## Summary
One of the recent font conversion script changes obliterated
performance. Add a verbose mode to build-sd-fonts.py to help diagnose
problems. Changed the CI process to use verbose mode.
---
### AI Usage
While CrossPoint doesn't have restrictions on AI tools in contributing,
please be transparent about their usage as it
helps set the right context for reviewers.
Did you use AI tools to help write this code? _**YES**_
instantiateVariableFont() returns a *new* TTFont with the requested axes
pinned; the existing call discards that return and proceeds to
font.save() the original (still-variable) font. The "static instance"
written to disk is therefore identical to the source variable font and
the requested axis values are silently ignored.
For sd-fonts.yaml entries that use the `variable: {wght: 400}` form
(e.g. Bitter, Lora) this means every weight ends up rasterised from the
same default-weight glyphs — bold and regular look the same.
Capture the return value, and pass two diagnostically useful kwargs
while we're touching the call:
* updateFontNames=True — rewrite the name table so the saved TTF reports
its actual weight/style instead of retaining the source variable-font
names.
* optimize=False — skip the gvar interpolation optimisation;
fully pinning every axis drops gvar anyway,
so the work would be wasted.
The atomic-write scaffolding around the call is left untouched.
## Summary
* **What is the goal of this PR?** (e.g., Implements the new feature for
file uploading.)
* **What changes are included?**
## Additional Context
* Add any other information that might be helpful for the reviewer
(e.g., performance implications, potential risks,
specific areas to focus on).
---
### AI Usage
While CrossPoint doesn't have restrictions on AI tools in contributing,
please be transparent about their usage as it
helps set the right context for reviewers.
Did you use AI tools to help write this code? _**< YES | PARTIALLY | NO
>**_
Add a complete SD card font subsystem that enables users to install and
use custom fonts beyond the three built-in families. This combines the
back-end firmware support (#1327) with the font configuration, build
pipeline, CI distribution, and user-facing management UI (#1392).
Core font system:
- Custom .cpfont binary format (v4) with multi-style support (regular,
bold, italic, bold-italic) packed into a single file per size
- On-demand glyph loading from SD card with two-pass prewarm rendering
to bulk-read glyphs per page, achieving near-flash performance for
Latin text (~697ms vs ~681ms) and viable CJK rendering (~32% slower)
- Persistent advance cache for layout measurement without SD I/O
- Overflow ring buffer for glyph cache misses during rendering
- Memory-conscious design: only advance tables kept in RAM; glyph
bitmaps, kern tables, and ligatures loaded on demand from SD
Font management:
- On-device WiFi download from GitHub Releases with manifest-based
discovery, install/update detection, and progress UI
- Web interface font upload, listing, and deletion via /fonts page
- Manual SD card copy to /fonts/ or /.fonts/ directories
- Font selection integrated into Settings > Reader > Font Family
Build pipeline:
- Declarative YAML config (sd-fonts.yaml) as single source of truth
for the 17-family font library (serif, sans, mono, accessibility)
- Python converter (fontconvert_sdcard.py) for TTF/OTF to .cpfont with
FreeType rasterization, class-based kerning, and ligature extraction
- Parallel build orchestrator with variable font instance extraction
- CI workflow publishing versioned + stable releases to a dedicated
crosspoint-fonts repository with auto-incrementing revision tags
- Centralized version constants (cpfont_version.py) shared across
build tooling and CI, with firmware headers as manual sync points
Additional fixes:
- CJK characters no longer get hyphens inserted at line breaks
- Advance table eliminates 30+ second stalls during CJK section
indexing for paragraphs with >512 unique codepoints
Closes#930
Co-authored-by: Zach Nelson <zach@zdnelson.com>
Co-authored-by: Justin <itsthisjustin@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: jpirnay <jens@pirnay.com>
Co-authored-by: mcrosson <kemonine@kemonine.info>
Justin Mitchell