Re: [PyX-user] boxes, lengths - newbie

[Andre W. <wo...@us...>]

Hi Bruce,

On 25.07.06, Bruce wrote:
> I`m struggling a bit with the pyx API, and could use some help..
> 
> I`m trying to lau out some text boxes but I`m having trouble getting
> my head around lengths and the different units in pyx. I can place a
> box containing text like this:
> 
> tbox = pyx.text.text(x, y, "some text")
> tpath = tbox.path()
> canvas_instance.draw(tpath, [pyx.deco.stroked()])
> canvas_instance.insert(tbox)
> 
> How can I set the box length? If I want to draw another box starting
> where the first ends, how can I do this?

All this isn't very well supported by a nice PyX API so far. Still,
you can create text boxes yourself, like:

t = text.text(0, 0, "spam")

Now you can ask for their its by the instance variables t.width,
t.height, t.depth. (This is very much like in TeX itself. If you
make use of text.halign, you may also want to access t.left and
t.right.)

Those variables are PyX lengths, but don't mind: you can plug them
into path items and transformations etc.

To transform the text depending on your calculations you could do:

c.insert(t, trafo.translate(x, y))

Well ... this is very basic functionality ... I know. But it might at
least provide you enough functionality to code whatever you want ...

HTH,


André

-- 
by  _ _      _    Dr. André Wobst
   / \ \    / )   wo...@us..., http://www.wobsta.de/
  / _ \ \/\/ /    PyX - High quality PostScript and PDF figures
 (_/ \_)_/\_/     with Python & TeX: visit http://pyx.sourceforge.net/