Determining Size of a Text Box before drawing it.

Question

Hi,

is it possible to get the Size of an Text Box before the Text Box is actually drawn?

I generate dynamically a window and need to generate spacers to allign objects. Therefore I need the Size of several Text Box elements, before I actually draw them.

Cheers

David_Burnham · Accepted Answer

The crude method - create a window that contains your content - then send messages to get the sizes - then delete the window (hopefully before it actually gets rendered) - then use the sizes to render the window more elegantly - I have to use this technique sometimes to get consistent output on both Windows and Mac.

STEFHOLZ · Accepted Answer

Hi David,

basically that is what I did at the end, only that I did not delete the window but merely send the correct size messages to the text boxes with  "<< Set Width"

!BEWARE!

everybody who tries this: After drawing your initial window, you have to wait a little bit before you can take the measurements with "<< Get Size". A wait(0.0001) was sufficiant for me. If you do not do it strange things happen. (That took me half a day to figure out).

!BEWARE!

pmroz · Accepted Answer

Here's the function I use to determine text box height.  The hide(1) argument prevents it from being displayed.

get_height = function({_text, _pixels},
	{Default Local},

pname = "get_height";

if (is missing(_text),
	// then
		pix_height = 0;
		,
	// else if
		_text == "",
		pix_height = 0;
		,
	// else we've got some text to work with
		tb = text box(_text, set wrap(_pixels), set width(_pixels), hide(1));
		tmp_win = new window("test", tb);
// Get size info
		pix_height = (tb << get size)[2];

tmp_win << close window;
	);

pix_height;
);	// end get_height

David_Burnham · Accepted Answer

You might want to try Wait(0).  This basically says: wait until the tasks have been completed.