mirror of
https://github.com/MarlinFirmware/Marlin.git
synced 2024-12-15 23:11:46 +00:00
111 lines
4.1 KiB
Markdown
111 lines
4.1 KiB
Markdown
## Language engine and tools
|
|
|
|
### Supported hardware
|
|
|
|
Marlin supports HD44780 character LCD and 128x64 graphical LCD via U8GLIB. Because of the limitation of HD44780 hardwares, Marlin can only support three character sets for that hardware: Japanese (kana_utf8), Russian/Cyrillic (ru), or Western (Roman characters)
|
|
|
|
For the graphical LCD modules, there's far less limitation. Users and language maintainers can easily change the language translation strings when saved with UTF-8 encoding. The only extra step is to regenerate the font data from an existing BDF font file.
|
|
|
|
### How to support a new language?
|
|
|
|
1. Prepare the translation source file
|
|
|
|
You need to add a language header file `language_xx.h`, replacing xx with the language/country code. (e.g., "en" for English). You can start with a existing language file by copying it to a new location:
|
|
|
|
```bash
|
|
cp language_zh_CN.h language_zh_TW.h
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
Then simply replace the strings inside the `_UxGT()` macros.
|
|
|
|
Make sure the file is saved as UTF-8 encoded.
|
|
|
|
2. Generate the font data file
|
|
|
|
This step gathers the glyphs used in the language file from a 9pt bitmap font and saves the data in a language_data_xx.h file. So the font used for conversion should contain all the characters in your language file.
|
|
|
|
The default bitmap font is WQY's 9pt bitmap font.
|
|
|
|
Download from [here](http://wenq.org/daily/wqy-bitmapfont-bdf-gb18030-nightly_build.tar.gz), or to install in a Debian/Ubuntu system:
|
|
|
|
```
|
|
sudo apt-get install xfonts-wqy
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
You also need to compile the `bdf2u8g` binary to convert BDF font files into U8glib data structures:
|
|
|
|
```bash
|
|
cd marlin-git/buildroot/share/fonts/
|
|
./get-bdf2u8g.sh
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
The `genallfont.sh` script generates font data for all language translation files.
|
|
|
|
You may specify a list of languages to process. For example:
|
|
|
|
```bash
|
|
MARLIN_LANGS="zh_CN zh_TW"
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
and run the script to generate the font data (`language_data_xx.h`):
|
|
|
|
```bash
|
|
cd marlin-git/Marlin/
|
|
MARLIN_LANGS="zh_CN zh_TW" ../buildroot/share/fonts/genallfont.sh
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
3. Change the language settings
|
|
|
|
To compile Marlin with your language, choose a language in `Configuration.h`. For Chinese (Taiwan) you would use:
|
|
|
|
```cpp
|
|
#define LCD_LANGUAGE zh_TW
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
4. Compile and Upload the firmware
|
|
|
|
Open `Marlin.ino` in your IDE and compile the firmware. Once the build succeeds, upload it to your board.
|
|
|
|
### Update the language translation
|
|
|
|
Whenever language files are changed, you need to run the script `genallfont.sh` again to update the font data file.
|
|
|
|
### Use a cool font
|
|
|
|
You may need to use a different font to support your own language, because the default 9pt font is not complete. (You may also support them by adding the missing glyphs to the font.)
|
|
|
|
After you've prepared your font, specify the font file path as an argument to `genallfont.sh`, so that the font used for your language is your new font. For example, if your font is named `newfont.bdf` run the following command:
|
|
|
|
```bash
|
|
cd Marlin/
|
|
../buildroot/share/fonts/genallfont.sh ./newfont.bdf
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
...or to regenerate the language font data for a specific language:
|
|
|
|
```bash
|
|
MARLIN_LANGS="zh_TW" ../buildroot/share/fonts/genallfont.sh ./newfont.bdf
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
### Suggestions for Maintainers
|
|
|
|
The tool and the language engine can be easily updated. Since it uses common bitmap font files and UTF-8 text, the maintainer needs to confirm that the font contains the glyphs in the language files.
|
|
|
|
At this time, the font file `marlin-6x12-3.bdf` is used to generate the font data. It combines all of Marlin's ISO10646-1 fonts and the WQY 9pt bitmap font.
|
|
|
|
### Related resources
|
|
|
|
#### Fonts
|
|
|
|
- [WQY](http://wenq.org/)
|
|
- [WQY 9pt bitmap font](http://wenq.org/daily/wqy-bitmapfont-bdf-gb18030-nightly_build.tar.gz)
|
|
- [unifont (16x8 or 16x16)](https://unifoundry.com/unifont.html)
|
|
|
|
Documents related to the old version of the language engine:
|
|
|
|
- [Marlin Fonts Documentation](https://www.marlinfw.org/docs/development/fonts.html)
|
|
- [Marlin LCD Language](https://marlinfw.org/docs/development/lcd_language.html)
|
|
- [U8GLIB](https://github.com/olikraus/u8glib.git)
|
|
- [UTF-8 for U8GLIB](https://github.com/yhfudev/u8glib-fontutf8.git)
|
|
- [Standalone test project for the Marlin UTF-8 language engine](https://github.com/yhfudev/marlin-fontutf8.git)
|