AS3 - setTextFormat(), defaultTextFormat not working as designed? - actionscript-3

UPDATED with simpler snippet
I am building a Flash swf to check through some XML files using AS3.
I only have access to the Flex compiler, not the actual Flash IDE or Flashdevelop, so all my xml checking code is a single AS file, compiled into an swf. In order to display information, I create and add a TextField and call appendText() (I use += in this snippet).
The snippet below seems to not set the new format on existing text. It appears to not have any effect whatsoever on the text.
I was under the impression that setTextFormat would change the existing text and that any new text added after calling setTextFormat would use the defaultTextFormat object. This does not appear to be the case in my code. Am I incorrect in my understanding?
public function AS3Tester()
{
display_txt = new TextField();
display_txt.multiline = true;
display_txt.width = 1024;
display_txt.height = 768;
var tf:TextFormat = new TextFormat();
tf.size = 12;
tf.font = "Lucida Console";
display_txt.defaultTextFormat = tf;
display_txt.text = "Text Before setTextFormat\n"; //Should use default style tf
addChild(display_txt);
var tf2:TextFormat = new TextFormat();
tf2.size = 18;
tf2.color = 0xFF0000;
display_txt.setTextFormat(tf2);
display_txt.text += "Text after setTextFormat\n"; //previous line should use tf2, this new line should use default tf
}

Related

How do I format different lines of text differently, from a textfield created in AS3, with text populated from a txt file?

So I have a flash file in AS3, latest version of flash.
It creates a text box in AS3. It then uses AS3 to grab text from a text file (2 lines) and loads it in. I then used further code to format the text size, font, color etc.
But NOW...I need line 1 of the text box to be a certain format (large, caps) and the second line to be a different format (smaller, no caps)
Here is all my code below:
//BEGIN TXT LOADER
var myTextLoader:URLLoader = new URLLoader();
var winnerText:TextField = new TextField();
myTextLoader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, onLoaded);
function onLoaded(e:Event):void {
winnerText.text = e.target.data;
addChild(winnerText);
}
myTextLoader.load(new URLRequest("EditableText.txt"));
//BEGIN TEXT BOX FORMATTING
winnerText.width = 1920;
winnerText.height = 300;
winnerText.y = 430;
//BEGIN TEXT & FONT FORMATTING
var casinoBranding:TextFormat = new TextFormat();
casinoBranding.size = 90;
casinoBranding.align = TextFormatAlign.CENTER;
casinoBranding.font = "Bliss Pro";
casinoBranding.leading = -50;
winnerText.defaultTextFormat = casinoBranding;
You can apply a TextFormat like #Aaron suggests. Another way of doing is to use stylesheets. Here is an example
http://snipplr.com/view/39474/as3-textfield-and-stylesheet-example-created-in-actionscript/
You can apply a TextFormat to a specific range of text using TextField/setTextFormat().
To apply a different text format to the first line of text you can do this:
var casinoBranding:TextFormat = new TextFormat();
var casinoBrandingFirstLine:TextFormat = new TextFormat();
// ... apply formatting options
function onLoaded(e:Event):void {
winnerText.defaultTextFormat = casinoBranding;
winnerText.text = e.target.data;
winnerText.setTextFormat(casinoBrandingFirstLine, 0, winnerText.getLineOffset(1));
}
Note that if word wrapping is involved it changes what the "first line" really means.

Loading images using the URLRequest

recently started to learn ActionScript 3 and already have questions.
question remains the same: I'm uploading a picture using the object Loader.load (URLRequest). Loaded and displayed a picture normally. But it is impossible to read the values of attributes of the image height and width, instead issued zero. That is, do this:
var loader:Loader=new Loader();
var urlR:URLRequest=new URLRequest("Image.jpg");
public function main()
{
loader.load(urlR);
var h:Number = loader.height;// here instead of the width of the image of h is set to 0
// And if you do like this:
DrawText(loader.height.toString(10), 50, 50); // Function which draws the text as defined below
// 256 is displayed, as necessary
}
private function DrawText(text:String, x:int, y:int):void
{
var txt:TextField = new TextField();
txt.autoSize = TextFieldAutoSize.LEFT;
txt.background = true;
txt.border = true;
txt.backgroundColor = 0xff000000;
var tFor:TextFormat = new TextFormat();
tFor.font = "Charlemagne Std";
tFor.color = 0xff00ff00;
tFor.size = 20;
txt.x = x;
txt.y = y;
txt.text = text;
txt.setTextFormat(tFor);
addChild(txt);
}
Maybe attribute values must be obtained through the special features, but in the book K.Muka "ActionScript 3 for fash" says that it is necessary to do so. Please help me to solve this. Thanks in advance.
Well it's simple.
Flash is focused on the Internet, hence such problems.
If you wrote loader.load (urlR); it does not mean loaded. Accordingly, prior to the event confirming the end of loading, in loadare Null
if, instead of certain functions would be more code that would perhaps tripped your approach.
Yeah plus still highly dependent on the size of the file that you read.
Well, in general it all lyrics. Listen event on loader.contentLoaderInfo.addEventListener (Event.INIT, _onEvent), onEvent and read properties.
You need to wait for your image to load to be able to get values out of it.
Attach an eventListener to your URLLoader.
var urlR:URLRequest = new URLRequest("Image.jpg");
loader.load(urlR);
loader.contentLoaderInfo.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, loader_complete);
function loader_complete(e:Event): void {
// Here you can get the height and width values etc.
var target_mc:Loader = evt.currentTarget.loader as Loader;
// target_mc.height , target_mc.width
}
Loader

AS3 multiple textfields made easy

I am working on a Results page for my game as well as upgrade page and looking for an easy way to do many textfields. I have a format for my text that takes care of font, colour, and size, but looking for an easy way to do the width and height of textfields to increase all at the same time.
I have been informed about a "with" keyword that may work but do not understand how to implement this within my program and essentially want to shorten my results class if possible.
Thank you,
The best way would be to create a custom function for generating textfield.
The example can be found in the livedocs itself.
So something like the following should suffice :
private function createCustomTextField(x:Number, y:Number, width:Number, height:Number):TextField {
var result:TextField = new TextField();
result.x = x;
result.y = y;
result.width = width;
result.height = height;
return result;
}
You may also set a default value to each attribute in the function.
private function createCustomTextField ( x:Number= <Default Value>, ...
Use it to add a textfield inside the container form.
var container:Sprite = new Sprite(); // New form container
container.addChild(createCustomTextField (20,20,50,50)); // Text Filed 1
container.addChild(createCustomTextField (20,50,50,50)); // Text Filed 2
addChild(container); // Add to current class
You may want to modify the function to accept a name so that each variable can be accessed later.
As far as I am aware, you can't use a "with" keyword to target multiple objects. Here's the documentation for it: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/statements.html#with
What I've done in the past is just make an array of all the targets, and then write a loop to apply properties to each:
var textFormat:TextFormat = generateMyCustomTextFormat();
var textField1:TextField = new TextField();
var textField2:TextField = new TextField();
//...
var textField3:TextField = new TextField();
var targets:Array = [textField1, textField2, textField3];
for(var i:int=0; i<targets.length; i++)
{
targets[i].defaultTextFormat = textFormat;
targets[i].width = 250;
//...
}

Why can't I display embedded fonts in AS3?

I have gone through all topics on Embedding fonts in AS3 I could find,a nd tried all solutions. I'm probably missing something obvious, but I don't fully understand what I'm doing so please guide me in the right direction. Many of the answers involve Flash Builder or another tool but I use FlashDevelop. No idea whether that matters.
I have this line in my Main.as:
[Embed(source = "assets/SKA_75_marul_CE_extended.ttf",
fontName = "SKA_75_marul_CE_extended",
fontWeight = "bold",
advancedAntiAliasing = "true",
mimeType = "application/x-font")]
public static var SKA_75_marul_CE_extended:String;
And this exists in the constructor of an extended Sprite called Pointer.as:
var format:TextFormat = new TextFormat();
format.font = "SKA_75_marul_CE_extended";
format.color = 0xFFCCCC;
format.size = 20;
var label:TextField = new TextField();
label.defaultTextFormat = format;
label.text = "test";
label.embedFonts = true;
label.antiAliasType = AntiAliasType.ADVANCED;
//label.setTextFormat(format); --> I tried this too, didn't work...
label.defaultTextFormat = format;
label.x += img.width + 50;
this.addChild(label);
The only way I've found to get it to display anything is if I turn off embedFonts. I've tried embedding C:/windows/fonts/arial.ttf without success.
It seems that embedding fonts is a dark art like no other and I must concede after 1 hour of struggling. Please send help.
UPDATE:
Here's the working code, turns out it was due to having the correct order of operations...:
[Embed(source="assets/SKA_75_marul_CE_extended.ttf",
fontName = "myFont",
mimeType = "application/x-font",
fontWeight="normal",
fontStyle="normal",
unicodeRange="U+0020-U+007E",
advancedAntiAliasing="true",
embedAsCFF="false")]
private var myEmbeddedFont:Class;
var tf:TextFormat = new TextFormat( "myFont", 20,0xffffff );
var t:TextField = new TextField;
t.embedFonts = true; // very important to set
t.defaultTextFormat = tf;
t.text = text;
t.x += img.width + 50;
t.width = 700;
this.addChild( t );
It's most DEFINITIVELY a "dark art" to get embedded fonts to work right. I would first check if "SKA_75_marul_CE_extended" is the actual name the font has in its metadata (I used Suitcase Fusion to extract the name). I've also seen TTF fonts that Flash simply refuses to embed (perhaps invalid metadata causes the embed system to fault). I would continue testing with a known working font until you find the actual problem in case it is a font file problem.
One thing I noticed is "public static var SKA_75_marul_CE_extended:String;"... shouldn't this be of type Class?
FlashDevelop font embed reference from someone who had issues:
http://www.flashdevelop.org/community/viewtopic.php?p=28301

Rendering text in AS3

I'm having a bit of confusion about how to render text in a pure AS3 project. There are classes like flash.text.StaticText but these are designer-only, you can't create them in code. I was half-expecting the Graphics class to have text-rendering options but alas, no.
Specifically I was going to add a label above each player's sprite with their name, health %, etc. So I expected to add a child text-element or draw text using Graphics in some way... it's read-only and should not support user-input, I just want to draw text on-screen.
You can use TextField class for this. Please check the reference. All fields and methods are self explanatory.
A possible example.
var myField:TextField = new TextField();
myField.text = "my text";
myField.x = 200;
myField.y = 200;
addChild(myField); // assuming you are in a container class
If TextField doesn't work, you can create text using this method:
var format:ElementFormat = new ElementFormat();
format.fontSize = 26;
format.color = 0x0000FF;
var textElement:TextElement = new TextElement('Hello World!', format);
var textBlock:TextBlock = new TextBlock();
textBlock.content = textElement;
var textLine:TextLine = textBlock.createTextLine(null, 500);
textLine.x = (stage.stageWidtht - textLine.width) / 2;
textLine.y = (stage.stageHeight - textLine.height) / 2;
addChild(textLine);
Look at:
Creating and displaying text in ActionScript 3.0 Developer’s Guide