TextBlockRenderer: HTML Support

clozertou

Hi
i couldnt find any html support in the TextblockRenderer. I know TextFieldRenderer provides it but im a bit hesitant to use FieldRenderer (due to the reason Josh prefered TextBlockRenderer)

Any guidance?
Thanks

Jeff

The key thing to remember about TextBlockTextRenderer is what is listed in its documentation:

Renders text with a native flash.text.engine.TextBlock from Flash Text Engine (FTE)

If you just set its 'text:String' property, all it does is set its content property to:
new TextElement(text)
( http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/flash/text/engine/TextElement.html )

If you want more sophisticated content, you would set the content property directly instead of using the text property. Anything that works as a valid value for a flash.text.engine.TextBlock's content:ContentElement would work here:
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/flash/text/engine/TextBlock.html#content

But now you are completely outside the scope of anything related to a Feathers API, and you would need to read about how to use the Flash Text Engine (FTE). This includes any optional use of the TLF (Text Layout Framework) which lives on top of the Flash Text Engine, and also includes HTML parsers that turn HTML into FTE content suitable for TextBlockTextRenderer.content.

So you want to search the net for various articles on FTE, TLF and its text rendering system to see what options you have of using various stylized text formats. It opens up quite a lot of possibilities, but it also means you have a new API to figure out (outside Feathers specific APIs).

clozertou

Thanks a lot Jeff for a detailed reply, if TextBlock supports HTML then i should expect that Josh will bring its support as well. However im going to try it myself as well.

Jeff

Since I think TextBlockTextRenderer is still in experimental mode, not sure what other plans Josh has for it yet before an official release.

There are others that have made TLF based Text Renderers for Feathers already like:
http://forum.starling-framework.org/topic/feathers-tlf-text-renderer which you might also want to try.

Also, not sure if you are looking for a solution that supports arbitrary HTML code that you won't know ahead of time, or whether you just have needs for some simple stylized text very similar to HTML, because you might find it just as fast and efficient to just build up your stylized ContentElement hierarchy programmatically instead of over complicating things by having to also parse HTML code too...

Josh's current use of a TextBlock.content might also prohibit easier integration of some of the TLF text flow systems since they rely more on a hierarchy of TextFlow supported elements:
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/flashx/textLayout/elements/TextFlow.html
I know Josh is probably looking for a lightweight as possible solution for a FTE text renderer without having any dependence on making developers also include TLF (100% ActionScript library), but it may turn out that a separate TextFlowTextRenderer (or more advanced existing TextBlockTextRenderer) is needed to at least more easily hook in TLF parsed elements that come from markup like HTML/RTF/the built-in TLF TextFlow markup or other stylized text formats that TLF supports.

joshtynjala

I have no plans to provide automatic HTML parsing inside TextBlockTextRenderer. In TextFieldTextRenderer, that is provided for free from the runtime using flash.text.TextField.

As Jeff said, though, the content property of TextBlockTextRenderer exists so that you can pass in richer content built with the Flash Text Engine (FTE) classes. It should be possible to manually parse HTML and convert it into valid FTE content, or perhaps an alternative choice would be to build the FTE content directly.

clozertou

@Jeff, TLF Sounds Interesting, but im worried abt performance,

@Josh, A basic level html styling support will prove a great addition, for example it is not possiblee to change the color of some text in a paragraph, this is will be a great help in app development

Jeff

Well if performance is high on your mind, you probably don't want to interface with a generic HTML parsing layer either, but maybe build up your FTE content directly as Josh suggests.

You get the same structured stylized text that you need as if you were using HTML tags but you implement only the style structure that you need for your specific implementation to guarantee best performance.

clozertou

Yes, i just wantto change the color thats it. But its gonna take me ages to add this feature. I hope someone experienced provide this support.
Thanks Josh and Jeff for your support 🙂