%justify%One of the great features of the FT800 chip (as used on the Gameduino 2 and FTDI VM800B43A module) is that is has many built in commands to render different user interface widgets to the screen.  For example, scroll bars, gauges, clocks and so on. In many cases, these built in widgets are more that capable of delivering high quality user interfaces in very short time scales. However, they are based on vector rendering and if you want to deliver something a little more slick to your customers, then a custom drawn bitmap is what you need. 

%justify%One of the great features of the FT800 is that is has many built in commands to render different user interface widgets to the screen.  For example, scroll bars, gauges, clocks and so on. In many cases, these built in widgets are more that capable of delivering high quality user interfaces in very short time scales. However, they are based on vector rendering and if you want to deliver something a little more slick to your customers, then a custom drawn bitmap is what you need. 

%justify%The original PNGs can be created in any suitable editing program, which are then turned into zlib compressed *.bin files.  This is achieved by using the [[http://www.ftdichip.com/Support/Utilities.htm | image conversion software]] provided by FTDI.  The *.bin image files used and source code for this project can be downloaded from here

%justify%The original PNGs can be created in any suitable editing program, which are then turned into zlib compressed *.bin files.  This is achieved by using the [[http://www.ftdichip.com/Support/Utilities.htm | image conversion software]] provided by FTDI.  The *.bin image files used in the demo can be downloaded from here

The demo code also shows a 7 segment display.  This is a new widget and is simply a bitmap "strip" with each of the 7 segments (0..9) stacked on top of each other, giving a total bitmap size of 53 x 800.  Because there are ten elements, each segment is therefore 80 pixels in height. As a bonus, frame 0 corresponds to segment 0, frame 1 to segment 1 and so on.  So to display

The original PNGs can be created in any suitable editing program, which are then turned into zlib compressed *.bin files.  This is achieved by using the [[http://www.ftdichip.com/Support/Utilities.htm | image conversion software]] provided by FTDI.  The *.bin image files used in the demo can be downloaded from here

* Attach:widget-images.zip

%justify%One of the great features of the FT800 is that is has many built in commands to render different user interface widgets to the screen.  For example, scroll bars, gauges, clocks and so on. In many cases, these built in widgets are more that capable of delivering high quality user interfaces in very short time scales. However, they are based on vector rendering and if you want to deliver something a little more slick to your customers, then a custom drawn bitmap is what you need.  In the picture shown here, the clock and speed gauge use custom bitmaps but clock and gauge commands are overlaid in order to display the gauge needle and clock hour, minute and second hands.  You can [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAJSSxKjTx0&feature=youtu.be | view a video]] showing them being used.  This can give your interface a very polished effect or enable you to create something very specific to your application.

%justify%One of the great features of the FT800 is that is has many built in commands to render different user interface widgets to the screen.  For example, scroll bars, gauges, clocks and so on. In many cases, these built in widgets are more that capable of delivering high quality user interfaces in very short time scales. However, they are based on vector rendering and if you want to deliver something a little more slick to your customers, then a custom drawn bitmap is what you need to look at using.  In the picture shown here, the clock and speed gauge use custom bitmaps but overlay the built in clock and gauge commands to display the gauge needle and clock hours, minutes and seconds hand.  You can [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAJSSxKjTx0&feature=youtu.be | view a video]] showing them in action.

%justify%'''One of the great features of the FT800 is that is has many built in command to render different user interface widgets to the screen.  For example, scroll bars, gauges, clocks and so on.


Firewing is a modular hardware and software development system based around a powerful Microchip 16 bit microcontroller. With 128KB of ROM (program storage) and 8KB of working RAM, you will be able to realise many great projects using the free Firewing compiler.'''

%color=#4088b8 justify%'''One of the great features of the FT800 is that is has many built in command to render different user interface widgets to the screen.  For example, scroll bars, gauges, clocks and so on.