Autosize text field

Excelcius

Hi all Im currently trying to modify the SPTextField and SPBitmapFont to enable autosizing I previously updated the two classes in Sparrow 1 to do the same but Im currently porting my project to Sparrow 2.0 so Im having to modify the new versions of those classes which work significantly differently. So far In addition to adding an autosize argument to
createSpriteWithWidth
fillQuadBatch
arrangeCharsInAreaWithWidth
and a few other minor adjustments Ive added the following code to the "arrangeCharsInAreaWithWidth" in SPBitmapFont

//added new local variables longest line and textheight
//inside the main while loop
if(autoSize && lineFull)
{
    textHeight += _lineHeight; //might need to remove excess white space

    SPCharLocation *charLocation = [currentLine objectAtIndex:i];
    int charID = [text characterAtIndex:i];
    SPBitmapChar *bitmapChar = [self charByID:charID];

    float thisLine = charLocation.x + bitmapChar.yOffset;
    if(thisLine > longestLine) longestLine = thisLine;
}

//outside the main loop
if(autoSize)
{
   containerWidth = longestLine;
   containerHeight = textHeight;
}

But Im struggling to figure how to pick up the width and height from SPBitmapFont in SPTextField to set the hit area ect Im a little confused as to how SPBitmapFont works in conjunction with SPQuadBatch or indeed what SPBitMapFont actually is, is it an instance of some text or a pooled instance of the font itself if that makes sense, Ive noticed it extends NSObject and not displayObject or displayObjectContainer.

Thanks in advance

Daniel

The "SPBitmapFont" class is actually just a container for the data that's stored in a Bitmap Font's XML file. You can get information about any char (glyph) that's available by using its "charByID:" method; this will return a "SPBitmapChar" object that's (again) not a display object, but just an object that contains all the data that describes a single char.

When you create a text field with a bitmap font, Sparrow composes an "SPQuadBatch" that contains all the chars as images. It could also use a simple sprite — a quad batch is simply faster. In any case, you can get the "bounds" of that quad batch to find out the exact hit area that's made up by the chars.

Does that information help?

Excelcius

Yes thanks Daniel I ended up adding two readonly properties to my version of SPBitmapFont "textWidth" and "textHeight" and replaced longestLine in my above code with textWidth and then used those to set the textBounds and boarder in the textField. I haven't tested it yet as Im in the middle of converting my project from Sparrow 1 to Sparrow 2 at the moment and Im just following the errors in my old project as they come

But in light of what you say about the hitArea Im debating wether or not I need to write my own version of SPTextField and SPBitmapFont now. At the very least Im not sure I need write my own version of BitmapFont. Although its always handy having an autosized text field, instead of having to pre calculate the approximate width and height and I can access the exact width and height of the textfield more simply with .width and .height, instead of first having to access hitArea.