What is it?
Atari FontMaker is MS Windows tool used for creating and editing Atari XL/XE fonts and font-based graphics. The tool was originally written in Delphi but has been ported to C# and its source code repository can be found here: https://github.com/matosimi/atari-fontmaker. The original Delphi sources are available here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/atari-fontmaker/ .
First version dates back to 2003, since then lot of functionalities were added and lot of refactoring applied, especially in version 1.6 when the code was converted from Delphi to C#.
Screenshots
Latest version
Download latest release directly from GitHub:
https://github.com/matosimi/atari-fontmaker/releases
Functionality / Documentation
https://github.com/matosimi/atari-fontmaker#readme
Mega Copy mode
Small video showing how the Mega Copy mode works:
As you can see it is possible to copy characters to view window, but it is also possible to copy character data to font window, so it requires some hands-on experience to fully understand the options available.
Additional function shown in the video is available after clicking on Enter text button. You can type free text which will be copied to clipboard, so you can paste it to view (or font) window.
Tip: Keep in mind that multi-character clipboard is working only in Mega Copy mode, you will not be able to paste bigger clipboard contents when you exit the Mega Copy mode.
You can cancel clipboard paste by pressing ESC key or doubleclicking the right mousebutton.
Changelist (Delphi based)
1.5.4.67 – Fixed searching for duplicates of Megacopy exit (wrong behavior causing application hanging), fixed recolor panel refresh
1.5.3.66 – Added display of character index under mouse cursor in view window; Added DUP checkbox which controls display of duplicate characters in font
1.5.2.65 – Added new export option: Save as Basic listing *.LST file that can be applied to your existing Basic program by calling ENTER “D:MYFONT.LST”
You can read the commit comments here:
https://sourceforge.net/p/atari-fontmaker/code/log/
Great update from the previous version. The undo buffer and Mega Copy features are amazing.
SourceForge lists version 1.4 even though the update shows the latest version 1.5.3.66
I suppose you were browsing sourceforge from Linux machine, because 1.4 is the latest Linux release of Atari FontMaker.
Yes 🙂 And about the Linux version. Something goes wrong with windows manager when I start AFM and it likes to crash 🙁 especially when working on two character sets. When working on the first it is stable for a long time.
But the most annoying is the problem with windows manager. As a matter of fact, I don’t know if it’s AFM’s fault, however I have several other applications running under WINE and they don’t do such “craziness” as after running AFM.
And what’s going on? The problem is that switching between other windows on the system gets messed up. When setting focus on some window, it doesn’t go to the top, but stays underneath.
this is really great! i have one (minor?) request… would it be possible to add in mode 5 support so you can work with double height characters? I can imagine the “Change GFX” button cycling between 3 modes instead of toggling between 2. I would try do it myself but I actually don’t have Delphi installed and have never worked with it before.
@Seren: I’m planning to migrate the tool to .net C#, maybe then will be space for such change … I would not consider this request minor because it requires lot of changes in all of the sub-windows of the application.
is there a way to apply GTIA filtering (ntsc/pal) to get an idea of what it would look like? Would also like to be able to export the map via data statements. Great tool, thanks.
No, there is no such option and I’m not considering to implement it. For that case I think Graph2font is better choice. Export map via data statements is not something complicated, however there is a super cool tool for such operation on Bocianu’s page: https://bocianu.gitlab.io/cutas/ (knowing couple Polish words, I like the name of the tool :D)
AFM loads the full double font, only when the file name is *.fn2. When the extension has uppercase letters, or mixed it loads only the first half.
By the way, is it possible to save the whole fn2 font (fn3, fn4?) as it was in much older versions? (It’s not a big problem, since it is possible to save all parts and merge outside of AFM).
“RES S” refer to *1.fnt *2.fnt not fn2 so no file found, or load from possible different version.