ALLEGRO_GLYPH(3alleg5)

💅 ALLEGRO_GLYPH 💅

okay bestie, so this is the ALLEGRO_GLYPH page from the Allegro 5 API manual, and it's literally the blueprint for how one single character in a font is put together. one glyph. one vibe. let's go 🦋

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

#include <allegro5/allegro_font.h>

typedef struct ALLEGRO_GLYPH ALLEGRO_GLYPH;

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

it's a struct, bestie, and it holds all the properties of a character in a font. the whole little dossier. the character sheet, if you will 😭

typedef struct ALLEGRO_GLYPH {
   ALLEGRO_BITMAP *bitmap;   // the bitmap the character is on
   int x;                    // the x position of the glyph on bitmap
   int y;                    // the y position of the glyph on bitmap
   int w;                    // the width of the glyph in pixels
   int h;                    // the height of the glyph in pixels
   int kerning;              // pixels of kerning (see below)
   int offset_x;             // x offset to draw the glyph at
   int offset_y;             // y offset to draw the glyph at
   int advance;              // number of pixels to advance after this character
} ALLEGRO_GLYPH;

so bitmap — that's the bitmap the character is living on. and lowkey important: bitmap may be a sub-bitmap in the case of color fonts ✨ and it can also be NULL, in which case you draw nothing, periodt. (that's sometimes just how it is for whitespace characters in TTF fonts, no drama 💀)

then kerning — bestie, you need to add this to the x position you're drawing to if you want your text actually kerned, and it depends on which codepoints al_get_glyph(3alleg5) was called with. iykyk 👑

and the way that glyphs are tightly packed onto the bitmap?? yeah. so you have to add offset_x and offset_y to your draw position or your text is gonna look all kinds of wrong. not optional. do it 🙈

finally advance — that's the number of pixels you add to your x position to advance to the next character in a string, and yes it includes kerning. it's giving "the whole package" 🎀

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⭐ SINCE ⭐

5.2.1

🫶 [Unstable API]: this API is new and subject to refinement. so like, it's iconic, but it might still get a lil glow-up. treat it gently bestie 💖

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🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

• al_get_glyph(3alleg5)

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and that's the whole page, no cap 💅 the Allegro reference manual said what it said, and ALLEGRO_GLYPH(3alleg5) is out here being the main character of font rendering. go forth and kern responsibly, bestie 🦋🌸👑