scroll:bit

17x7 pixels of single-colour, brightness-controlled, message scrolling goodness!

This package adds support for the Pimoroni scroll:bit to makecode.microbit.org.

A scroll:bit is required to use this package, grab yours here: https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/scroll-bit

To use this package, go to https://makecode.microbit.org/, click "Advanced" then "Add Package" and search for scroll:bit.

JavaScript Reference

scroll:bit has 119 pixels arranged in 17 columns and 7 rows, each pixel supports 255 levels of brightness although these are gamma-corrected to 183 possible values.

Get the size of your scroll:bit

The blocks cols and rows return the width and height of scroll:bit in pixels respectively.

Use these in your loops and flow control to draw amazing things!

Light a single pixel

Light a single pixel on scroll:bit. Note, you must call show to display your changes.

• col is the column, from 0-16
• row is the row, from 0-6
• brightness is the brightness, from 0-255

scrollbit.setPixel(col: number, row:number, brightness: number)

For example:

scrollbit.setPixel(5, 5, 255)

Display your changes

When you've finished setting pixels and drawing text, you must call show to display your changes.

scrollbit.show()

Clear the display

To clear the display, you can call clear, you must also call show if you want to display your changes.

scrollbit.clear()
scrollbit.show()

Display a text string

To show a string of text on scroll:bit you should use drawText:

• col is the column, from 0-16
• row is the row, from 0-6
• text is the text you want to show
• brightness is the brightness, from 0-255

scrollbit.drawText(col: number, row:number, text: string, brightness: number)

For example:

scrollbit.drawText(0, 1, "Hello World", 128)

Scroll a text string across the display

Since a long string of text wont fit on scroll:bit, you have to scroll it across the display.

You can do this manually with drawText and measureText but we've included a convinient function for you:

• text is the text you want to show
• brightness is the brightness, from 0-255
• delay (optional) is the time, in milliseconds, to delay each scroll step - a bigger number equals slower scrolling

scrollbit.scrollText(text: string, brightness: number, delay: number=50)

For example:

scrollbit.scrollText("The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog!", 128)

Scrolling text is always vertically centered, starts off the right edge of the display, and scrolls across until it's gone.

Draw a single character

If you just want to draw a single lett, you can use drawChar:

• col is the column, from 0-16
• row is the row, from 0-6
• char is the text you want to show
• brightness is the brightness, from 0-255

scrollbit.drawChar(col: number, row: number, char: string, brightness: number)

For example:

scrollbit.drawChar(1, 1, 'H', 128)
scrollbit.drawChar(7, 1, 'a', 128)
scrollbit.drawChar(12,1, 'i', 128)

Measure a text string

It can be useful to know how long a string of text might be, in pixels, on scroll:bit. Use measureText to find out:

scrollbit.measureText(text: string)

For example:

let width: number = scrollbit.measureText("Hello World")

This will return a number of pixels corresponding to the length of the text as it's displayed on scroll:bit (using the built-in 5x5 micro:bit font).

Icons & Arrows

You can use icons and arrows in your text, just place their name in curly brackets like so: "Hello {Heart} World" or: "Boo! Went the {Ghost}" or: "{Heart}{SmallHeart}{Heart} Happy Birthday! {Heart}{SmallHeart}{Heart}"

Here's a list of icons you can use:

• Heart
• SmallHeart
• Yes
• No
• Happy
• Sad
• Confused
• Angry
• Asleep
• Surprised
• Silly
• Fabulous
• Meh
• TShirt
• Rollerskate
• Duck
• House
• Tortoise
• Butterfly
• StickFigure
• Ghost
• Sword
• Giraffe
• Skull
• Umbrella
• Snake
• Rabbit
• Cow
• QuarterNote
• EigthNote
• Pitchfork
• Target
• Triangle
• LeftTriangle
• Chessboard
• Diamond
• SmallDiamond
• Square
• SmallSquare
• Scissors
• North
• NorthEast
• East
• SouthEast
• South
• SouthWest
• West
• NorthWest

License

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2018 Pimoroni Ltd.

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

Supported targets

• for PXT/microbit

scrollbit=github:pimoroni/pxt-scrollbit