Custom and system fonts.
Pebble comes with a number of system fonts that you are free to use in your app. Use fonts_get_system_font() to load a system font. Alternatively, it is possible to include a custom font into an app. Use fonts_load_custom_font() to load a custom font. See the guide on Managing App Resources in Pebble Developer Guide on how to embed a font into your app.
Readability is dependent on the font itself, the size and the lighting conditions (contrast of the text against the background). What is readable also varies from person to person. The usage context also plays an important role. So, choosing a font is always a compromise between readability, information density and aesthetics.
For text that is to be read when glancing at the watch, we recommend using at least a 28pt font size and a bold style. For example, the Text Watch app uses a bold font sized at 42pt for the hours.
Texts that are to be read while the user is interacting with the watch, a smaller font size may be adequate. Pebble uses the bold system font at size 24 for the titles in system menus and as the default ('large') notification font. For larger bodies of text, we recommend using the default system font (Raster Gothic). Modern fonts usually do not have a "bitmapped" version and tend to crumble on black/white displays at smaller font sizes.
The font that is used throughout the system is called Rasther Gothic by Mark Simonson. This bitmap font is optimized for monochromatic displays. We picked this because it allows relatively many characters to be displayed on one line and has an excellent readability vs. size ratio.
GFont fonts_get_system_font | ( | const char * | font_key | ) |
Loads a system font corresponding to the specified font key.
font_key | The string key of the font to load. See pebble_fonts.h for a list of system fonts. |
Loads a custom font.
resource | The resource handle of the font to load. See resource_ids.auto.h for a list of resource IDs, and use resource_get_handle() to obtain the resource handle. |
void fonts_unload_custom_font | ( | GFont | font | ) |
Unloads the specified custom font and frees the memory that is occupied by it.
font | The font to unload. |
typedef void* GFont |
Pointer to opaque font data structure.