@fm I followed your advice at Reply #80 "simply copy the contents of the zip file into the LiquidCrystal library folder of the Arduino IDE." The library folder I presumed you mean is the one within the Arduino.app contents package (I'm using MacOSX) i.e. [/Applications/Arduino.app/Contents/Resources/Java/libraries/LiquidCrystal/].
Pardon the embarrassment of my naivety but I don't know how to apply your suggested "change the byte declaration of the character creation variable by int8_t"?
The example "helloworld_4bit" works fine, although I noted a spelling error in line 8:
LiquidCrystal lcd(8, 9, 4, 5, 6, 7, BACKLIGH_PIN, POSITIVE );
should read:
LiquidCrystal lcd(8, 9, 4, 5, 6, 7, BACKLIGHT_PIN, POSITIVE );
The pin number changes reflect the DFRobot-007 LCD Keypad shield I'm using.