display.newText() lineheight and letterspacing

Audio and Graphics
#41

Hello

and yes, lineHeight and letterSpacing is badly needed!

I haven’t read all posts here, but as I produced some fonts myself, I would like to add:

lineHeight might not be a big thing to achieve. Every font delivers its geometry which is read and used by the script. display.newText() seems to read the basic fontHeight of a font, using this as a parameter for lineHeight. This is why the lines in rendered texts are so narrow, it is like lineHeight 1.0 in other applications. It’s not best readable.

It would be a great if the Corona Engineering could at least add this feature: with units of em = multiples of the fontSize or in Corona pixel. 

If the Engineering need some more detail information about font techniques, please let me know, maybe I can help.

#42

I just declined a feature request on this since it had been nearly two years with a total of two votes on it. Feel free to create a new feedback item for it, though it would be a better use of your votes to vote on some of the other display.newText() based feature requests.

http://feedback.coronalabs.com

Rob

#43

Hi Rob,

there are aome different feature requests about text and aligning / line height / spacing / manipulating. I searched for “text” as a keyword.

The sum of all votes is 380.

Maybe there is a chance to combine these feature requests as they address mostly the same topic, with a little different details.

164 votes:

more control and choices for text objects

http://feedback.coronalabs.com/forums/188732-corona-sdk-feature-requests-feedback/suggestions/3575422-more-control-and-choices-for-text-objects

120 votes for:

display.newText() advanced options / justification

http://feedback.coronalabs.com/forums/188732-corona-sdk-feature-requests-feedback/suggestions/4784694-display-newtext-advanced-options-justification

51 votes for:

Stroke to text

http://feedback.coronalabs.com/forums/188732-corona-sdk-feature-requests-feedback/suggestions/3575018-stroke-to-text

45 votes for:

Manipulate text size, style, font, and color like HTML

http://feedback.coronalabs.com/forums/188732-corona-sdk-feature-requests-feedback/suggestions/6265139-manipulate-text-size-style-font-and-color-like

Kind regards from Berlin,

Simon

#44

Yes, we can combine those into a mega request. It’s a lot of votes. But text is a complex thing that can pull our engineers down a rabbit hole that will. I suspect that Perk will have some ideas on what things we should work on next, but we’ve not had time to have those conversations yet. 

Rob

#45

Hi Rob, 

this is good news for all who love good typography in apps :slight_smile:

Many Corona developers would be very happy!

My suggestion would be:

  1. line height and letter spacing

  2. manipulation of single or several strings inside of a text: in size, position, color and even font style, making text like “CO2” possible

  3. other text manipulation like stroke or outlined letters

If the default line height is left at 1.0, there might be no change to existing apps.

Simon

#46

Personally I don’t think its either “good” or “news”. It’s purely administrative information. I can combine the various requests into one. I haven’t yet, because I need to make sure all of the various  items are represented in the mega-request. Also I’m concerned the bigger the task, the harder it will to get the request done.

Please do not read my previous comment as any commitment to any progress on it.

Rob

#47

So what is the latest news on the mega request for more flexibility with fonts, line height and character spacing etc.?

We are constantly building custom solutions to circumvent this limitation and wasting a lot of time during the process.

Thanks

#48

Adjusting line height and character spacing is a critical feature!

My manager has asked me to suggest a 2D platform for mobile development; and I am having to pass on Corona because it won’t be able to deliver even the minimum basic requirements that the design team expects. I am personally a huge fan of Corona, but with modern app development the in-ability to do even the most basic text formatting is crippling.

Please fix this!!!

#49

So what is the latest news on the mega request for more flexibility with fonts, line height and character spacing etc.?

We are constantly building custom solutions to circumvent this limitation and wasting a lot of time during the process.

Thanks

#50

In 2020, it seems this feature still doesn’t exist, and it’s highly frustrating. PLEASE ADD

#51

I am very interested in this feature too. Same as paulscottrobson, we are using Corona as business app too.

#52

Without this feature, the whole reading experience is not superb.. .

#53

I’m not sure if this is correct, but I used this to get the spacing between letters in a single line. Probably -1.5 from below is not suitable for other fonts.

local function textWithLetterSpacing(options, space)
	space = space*.01 + 1

	local j = 0
	local text = options.text 
	local width = 0
	for i=1, #text:gsub('[\128-\191]', '') do
		local char = text:sub(i+j,i+j+1)
    local bytes = {string.byte(char,1,#char)}

    if bytes[1]==208 or bytes[1]==209 then -- for russian char
      char = text:sub(i+j,i+j+1)
      j=j+1
    else  -- for english char
      char = char:sub(1,1)
    end
		local charLabel = display.newText( mainGroup, char, options.x+width, options.y, options.font, options.fontSize )
		charLabel.anchorX=0
		width = width + (charLabel.width-1.5)*space
	end

end
textWithLetterSpacing({
	parent = mainGroup,
	text = "Hello world!",
	x = 100,
	y = 100,
	font = "ubuntu_r.ttf",
	fontSize = 16*2,
}, 20)