Determining Width of a PIXI.Text object

[mwatt]

When I read the width of a Text object it consistently reads the same, no matter what scaling is applied.  Is this normal?  I am trying to center a Text object within a canvas that is itself being centered and also scaled, and having difficulty.  I believe I recall reading that Text objects needed one frame of animation to run before their width property is correct.  Is this true?  If so, what technique is good to deal with this?

 

Also, any idea when the next version of Pixi.js will be released?

[Mat Groves]

Howdy,

 

Ah yes I remember this issue. It basically to do with text not getting rendered until its actually added to the stage. Because of that it means the width is not calculated until updateTransform has been called. This is definitely something that needs looking into.

 

I do have a fix in mind - it will involve overriding the width / height getter setters to see if the text is "dirty" or not. If it is then updateText() will be called. That should then set width and height to be correct.

 

For now I think calling updateTexture() manually should set width and height to be correct for you.

 

With regards to the next pixi release, we are working on webGL filters at the moment. Fun Fun!

[mwatt]

Mat,

 

Thank you so much for taking the time to reply.  Unfortunately neither updateText() nor updateTexture() of the PIXI.Text object (I wasn't sure which was right, so I tried both -singly and in conjunction) had any apparent affect on the reported width.  I tried adding these calls both before and after I added the Text object to the DisplayObjectContainer that handles my scaling.

 

But perhaps I labor under a misapprehension.  Maybe the reported width is, and should be, disconnected from the scaling?

[1-800-STAR-WARS]

Hey guys, did you ever figure this out?

[mwatt]

Lewis, I never did.  Shortly after this exchange on the board I switched to using sprites, because I was getting some dithering I did not like when scaling.

[1-800-STAR-WARS]

I wonder, do bitmap fonts give a more accurate width? It seems like regular fonts give an approximately right value but never quite accurate enough.