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🧩 TextRenderer

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Ekrol34 edited this page Sep 19, 2025 · 4 revisions

The TextRenderer component provides styled text rendering capabilities for a GameObject. It supports rich text formatting (bold, italic, underline, strike-through, and inline colors), optional background boxes with borders and rounded corners, fixed or auto-sized text boxes, word wrapping, and automatic alignment inside its bounding box.

Unlike raw SFML sf::Text, TextRenderer integrates directly with the engine’s component system and synchronizes its position with the owning GameObject’s Transform.

Behaviour

The TextRenderer component handles the full pipeline of displaying text inside the game window:

It parses the assigned string for inline tags (<bold>, <italic>, <underlined>, <strikeThrough>, <color>), applying the appropriate sf::Text::Style and sf::Color.

It automatically calculates the text bounds, adds padding, and computes the final size of the background box.

If borderRadius > 0, the background is drawn as a rounded rectangle; otherwise, a standard rectangle with optional border thickness is drawn.

The text is then centered inside this box, positioned relative to the GameObject’s transform.

By default, TextRenderer does not apply scaling from the Transform, since text size is controlled by the font size.

⚠️ Important notes:

TextRenderer ignores transform scaling.

The background box always uses the calculated size (text width + padding). If you want transparent backgrounds, set backgroundColor to transparent.

If tags are malformed (e.g., unclosed <bold>), text may render partially without the intended style.

Fields

  • String text: The UTF-8 encoded text to display. Supports inline formatting tags.

  • Color color: Default text color (before applying tags).

  • int fontSize: Character size in pixels.

  • String font: The font resource key used to retrieve the SFML font from the engine.

  • Vector2 padding: Horizontal and vertical padding around the text inside the background box.

  • float borderWidth: Thickness of the box outline (0 = no outline).

  • Color borderColor: Outline color of the box.

  • Color backgroundColor: Fill color of the box.

  • float borderRadius: Corner roundness. If > 0, the box is drawn with rounded corners.

  • Vector2 size: Final computed size of the text box (auto-updated each frame).

  • Vector2 offset: positional adjustment that shifts an element (or group of elements) by a specified distance from its original location without altering its alignment.

  • bool wordWrap: Enables wrapping text by words within a fixed-size box. Defaults to true.

Constructors

TextRenderer()

Creates a new TextRenderer component. Font and text must be assigned before rendering.

Methods

SetNewText

void SetNewText(String str)

Replaces the current text with the given string.

AddText

void AddText(String str)

Appends the given string to the existing text.

SetBackgroundTexture

void SetBackgroundTexture(String path, bool keepAspect = false)

Sets a background texture from a file path (relative to ./Assets/). keepAspect determines whether the texture preserves its original aspect ratio.

RemoveBackgroundTexture

void RemoveBackgroundTexture()

Removes any assigned background texture.

EnableFixedBox

void EnableFixedBox(Vector2 boxSize)

Activates a fixed-size box and sets its size.

DisableFixedBox

void DisableFixedBox()

Disables fixed-size mode, returning to auto-size mode.

IsUsingFixedBox

bool IsUsingFixedBox()

Returns whether the text box is currently fixed-size.##

GetCardinals

Dictionary<String, Vector2Ptr> GetCardinals()

Returns a dictionary with references to the sprite’s four cardinal points:

  • top-left

  • top-right

  • bottom-left

  • bottom-right

These points are updated automatically each frame based on the sprite’s transform and size.

Example Usage

TextRendererPtr text = std::make_shared<TextRenderer>();
text->font = "fonts/Merriweather/Merriweather-Black.ttf";
text->fontSize = 24;
text->color = Colors::White;
text->padding = Vector2(8, 4);
text->backgroundColor = Colors::Black;
text->borderWidth = 2;
text->borderColor = Colors::Yellow;

// Supports inline styling
*text +="Hello <bold>World</bold>! <color='red'>Red text</color>";

This will render:

  • A black box with yellow outline.

  • The word "World" in bold.

  • The words "Red text" in red.

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