Change Log

All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file. This change log follows the conventions of keepachangelog.com.

0.1.4 — (unreleased)

Fixed — FIGlet C compatibility

The rendering engine was rewritten to exactly match the C figlet's addchar, smushamt, and smushem functions from figlet.c. Specific fixes:

• Row merge rewritten as direct C translation. The per-row merge now uses a mutable char array matching the C code's in-place writes + STRCAT semantics, including NUL-byte truncation for characters whose rows are shorter than the smush amount. This replaces the previous three-region string merge which diverged from C behavior for edge cases.

• old_layout & 31 masking. When Full_Layout is absent, the C figlet masks Old_Layout with 31 (bits 0-4, rules 1-5), excluding bit 5 (rule 6, hardblank smushing). Fonts like Colossal with Old_Layout=32 now correctly use universal smushing. See figlet.c readfont().

• previouscharwidth < 2 guard. The C figlet disables smushing (but not fitting) when either the previous or current character is narrower than 2 columns. See figlet.c smushem().

• maxsmush = currcharwidth cap. The smush amount is now capped at the current character's width, matching figlet.c smushamt().

• linebd > 0 scan termination. The C figlet's backward scan for the last non-space character stops at position 0 (using linebd > 0, not >= 0). This affects the overlap calculation for all-space rows.

• Blank-row amt++ is unconditional. The C figlet increments the overlap for blank buffer rows regardless of smushing mode or character widths. See figlet.c smushamt(): if (!ch1||ch1==' ') amt++;.

Fixed — Malformed bundled fonts

Three contributed fonts had FIGcharacters with inconsistent row widths, violating figfont.txt §BASIC DATA STRUCTURE ("there must be a consistent width for each line once the endmarks are removed"):

• Bear.flf — # (code 35): row 0 was 0 chars, others 1 char. Padded row 0 to 1 space.
• Bear.flf — > (code 62): row 0 was 3 chars, others 1 char. Padded rows 1-8 to 3 spaces.
• dancingfont.flf — # (code 35): row 0 was 0 chars, others 1 char. Padded row 0 to 1 space.
• flowerpower.flf — # (code 35): row 0 was 0 chars, others 1 char. Padded row 0 to 1 space.

Added

• 30 new bundled fonts (46 total), including doom, script, graffiti, starwars, and many contributed fonts
• all-fonts function returning bundled font names
• write-font for serializing a font map to FIGfont Version 2 format, with spec validation before writing
• validate-font and valid-font? for checking fonts against the FIGfont spec using clojure.spec (header fields, required characters, row structure)
• render now accepts a font name string, a resource path, a filesystem path, a File, or a font map as its first argument
• Smushing stress tests targeting all six rule types, width extremes, bracket nesting, and dense punctuation
• Generative tests using randomized printable ASCII across all fonts
• Regression test suite for specific problem cases found during development
• Font catalog documentation (doc/fonts.md)
• User's guide (doc/users-guide.md)

Removed

• render-str (superseded by render accepting font name strings directly)
• ivrit font (right-to-left not yet supported)

0.1.0 — 2026-03-16

Initial release.

Font Parsing

• Full FIGfont Version 2 header parsing: signature, hardblank, height, baseline, max-length, Old_Layout, comment lines, print direction, Full_Layout, and codetag count
• Layout parameter interpretation for both Old_Layout and Full_Layout, including all horizontal and vertical mode/rule combinations
• Required character set: ASCII 32–126 plus 7 Deutsch characters (196, 214, 220, 228, 246, 252, 223)
• Code-tagged characters with decimal, octal, and hexadecimal code formats
• Endmark stripping per the FIGfont spec

Rendering

• All three horizontal layout modes: full width, fitting (kerning), smushing
• All six horizontal smushing rules:
  1. Equal character smushing
  2. Underscore smushing
  3. Hierarchy smushing
  4. Opposite pair smushing
  5. Big X smushing
  6. Hardblank smushing
• Universal smushing when no controlled rules are specified
• Hardblank handling: treated as visible during horizontal layout, rendered as spaces in final output
• Missing-character fallback to code 0

Bundled Fonts

• 10 fonts included in resources/fonts/: standard, small, big, slant, banner, block, shadow, lean, mini, ivrit

Not Yet Implemented

• Vertical fitting and smushing
• Right-to-left print direction
• Control file (.flc) processing
• Word wrapping