Hello!

Currently I develop an OptionROM for a custom PCI-E device.
In this OptionROM I want to publish a HII form for the device
configuration. Therefore I use the "HiiAddPackages" in the driver's
"EFI_DRIVER_BINDING_PROTOCOL.Start()" function. And everything works fine.

Now I want to use my local language in the OptionROM form. The problem is
that my local language is not very often implemented in the UEFI Firmware
by default.
For these cases I've decided to publish the "SIMPLE_FONT" HII package with
my language glyphs directly from the OptionROM code.
And it worked fine until I noticed that UEFI firmware on different
motherboards has different font saturation.

For example here are pseudo-graphics for the "1" code glyph in AMI and
InsydeH2O firmware:

AMI

0x0031
--------
--------
--------
--------
--------
----X---
---XX---
--X-X---
----X---
----X---
----X---
----X---
----X---
----X---
--XXXXX-
--------
--------
--------
--------

Insyde H2O

0x0031
--------
--------
--------
--------
---XX---
-XXXX---
---XX---
---XX---
---XX---
---XX---
---XX---
---XX---
---XX---
---XX---
---XX---
---XX---
--------
--------
--------

This gives me a problem, what font saturation should I use in
my SIMPLE_FONT package. In any choice it would look good on some
motherboards, but bad on others.
I'm thinking that I should get some glyph bitmap and based on its
saturation publish one font version or another. How can I do it?
Or is there any other solution to this problem?

Best regards,
Konstantin Aladyshev

There is no standard way to query platform glyph styles.
Overall, list of supported languages is typically a property of the system firmware.
If system firmware does not support the language you need, there likely will be no way for the end user to switch to the language even if your OpROM driver supports it.
On the other hand, if system firmware does support the language and the language is alphabet-based the font package should already be available.
Your driver just needs to publish the string package.

Hi Felix!

Thanks for the response!

I was able to solve my problem using the `GetGlyph` function from the
`gEfiHiiFontProtocolGuid` protocol. This function can return a `Blt` of the
glyph.

Here is the example app that I've used to test how 'T' glyph is displayed
on different UEFI firmwares:
```cpp
EFI_STATUS
EFIAPI
UefiMain (
IN EFI_HANDLE ImageHandle,
IN EFI_SYSTEM_TABLE *SystemTable
)
{
EFI_HII_FONT_PROTOCOL *gHiiFont = NULL;
EFI_STATUS Status = gBS->LocateProtocol(&gEfiHiiFontProtocolGuid,
NULL,
(VOID **)&gHiiFont);
if (EFI_ERROR(Status)) {
Print(L"Error! Can't get gEfiHiiFontProtocolGuid\n");
return Status;
}

EFI_IMAGE_OUTPUT* Blt = NULL;
UINTN Baseline;
Status = gHiiFont->GetGlyph(gHiiFont, L'T', NULL, &Blt, &Baseline);
if (EFI_ERROR(Status)) {
Print(L"Error! GetGlyph returned %r\n", Status);
return Status;
}

for (UINT8 i = 0; i < (Blt->Height); i++) {
for (UINT8 j = 0; j < (Blt->Width); j++) {
Print(L"%02x", Blt->Image.Bitmap[i*(Blt->Width) + j].Blue);
Print(L"%02x", Blt->Image.Bitmap[i*(Blt->Width) + j].Green);
Print(L"%02x", Blt->Image.Bitmap[i*(Blt->Width) + j].Red);
Print(L" ");
}
Print(L"\n");
}
return EFI_SUCCESS;
}
```

This output either something like
```
000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000
000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000
000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000
000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000
000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000
000000 989898 989898 989898 989898 989898 989898 000000
000000 000000 000000 989898 989898 000000 000000 000000
000000 000000 000000 989898 989898 000000 000000 000000
000000 000000 000000 989898 989898 000000 000000 000000
000000 000000 000000 989898 989898 000000 000000 000000
000000 000000 000000 989898 989898 000000 000000 000000
000000 000000 000000 989898 989898 000000 000000 000000
000000 000000 000000 989898 989898 000000 000000 000000
000000 000000 000000 989898 989898 000000 000000 000000
000000 000000 000000 989898 989898 000000 000000 000000
000000 000000 000000 989898 989898 000000 000000 000000
000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000
000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000
000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000
```
or
```
000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000
000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000
000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000
000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000
000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000
000000 989898 989898 989898 989898 989898 989898 989898
000000 000000 000000 000000 989898 000000 000000 000000
000000 000000 000000 000000 989898 000000 000000 000000
000000 000000 000000 000000 989898 000000 000000 000000
000000 000000 000000 000000 989898 000000 000000 000000
000000 000000 000000 000000 989898 000000 000000 000000
000000 000000 000000 000000 989898 000000 000000 000000
000000 000000 000000 000000 989898 000000 000000 000000
000000 000000 000000 000000 989898 000000 000000 000000
000000 000000 000000 000000 989898 000000 000000 000000
000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000
000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000
000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000
000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000 000000
```
Therefore `IsBoldFont` function can be written like this:
```cpp
BOOLEAN IsBoldFont()
{
EFI_HII_FONT_PROTOCOL *gHiiFont = NULL;
EFI_STATUS Status = gBS->LocateProtocol(&gEfiHiiFontProtocolGuid,
NULL,
(VOID **)&gHiiFont);
if (EFI_ERROR(Status)) {
return FALSE;
}

EFI_IMAGE_OUTPUT* Blt = NULL;
UINTN Baseline;
Status = gHiiFont->GetGlyph(gHiiFont, L'T', NULL, &Blt, &Baseline);
if (EFI_ERROR(Status)) {
return FALSE;
}

UINTN Pixels = 0;
for (UINT8 i = 0; i < (Blt->Width); i++) {
if ((Blt->Image.Bitmap[10*(Blt->Width) + i].Blue != 0x00) ||
(Blt->Image.Bitmap[10*(Blt->Width) + i].Green != 0x00) ||
(Blt->Image.Bitmap[10*(Blt->Width) + i].Red != 0x00)) {
Pixels++;
}
}
if (Pixels > 1) {
return TRUE;
}

return FALSE;
}
```

Based on its output I populate either bold or standard font.
_________________________

Conclusion:
I understand that all of this is probably not an UEFI way. Doing things the
right way I just need to supply strings in `UNI` in english and my local
language, and hope for the local language support in the firmware. But
what's fun about that?)
Maybe I'll fallback to this, but right now I've tested my solution and it
performs well on all available to me motherboards.