263