Introduction

This library is in early development so the API and features may change. The library is likely to have bugs and be unstable. The purpose for this release is to get feedback for future development.

The Arduino SSD1306Ascii Library is designed to display text on small monochrome OLED displays. These displays are available on ebay at very low cost.

The library is being developed using 0.96" and 1.3" displays with SSD1306 controllers. An initialization sequence for SH1106 controllers is included.

There are many existing full featured graphics libraries for these displays. The goal for this library is to only display text with minimum use of RAM and flash.

Here are key design goals:

Small size is the highest priority. Speed and features are lower priority.

Support multiple fonts. More than 40 fonts are included with this release. Fonts are only loaded if you reference them.

Support fixed width and proportional fonts.

Optionally magnify fonts by a factor of two.

Support 128x32 and 128x64 displays with I2C and SPI interfaces.
Use the standard Wire library for I2C. An optimization option is available to increase I2C performance.

Use the standard SPI library for hardware SPI. An optimization option is available for AVR to increase performance and reduce code size.

Provide software SPI so the display can be connected to any digital pins.

Installation

You can manually install the SSD1306Ascii library by copying the SSD1306Ascii folder from the download package to the Arduino libraries folder in your sketch folder.

See the Manual installation section of this guide.

http://arduino.cc/en/Guide/Libraries

The library will be added to the Arduino Library Manager soon.

Scroll Mode

Scroll mode causes the display to scroll up when a new line is written to the display.

Scroll mode is configured by editing SSD1306Ascii.h.

If INCLUDE_SCROLLING is defined to be zero, new line will not scroll the display and code for scrolling will not be included. This option will save some code space and one byte of RAM.

If INCLUDE_SCROLLING is defined to be one, the scroll feature will be included but not enabled. A call to setScroll() will be required to enable scrolling.

If INCLUDE_SCROLLING is defined to be two, the scroll feature will be included and enabled. A call to setScroll() will be required to disable scrolling.

Scroll mode is only supported on 64 pixel high displays.

Call setScroll() to enable or disable scroll mode.

Calls to setCursor(), setRow() and other cursor positioning functions will be unpredictable in scroll mode.

The clear() call will erase the display and start at the top of the display.

See the ScrollSpi and ScrollWire examples.

Fonts

Fonts are defined by .h files in the SSD1306Ascii/src/fonts folder. The fonts folder contains all fonts from openGLCD plus a number of extra fonts.

To select a font, call the setFont() member function like this.

// Select the font used in the Adafruit GFX Graphics Library.

oled.setFont(Adafruit5x7);

Only fonts referenced in your program will be loaded into flash.

Here are symbols for fixed width fonts.

Adafruit5x7
cp437font8x8
fixed_bold10x15
fixednums15x31
fixednums7x15
fixednums8x16
font5x7
font8x8
lcd5x7
lcdnums12x16
lcdnums14x24
newbasic3x5
Stang5x7
System5x7
Wendy3x5
X11fixed7x14
X11fixed7x14B
ZevvPeep8x16

Here are symbols for proportional fonts. Note that Iain5x7 and utf8font10x16 are proportional.

Arial14
Arial_bold_14
CalBlk36
CalLite24
Callibri10
Callibri11
Callibri11_bold
Callibri11_italic
Callibri14
Callibri15
Cooper19
Cooper21
Cooper26
Corsiva_12
Iain5x7
Roosewood22
Roosewood26
TimesNewRoman13
TimesNewRoman13_italic
TimesNewRoman16
TimesNewRoman16_bold
TimesNewRoman16_italic
utf8font10x16
Verdana12
Verdana12_bold
Verdana12_italic
Verdana_digits_24

See allFonts.h for more information on adding a font.

The set2X() call doubles the size of characters. Each pixel becomes a 2x2 square. To return to standard size characters call set1X();

oled.set2X();
// Display double height and width characters.
...
// Return to standard size.
oled.set1X();

SSD1306Ascii Configuration

Several configuration options may be changed by editing the SSD1306Ascii.h file in the SSD1306Ascii/src folder.

These options are at the start of the file.

// Configuration options.
/* Set Scrolling mode for new line.
  
 * If INCLUDE_SCROLLING is defined to be zero, new line will not scroll
 * the display and code for scrolling will not be included.  This option 
 * will save some code space and one byte of RAM.
  
 * If INCLUDE_SCROLLING is defined to be one, the scroll feature will
 * be included but not enabled.  A call to setScroll() will be required
 * to enable scrolling.
  
 * If INCLUDE_SCROLLING is defined to be two, the scroll feature will
 * be included and enabled. A call to setScroll() will be required
 * to disable scrolling.
 */
#define INCLUDE_SCROLLING 1
/* Use larger faster I2C code. */
#define OPTIMIZE_I2C 1
/* Define OPTIMIZE_AVR_SPI non-zero for a faster smaller AVR SPI code.
 * Warning AVR will not use SPI transactions.
 */
#define OPTIMIZE_AVR_SPI 1

Documentation

Please see the Classes tab for more information.

For I2C displays using the wire library Wire see the SSD1306AsciiWire class.

For I2C displays using the small AvrI2c class see the SSD1306AsciiAvrI2c class.

For SPI displays connected to the Arduino hardware SPI pins see the SSD1306AsciiSpi class.

See the SSD1306AsciiSoftSpi class for use of Software SPI.

Bugs and Comments

If you wish to report bugs or have comments, open an issue on GitHub or send email to fat16.nosp@m.lib@.nosp@m.sbcgl.nosp@m.obal.nosp@m..net. If possible, include a simple program that illustrates the bug or problem.

Examples

A number of examples are provided in the SSD1306Ascii/examples folder.

To access these examples from the Arduino development environment go to: File -> Examples -> SSD1306Ascii -> <program Name>

Compile and upload to your Arduino to run the example.