Can't stamp() FlxBitmapText to FlxSprite [HTML5, HXCPP]

[hqkirkland]

• Haxe version: 3.4.7
• Flixel version: 4.5.1
• OpenFL version: 8.4.1
• Lime version: 7.0.0
• Affected targets: HTML5, HXCPP

---

Code snippet reproducing the issue:

package;

import flixel.FlxSprite;
import flixel.graphics.frames.FlxBitmapFont;
import flixel.text.FlxBitmapText;
import openfl.Assets;

/**
 * ...
 * @author Hunter
 */
class ChatBubbleTest extends FlxSprite
{
    private static var chatFont:FlxBitmapFont;
	
    public function new():Void
    {
        super();
        var fontData:String = Assets.getText(AssetPaths.arialBitmap_Size14px__fnt);
        chatFont = FlxBitmapFont.fromAngelCode(AssetPaths.arialBitmap_Size14px_0__png, Xml.parse(fontData));
        generate();
    }
	
    public function generate():Void
    {
        makeGraphic(100, 100, 0xFFFFFFFF);
	var chatText:FlxBitmapText = new FlxBitmapText(chatFont);
	chatText.text ="bleh bleh bleh";
	chatText.multiLine = true;
	chatText.color = 0xFF000000;
	chatText.lineSpacing = -1;
        stamp(chatText);
    }
}

Create a new instance of this class and try adding it in the FlxState.

---

Observed behavior: On Flash, the text is properly displayed. On HTML5 and HXCPP, this error message appears:

HTML5: js__$Boot_HaxeError: message: "Cannot stamp to or from a FlxSprite with no graphics."

Expected behavior: Text should display on all platforms.

@Geokureli explained this to me:

Flash draws letters to a bitmap on text updates and blits that bitmap every draw call, where HTML/CPP renders each letter each draw call

But I still feel there should be a method to stamp text onto FlxSprite.

[hqkirkland]

Use case for stamping texts:

Without stamp, I have to write code to have chat bubbles follow their individual user every frame. This feels like an unnecessarily-complicated solution, since the size of the whole "BubbleSet" will vary.

[hqkirkland]

@Beeblerox @Gama11 I created a Gist that overrides the FlxG.renderTile / FlxG.renderBlit conditional tests:

https://gist.github.com/hqkirkland/f016d2e1790f415f35d672fae45de3ac

The text is rendered perfectly and is easily-stamped.

Unless there's another reason (and I'd be curious to know), I think that the rendering should be unified to prefer blitting.

[JoeCreates]

The inconsistency is annoying and finding a way to unify the interface while maintaining the performance would be nice.

However, I thought I would offer a workaround for now, which is to skip FlxText altogether and draw TextFields onto your sprites' BitmapDatas. For an example, see makePlaceholderGraphic in https://github.com/JoeCreates/Lycan/blob/master/lycan/util/GraphicUtil.hx.

On Wed, 19 Sep 2018, 06:26 hqkirkland, [email protected] wrote:

@Beeblerox https://github.com/Beeblerox @Gama11 https://github.com/Gama11 I created a Gist that overrides the FlxG.renderTile / FlxG.renderBlit conditional tests:

https://gist.github.com/hqkirkland/f016d2e1790f415f35d672fae45de3ac

The text is rendered perfectly and is easily-stamped.

Unless there's another reason (and I'd be curious to know), I think that the rendering should be unified to prefer blitting.

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[hqkirkland]

So that's a good suggestion, and one I considered as well, but I don't think TextField supports Bitmap fonts. I'm having to get Arial 7.5 exactly, so I created it in AngelCode.

[JoeCreates]

Oh sorry, I somehow missed this was about flxbitmaptext specifically.

I have another workaround suggestion which isn't particularly optimal but it gets the job done in a very easy way. I made it for precisely this kind of situation where you want complex graphics made out of many smaller graphics but still want to treat the product as a single graphic on native (e.g. for nice scale/alpha tweening of ui panels full of components).

It's also in lycan.util called CameraSprite: https://github.com/JoeCreates/Lycan/blob/master/lycan/util/CameraSprite.hx

It's a FlxSprite with a group which you can add things such as your bitmap text to. These get rendered to a flxcamera which then gets drawn onto the flxsprite. In your case you would have one of these and just add your bitmaptexts to the group.