Tasty Text

Requires Love 0.9.1+

Version: 2.2

This library is for printing pretty texts. The basic premise is to use tags in strings to do special effects. Additionally, the library supports proper text wrapping and UTF8 decoding. To use the module, copy the src folder (and rename it if you wish) to where you need it and do require "src.tastytext".

An example:

lib = require 'src.tastytext'

str = [[
This is <red>red</red>
This is a <small>small<regular> text
]]

tags = {
	red     = {255,0,0,255}, -- r,g,b,a
	['/red']= {255,255,255}, -- alpha defaults to 255
	small   = love.graphics.newFont(12),
	regular = love.graphics.newFont(24),
}

limit = 800
text  = lib.new(str,limit,tags.regular,tags)

function love.draw() text:draw() end

Object Functions

The following are public functions for each TastyText object.

.new(str,limit,default_font,tags,line_height)

Return a new TastyText object. The str parameter accepts a string. The string can contain <name> tags, which can be anything enclosed between < > brackets. The name of each tag references a key in the tags table. For example, <red> references tags.red. To escape the brackets, use \ before one of the brackets like \< or \>. Note that this example, <\>>, is interpreted as a tag.

The limit parameter accepts a number, which specifies the horizontal text limit before wrapping.

The default_font parameter accepts a default Font for the text. If one is not specified, the current font is used. The default font is also used for aligning the baselines of other fonts with the default one.

The line_height parameter accepts an optional number, which affects the height and spacing of each line. By default, the line_height is equal to default_font:getHeight(), which is a line spacing of 0.

:setSub(i,j)

Set the "sub" text to draw from i to j. The default is to draw from 1 to object.length. Negative numbers are interpreted as going backward from the end (e.g -2 = object.length-1). It's useful for rendering a portion of the text.

:draw()

Draws the object.

:getCanvas()

Render the text to a new canvas and return it. The size (w x h) of the canvas is equal to the limit (w) by total height (h).

Object Properties

The following are useful properties for each TastyText object. All properties are read only (i.e don't modify!) unless specified otherwise.

.limit

Wrap the line after this many horizontal pixels.

.default_font

The default font to use and for aligning baselines.

.line_height

The height of each line.

.lines

The number of lines of "text".

.length

The "length" of the text object.

.first

The index to begin drawing the text. Must be between 1 and "length".

.last

The index to stop drawing the text. Must be between 1 and "length".

.align

Modifiable property to change the text alignment. Valid values are "left", "center", or "right".

.subalign

Modifiable property to change the subtext alignment. Valid values are "left", "center", or "right".

.line_lengths

Table storing the length of each line. For example, the length of line 1 is .line_lengths[1]

.line_widths

Table storing the width of each line. For example, the width of line 1 is .line_widths[1]

.tags

Table storing the tags. Same as the table passed to the .new(...)

Tags

To use tags in strings, their names must be associated with an object in the tags table. A tag object can be a Font, Image, color table, or custom draw table.

The custom draw table must contain a draw callback, optional length (0 default), optional width (0 default), or optional properties table for storing things. The draw callback is passed a table containing the tag information and the tag location draw(t,x,y). Using :setSub, it's possible to avoid calling the function by rendering a portion of the text. The following are the fields of t.

.draw(t,x,y)

The callback.

.length

The length of the tag. It must be 1 or greater if the tag has a non-zero width.

.width

The width of the tag.

.line

The line index of the tag.

.properties

The properties table as passed via the tags table.

.parent

The parent TastyText object.

Example:

tags = {
	font  = love.graphics.newFont('font.ttf'),
	color = {255,255,255},
	image = love.graphics.newImage('image.png'),
	custom= {
		draw      = function(chunk,x,y)
			print(chunk.line)
			print(chunk.width)
			print(chunk.length)
			print(chunk.properties.test)
		end,
		length    = 2,
		width     = 2,
		properties= {test = true},
	},
}

Notes

You can change the brackets and escape character in the source file. For example, you may want to change them to { and }.

Long "words" which can overflow a line are splitted. Texts are word wrapped.

Leading and trailing spaces on each line are removed. Spaces inbetween are unmodified.