Cocos2d -> Swift SpriteKit - CCLabelAtlas charmap functionality - ios

Question

Firstly, I apologise if this has been asked before.. I'm still very finding my feet with coding and im not entirely sure I'd be looking at the right answer if it was right in front me, hence me giving in and posting here for help!
A few years ago, I stuck my feet into cocos2d for a while and there was a very useful way of adding your own fonts to labels and I wondered if the same thing could be done in sprite kit?
Looking here, this is how it would be setup in my cocos2d project from years ago:
NSString *myString = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"Hello World",;
myLabelAtlas = [CCLabelAtlas labelWithString:myString charMapFile:#"My_Font.png" itemWidth:16/2 itemHeight:24/2 startCharMap:'.'];
I'm trying to repeat this process in swift with Sprite Kit, using the same 'My_Font.png' file 1
Is this even possible??
(Many thanks in advance and sorry again for the n00b question!)

Answer 1

You are looking for a SKLabelNode to add a label to a scene. The link Wang Yudong gave you here shows you how to add your fonts to your project so that you can get them as a UIFont. At the top of your GameScene.swift you want to put this code (class given so you know where I'm talking about):
import SpriteKit
class GameScene: SKScene, SKPhysicsContactDelegate {
var label = SKLabelNode(text: "Hello World")
Now the SKLabelNode takes a String! as the font name to use. So we do something like this in didMoveToView (replace <your font name> with your font's name):
label.fontName = "<your font name>" // The font's name
label.fontSize = 18 // The size of your font
label.fontColor = UIColor.blackColor() // The color to use for your font
self.addChild(label) // Add the label to the scene
Keep in mind that you need the font's name after it is in the system. Sometimes font names aren't what they appear to be. To scan through all of the font names (and find the name to use for your font), use this code (this is from the link, just in case the link goes away at some point):
for family: String in UIFont.familyNames()
{
print("\(family)")
for names: String in UIFont.fontNamesForFamilyName(family)
{
print("== \(names)")
}
}
I'm not quite sure how to use a .png for your font (I also don't know if your are still using that font). There may be an online generator somewhere that converts .png font's into a more common format. But once you have it converted (into something like .otf or .ttf), you can drop your font into your project (on the left side where your files are listed). From there, you add it to a list of fonts provided by the application in the info.plist file (should be buried in Supporting Files).
Now your application should have your font in, and have a SKLabelNode. If you need to, you can set the text of it later on.