Graphics

Hello!

I am trying to make a lower third in which there is a text field that expands to the right with word wrap enabled and I need it to autosqueeze text after the second line has reached the word wrap bounds.

Any help would be appreciated!

Running Xpression 7.0 Build 3820

Surprisingly tricky! Here's a sample project that I think does what you need: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1g7l-nBuXYvadIjtVStZEtX3EORbW-7_a

The formatting is done with a script on the scene's OnOnline/OnPreviewRender events. It's a little bulky, so hopefully anyone that knows a cleaner way to do this will chime in. Below is the script itself -- you'd just want to enter the name of the text object you want in the first line and how long your word wrap/autosqueeze limit is in the second.

'***ENTER INFO HERE***
dim textName as string = "Text"
dim textWidth as decimal = 1000
'***ENTER INFO HERE***

'Gets text object
dim text as xpBaseObject
self.getObjectByName(textName,text)

'Turns off limits during process
text.autoSqueeze = false
text.wordWrap = false

'Does nothing if short, single line of text
if text.boundingBox.width < textWidth then

'Turns on word wrap for two lines
elseif text.boundingBox.width > textWidth and text.boundingBox.width < textWidth*2 then
text.wordWrap = true
text.wordWrapWidth = textWidth

'Handles text that would be longer than two lines
elseif text.boundingBox.width > textWidth*2 then
'Gets info on text string and splits it up in to each word
dim maxWid as decimal = text.boundingBox.width
dim splits() as string = split(text.text," ")
text.text = ""
dim currentText as string = ""
dim index as integer = 0

'Rebuilds text string in to two roughly equal lines
for i as integer = 0 to splits.length - 1
currentText = text.text

text.text = text.text & splits(i) & " "
if text.boundingBox.width > maxWid * .5 then
text.text = currentText
index = i
exit for
end if
next

text.text = text.text & vbCrLf

for i as integer = index to splits.length - 1
text.text = text.text & splits(i) & " "
next

'Sets autoSqueeze for new text
text.autoSqueeze = true
text.autoSqueezeWidth = textWidth
end if

#XPression

Thank you Greg for sharing this script.

It works well, although sometimes the text extends to more than 2 lines.

Here is a modified version of your script that :
- Check that the maximum number of lines don't overflow
- Allow to input the maximum number of lines the user want to apply


'***ENTER INFO HERE***
dim textName as string = "Text"
dim textWidth as decimal = 1000
dim maxNbLines as integer = 2
'***ENTER INFO HERE***

'Gets text object
dim text as xpBaseObject
self.getObjectByName(textName,text)

'Turns off limits during process
text.autoSqueeze = false
text.wordWrap = false

'Does nothing if short, single line of text
if text.boundingBox.width < textWidth then return

'Handles text that would be longer than maxNbLines lines

'Gets info on text string and splits it up in to each word
dim maxWid as decimal = text.boundingBox.width
dim splits() as string = split(text.text," ")
text.text = ""
dim currentText as string = ""
dim nbLines as integer = 0
dim indexLine as integer = 1

'Rebuilds text string in to "equal" lines and no more than maxNbLines Lines
for i as integer = 0 to (splits.length - 1)

dim t as string = splits(i)
text.text = text.text & t & " "
if text.boundingBox.width > math.max(maxWid/maxNbLines, textWidth) then

if indexLine < maxNbLines then
text.text = currentText & vbCrLf & t & " "
indexLine = indexLine + 1
end if
end if

currentText = text.text
next

if text.boundingBox.width > textWidth then
'Sets autoSqueeze for new text
text.autoSqueeze = true
text.autoSqueezeWidth = textWidth
end if



With this new script, there is a glitch : first lines are often smaller than the last ones , that's not very natural or pleasant to read .
Example with 3 lines of text :

Before applying text.autoSqueeze = true , if we can parse again the text with the new current boxingbox.width , this seems to be better most of the time :

See project sample with this method implemented , where user can input the maximum number of lines used : [ATTACH]n16509[/ATTACH]
It requires Xpression version 6.7 since part of the code has been put into global functions .

Sure this can be improved , any suggestions are welcome .

#XPression

I know this is a old thread, but I have been trying to implement a similar script to solve an issue and am running into problems.

I have a significant amount of visual logic running, and as a result, this script doesn't work for (in part because the context of the text field I need to wrap is dynamically set via visual logic). I have tried to replicate the script, or my own variant of it in visual logic, but have encountered other issues, such as using the logic block to find a " " character to split lines doesn't return correctly if the start point if after the last space character. Also, the concatenate block does not allow me to add a CR/LF code into the text.

Is there an easier way to constrain a text box to two lines high? Or does someone have a good example of a visual logic approach to this?

In terms of pseudo code, I see it like this:

If text.width < box.width, exit

If text.width < box.wdth * 1.1, autosqueeze = true  'allows a small amount of squeeze on one line

If text.width > box.width * 1.1, find split point at first line length or midpoint depending on length, insert a CR to make it two lines

Any help appreciated!

Thanks, Dave

#XPression

For anyone who may be looking at this 6+ years later, I ended up using this claude-assisted script to evenly distribute the text across a designated number of lines:

#XPression