Text

The Text class draws a rectangle. It inherits add, fill, stroke, fill_stroke, path, clip and other methods from Shape.

There is also a text function that draws text. Note that the text function actually paints the text (unlike other shape functions such as rectangle, that simply add the shape as a path without painting it). This is because text is almost always painted in a flat colour.

Text class methods

The Text class inherits add, fill, stroke, fill_stroke, path, clip and other methods from Shape.

It has additional methods:

• of
• font
• size
• align
• align_left
• align_center
• align_right
• align_bottom
• align_baseline
• align_middle
• align_top
• flip
• offset
• offset_angle
• offset_towards
• get_extents
• get_size

of

Creates a text item.

of(text, position)

The text is placed at the position, using the alignment specified by the align functions below.

font

Selects the font face.

font(font, weight=None, slant=None)

Selects the font face.

font is the name of the font, such as 'arial'.

weight is the font weight, either drawing.FONT_WEIGHT_NORMAL or drawing.FONT_WEIGHT_BOLD.

slant is the font slant, either drawing.FONT_SLANT_NORMAL, drawing.FONT_SLANT_ITALIC, or drawing.FONT_SLANT_OBLIQUE.

If font is not called, the font defaults to 'arial'.

size

Selects the font size.

size(size)

Sets the font size. For western fonts, the font size is approximately equal to the height of the font in user units. This may vary slightly for different font faces, and non-western fonts (for example Chinese fonts). If size is not called, the size default to 10.

align

Sets the text alignment.

align(alignx, aligny)

alignx should be set to drawing.LEFT, drawing.CENTER, or drawing.RIGHT. This causes the left, centre, or right of the text bounding box to be aligned with the x value of the text position.

aligny should be set to drawing.BOTTOM, drawing.MIDDLE, drawing.TOP, or drawing.BASELINE. This causes the bottom, middle, top, or baseline of the text to be aligned with the y value of the text position.

The bottom, middle, and top positions are calculated from the text bounding box, but the baseline comes from the font metrics. If you need to correctly align two text strings you should use baseline rather than bottom, because the bottom depends on the string contents.

If the align function is not called, the default is drawing.LEFT and drawing.BASELINE.

align_xxx methods

align_left() sets the horizontal alignment to drawing.LEFT but leaves the vertical alignment unchanged. align_center() and align_right() set the alignment to drawing.CENTER or drawing.RIGHT.

align_bottom() sets the vertical alignment to drawing.BOTTOM but leaves the horizontal alignment unchanged. align_middle(), align_top(), and align_baseline() set the alignment to drawing.MIDDLE, drawing.TOP, or drawing.BASELINE.

These are alternatives to that align method, that are mainly provided for readability, particularly if you only wish to set the alignment in one direction and leave the other at the default. There is no particular advantage to using one style or the other.

offset

Offsets the text in the x and y axes.

offset(x=0, y=0)

The offset moves the text in the x and y direction. The amount of offset is measured in user space.

The offset is simple added to the position of the text. So for example:

Text(ctx).of("text", p).offset(x, y).fill(color)

is equivalent to:

Text(ctx).of("text", (p[0]+x, p[1]+y)).fill(color)

It is a matter of personal preference which form you use.

offset_angle

Offsets the text by a given distance in a specified direction.

offset_angle(angle, distance)

Displaces the text by an amount distance at the specified angle.

For example:

• offset_angle(0, 10) moves the text 10 units in the x direction (angle 0 degrees), ie ten units to the left.
• offset_angle(math.pi/2, 5) moves the text 5 units in the y direction (angle 90 degrees), ie 5 units down.
• offset_angle(math.pi/4, 1) moves the text 0.707 units in the x direction and 0.707 units in the y direction (angle 45 degrees).

This function is equivalent to:

 offset(distance*math.cos(angle), distance*math.sin(angle)

offset_towards

Offsets the text by a given distance towards a specified point.

offset_towards(point, distance)

Displaces the text by an amount distance towards the point.

If distance is negative, the text will be moved in the opposite direction, ie away from the point.

get_extents

Returns the extents of the current text item.

get_extents()

Return a tuple (x_bearing, y_bearing, width, height, x_advance, y_advance) giving the extents of the text in current user units.

See the Pycairo documentation for the TextExtents object.

get_size

Returns the size of the current text item,

get_size()

Return a tuple (width, height) giving the size of the text in current user units. The size is a tight bounding box around the pixels that would be marked by drawing the Text object.

See the Pycairo documentation for the TextExtents object. This method return just the width and height.

text function - DEPRECATED

Paints text at a location, without the need to create a Text object.

This function deprecated. The Text class offers better functionality.

text(ctx, txt, x, y, font=None, size=None, color=None,
                   alignx=LEFT, aligny=BASELINE, flip=False)

This draws a line of text at position (x, y).

color selects the font color. If no value is supplied, the shape will be filled with whatever paint source is current for the context.

Example

Here is an example that uses the Text class to create text with various alignments:

from generativepy.drawing import make_image, setup
from generativepy.color import Color
from generativepy.geometry import Text, Circle

'''
Create text using the geometry module.
'''

def draw(ctx, width, height, frame_no, frame_count):
    setup(ctx, width, height, width=5, background=Color(0.8))

    Text(ctx).of("Left", (0.5, 0.5)).font("Times").size(0.2).align_left().align_baseline().fill(Color('blue'))
    Text(ctx).of("Aligned", (0.5, 0.7)).font("Times").size(0.2).align_left().align_baseline().fill(Color('red'))
    Text(ctx).of("Text", (0.5, 0.9)).font("Times").size(0.2).align_left().align_baseline().fill(Color('blue'))

    Text(ctx).of("Centre", (2.5, 0.5)).font("Times").size(0.2).align_center().align_baseline().fill(Color('blue'))
    Text(ctx).of("Aligned", (2.5, 0.7)).font("Times").size(0.2).align_center().align_baseline().fill(Color('red'))
    Text(ctx).of("Text", (2.5, 0.9)).font("Times").size(0.2).align_center().align_baseline().fill(Color('blue'))

    Text(ctx).of("Right", (4.5, 0.5)).font("Times").size(0.2).align_right().align_baseline().fill(Color('blue'))
    Text(ctx).of("Aligned", (4.5, 0.7)).font("Times").size(0.2).align_right().align_baseline().fill(Color('red'))
    Text(ctx).of("Text", (4.5, 0.9)).font("Times").size(0.2).align_right().align_baseline().fill(Color('blue'))

    Circle(ctx).of_center_radius((1.9, 2), 0.02).fill(Color(0, 0, 1))
    Text(ctx).of("gTop", (2, 2)).font("Times").size(0.2).align_left().align_top().fill(Color('black'))

    Circle(ctx).of_center_radius((1.9, 2.5), 0.02).fill(Color(0, 0, 1))
    Text(ctx).of("gMid", (2, 2.5)).font("Times").size(0.2).align_left().align_middle().fill(Color('black'))

    Circle(ctx).of_center_radius((1.9, 3), 0.02).fill(Color(0, 0, 1))
    Text(ctx).of("gBase", (2, 3)).font("Times").size(0.2).align_left().align_baseline().fill(Color('black'))

    Circle(ctx).of_center_radius((1.9, 3.5), 0.02).fill(Color(0, 0, 1))
    Text(ctx).of("gBottom", (2, 3.5)).font("Times").size(0.2).align_left().align_bottom().fill(Color('black'))

make_image("/tmp/geometry-text.png", draw, 500, 500)

Here is the result:

See also

• AngleMarker
• Arrowhead
• Circle
• Ellipse
• Line
• Bezier
• Paratick
• Polygon
• RegularPolygon
• Rectangle
• Square
• Tick
• Triangle
• Path