alternate six and nine on the Apple Watch

Question

Created May ’16

Replies 5

Boosts 0

Views 1.7k

Participants 4

Hi, I struggle to use the alterante six and nine of the San Francisco Compact Font in my Watch App. Can anybody tell me how to use them in Swift?

I use this code in my iOS-App but it fails on the WatchKit:

func alternateNumberfont() {
        let bodyFontDescriptor = UIFontDescriptor.preferredFontDescriptorWithTextStyle(UIFontTextStyleBody)
        let bodyAltStyle1Descriptor = bodyFontDescriptor.fontDescriptorByAddingAttributes(
            [
                UIFontDescriptorFeatureSettingsAttribute: [
                    [
                        UIFontFeatureTypeIdentifierKey: kStylisticAlternativesType,
                        UIFontFeatureSelectorIdentifierKey: kStylisticAltOneOnSelector
                    ]
                ]
            ])
        let altStyle1BodyFont = UIFont(descriptor: bodyAltStyle1Descriptor, size: 12.0)
        maxDrawDist.font = altStyle1BodyFont
    }

Boost

Answer 1

KMT OP

May ’16

Except for prototyping UIs for testings, devs are prohibited from using SFFont (system only) in their own apps,

0

Answer 2

MirekE OP

Jun ’16

Try this in the playground.

import UIKit
let size: CGFloat = 30
let weight = UIFontWeightRegular
var features: [[String: AnyObject]] = [[
UIFontFeatureTypeIdentifierKey: kStylisticAlternativesType,
UIFontFeatureSelectorIdentifierKey: kStylisticAltOneOnSelector
]]
let fontDescriptor = UIFont.systemFontOfSize(size, weight: weight).fontDescriptor().fontDescriptorByAddingAttributes(
    [UIFontDescriptorFeatureSettingsAttribute: features]
)
let alternate69Font = UIFont(descriptor: fontDescriptor, size: size)
let regularLabel = UILabel(frame: CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: 300, height: 100))
regularLabel.font = UIFont.systemFontOfSize(size)
regularLabel.text = "69"
let altLabel = UILabel(frame: CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: 300, height: 100))
altLabel.font = alternate69Font
altLabel.text = "69"

0

Answer 3

m4tthias OP

Jun ’16

Yeah, this works (in the playground). Will try it in my actual App next time possible and give you feedback. Thanks so long.

0

Answer 4

m4tthias OP

Jun ’16

Sadly it won't work in the Interface.Controller.swift of my WatchApp. If I implement this in my WatchApp the compiler/debugger ports this issues:

On line 5 it says: Use of unresolved identifier 'kStylisticAlternativesType'

On line 6 it says: Use of unresolved identifier 'kStylisticAltOneOnSelector'

And on line 16 it says: Value of type 'WKInterfaceLabel' has no member 'font'

0

Answer 5

doughill OP

Jan ’21

I tried this code and it appears that the WatchKit label WKInterfaceLabel doesn't have a font property.

Use the attributedString property instead.

See below for a cleaned up version of the code and updated for Swift 5 and iOS 13.

Also, I created a library to easily use these Stylistic Alternative features of San Francisco font:

https://github.com/djfitz/SFFontFeatures

Doug Hill

Code Block let features =
    [
        [ UIFontDescriptor.FeatureKey.featureIdentifier: kStylisticAlternativesType,
          UIFontDescriptor.FeatureKey.typeIdentifier: kStylisticAltOneOnSelector ]
    ]
let fontDescriptor = UIFont.systemFont(ofSize: 14, weight: .regular)
				.fontDescriptor
				.addingAttributes( [UIFontDescriptor.AttributeName.featureSettings: features] )
let alternate69Font = UIFont(descriptor: fontDescriptor, size: 14)
let theString = NSMutableAttributedString.init( string: "69",
               				attributes:[NSAttributedString.Key.font : alternate69Font] )
watchLabel.setAttributedText(theString)

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