Does LCD Smartie make custom chars of it's own?

[grantb3]

I've noticed some strange behaviour regarding custom characters and LCD Smartie.

First, it seems as if LCD Smartie sets a few custom characters at startup on it's own. I'm seeing a degree symbol and three other nonsense ones.

Second, if I create and show 8 custom characters on (say) screen 8 and then on screen 9 I try and re-use those same characters (without creating them again since I assumed they wouldn't go away), then on screen 9 I get a mess of mine vs those original 4 that LCD Smartie seems to make at startup. Screen 8 works fine. Do I have to create the custom chars on every screen in which I want to use them?

Are there some rules for this explained somewhere? Not so much just what I'm recommended to do, but what LCD Smartie's actual code executes at startup and screen-to-screen (regarding custom chars).

[mattcro]

Smartie defines 4 custom characters of its own at startup. Maybe it also redefines them when you switch screens.

Custom Char 1 (ie character map position 0) is set to the degree symbol, custom chars 1-4 are set to different sized blocks to make bargraphs, and 5-8 are blanked.

I discovered this when debugging a Matrix Orbital LCD emulator - see http://forums.lcdsmartie.org/viewtopic.php?p=2865#2865

There aren't really any "rules" about custom characters, but I think you are expected to define a character pattern immediately before using it.