load-bmfont

What is load-bmfont?

The load-bmfont npm package is used to load bitmap font files in various formats (e.g., XML, JSON, binary). It is particularly useful for rendering text in WebGL or Canvas applications where bitmap fonts are preferred for performance reasons.

What are load-bmfont's main functionalities?

Load Bitmap Font from URL

This feature allows you to load a bitmap font from a URL. The callback function provides the loaded font object or an error if the loading fails.

const loadBMFont = require('load-bmfont');

loadBMFont('path/to/font.fnt', function(err, font) {
  if (err) throw err;
  console.log(font);
});

Load Bitmap Font from Buffer

This feature allows you to load a bitmap font from a buffer. This is useful when the font data is already available in memory, such as when it is read from a file or received over a network.

const loadBMFont = require('load-bmfont');
const fs = require('fs');

const buffer = fs.readFileSync('path/to/font.fnt');
loadBMFont(buffer, function(err, font) {
  if (err) throw err;
  console.log(font);
});

Load Bitmap Font from Base64 String

This feature allows you to load a bitmap font from a base64-encoded string. This can be useful for embedding font data directly within a script or HTML document.

const loadBMFont = require('load-bmfont');

const base64String = 'base64-encoded-font-data';
const buffer = Buffer.from(base64String, 'base64');
loadBMFont(buffer, function(err, font) {
  if (err) throw err;
  console.log(font);
});

Other packages similar to load-bmfont

three-bmfont-text

The three-bmfont-text package is used to create text geometry for Three.js using bitmap fonts. It provides a higher-level abstraction for rendering text in 3D scenes, whereas load-bmfont focuses on loading the font data itself.

fontpath

The fontpath package is a tool for working with vector fonts in JavaScript. While it does not specifically handle bitmap fonts, it provides similar functionality for loading and rendering vector fonts, which can be an alternative to bitmap fonts in some use cases.

README

load-bmfont

Loads an AngelCode BMFont file in browser (with XHR) and node (with fs and phin), returning a JSON representation.

var load = require("load-bmfont");

load("fonts/Arial-32.fnt", function (err, font) {
  if (err) throw err;

  //The BMFont spec in JSON form
  console.log(font.common.lineHeight);
  console.log(font.info);
  console.log(font.chars);
  console.log(font.kernings);
});

Currently supported BMFont formats:

• ASCII (text)
• JSON
• XML
• binary

See Also

See text-modules for related modules.

Usage

load(opt, cb)

Loads a BMFont file with the opt settings and fires the callback with (err, font) params once finished. If opt is a string, it is used as the URI. Otherwise the options can be:

• uri or url the path (in Node) or URI
• binary boolean, whether the data should be read as binary, default false
• (in node) options for fs.readFile or phin
• (in browser) options for xhr

To support binary files in the browser and Node, you should use binary: true. Otherwise the XHR request might come in the form of a UTF8 string, which will not work with binary files. This also sets up the XHR object to override mime type in older browsers.

load(
  {
    uri: "fonts/Arial.bin",
    binary: true,
  },
  function (err, font) {
    console.log(font);
  }
);

License

MIT, see LICENSE.md for details.