Feature Request: Allow Text-Based Components to Accept bimg Content

[HKXingluo]

Feature Request: Allow Text-Based Components to Accept bimg/Image Content

Background

Basalt already has an Image element with native bimg support:

https://basalt.madefor.cc/references/elements/Image.html

This means the rendering pipeline already supports bitmap/image rendering very well.

However, most UI components are still strictly text-based internally, such as:

• Button
• Label
• Checkbox
• Radio
• Navbar
• Menu
• List
• Tabs
• Dropdowns

Currently these components assume their content is always a plain string.

---

Proposal

Allow text-bearing UI components to optionally render:

• bimg
• image buffers
• custom renderable image objects

instead of only plain text strings.

For example:

button:setText("OK")

could additionally support:

button:setImage(myBimg)

or:

button:setContent(myBimg)

---

Why This Would Be Extremely Useful

This would enable many advanced UI features with minimal engine changes.

UTF-8

ComputerCraft terminals do not natively support UTF-8 rendering well.

Using bitmap fonts rendered as bimg would allow:

• Chinese
• Japanese
• Korean
• Unicode glyphs

without modifying the terminal itself.

---

Icon Support

Buttons, menus, tabs, and navigation bars could display:

• icons
• pixel art
• custom glyphs
• icon packs

instead of being limited to terminal text.

---

Better Theming

This would allow:

• pixel-perfect UI themes
• custom checkbox graphics
• graphical radio buttons
• styled navigation bars
• bitmap-based fonts

while still using Basalt's existing layout/event systems.

---

Important Clarification

This request is NOT mainly about adding UTF-8 support directly.

The main goal is:

Allowing text-oriented components to render image/bimg content instead of only strings.

UTF-8 rendering is simply one powerful use case enabled by this.

---

Components That Would Benefit

Including but not limited to:

• Button
• Label
• Checkbox
• Radio
• Navbar
• Menu
• Tabs
• Dropdown
• List items

---

Final Thoughts

This would significantly improve:

• internationalization
• icon support
• UI customization
• bitmap font rendering
• modern UI design possibilities

without abandoning Basalt's existing architecture.

Thanks for considering this feature request.

[HKXingluo]

I forked the repository and implemented a working prototype of this idea in my own branch.

Repository fork: https://github.com/HKXingluo/Basalt2/tree/main

Using ChatGPT 5.4 as assistance, I created a modified version of Basalt that allows several text-based components to render bimg content directly.

Compiled release build:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/HKXingluo/Basalt2/refs/heads/main/release/basalt-full.lua

Example usage:
https://github.com/HKXingluo/Basalt2/blob/main/examples/bimg-components.lua

Documentation:
https://github.com/HKXingluo/Basalt2/blob/main/examples/bimg-components.md

utf8display:
https://github.com/HKXingluo/ComputerCraft-Utf8/tree/main/utf8display

This implementation is mainly intended as a proof-of-concept to demonstrate feasibility.

Since a large portion of the code was AI-assisted/generated, I do not plan to open a PR for it directly. The repository is shared purely as a reference implementation and experiment for discussion purposes.