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I am proposing a function to set a transparency level for Entities using direct draw to BGMaps.

Depending on a given transparency level, e.g. 75 (percent), a dither pattern is chosen from a predefined set of 8x8 pixel patterns. Then, it is "applied" to all chars in the sprite. That means that all the black pixels (palette index 0) from the dither pattern tile are set to black in the sprite tile as well.

I designed the patterns in an additive way, so that all pixels that are black in one pattern are also black in all the following patterns. Therefore, going through the whole set of dither patterns one after the other, we can also create a fading effect for an individual object without the need to reload the original sprites in between steps.

Implement support for variable size printing for more beautiful text. And to fit more of it on the screen, as well. This could potentially be done using an object for each character or through direct printing pixels on the printing bgmap.

An approach using OBJs has been implemented in the past but was removed shortly after.

VUEngine Studio's font editor already supports defining variable widths, although the feature is currently commented out.

An updated FontSpec supporting the feature could look like the following. Mind the new "mode", "variable height" and "variable width" values.

`FontROMSpec ExampleFont =
{
// font charset spec pointer
(CharSetSpec*)&ExampleFontCharSet,

// mode (__FONT_BGMAP, __FONT_OBJECT)
__FONT_OBJECT,

// character number at which the font starts, allows you to skip the control characters for example
13,

// number of characters in this font
26,

// number of characters per line in charset
16,

// size of a single character (in chars) ({width, height})
{1, 1},

// variable size height (in pixels)
6,

// variable size width (in pixels)
{6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 7, 5, 6, 6, 5, 6, ...},

// font's name
"Example",

};`