GD::Text::Wrap - Wrap strings in boxes

  use GD;
  use GD::Text::Wrap;

  my $gd = GD::Image->new(800,600);
  # allocate colours, do other things.

  my $text = <<EOSTR;
  Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, 
  sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore 
  magna aliquam erat volutpat.
  EOSTR

  my $wrapbox = GDTextWrap->new( $gd,
      line_space  => 4,
      color       => $black,
      text        => $text,
  );
  $wrapbox->set_font(gdMediumBoldFont);
  $wrapbox->set_font('arial', 12);
  $wrapbox->set(align => 'left', width => 120);
  $wrapbox->draw(10,140);

  $gd->rectangle($wrap_box->get_bounds(10,140), $color);

GD::Text::Wrap provides an object that draws a formatted paragraph of text in a box on a GD::Image canvas, using either a builtin GD font or a TrueType font.

This class doesn't inherit from GD::Text directly, but delegates most of its work to it (in fact to a GD::Text::Align object. That means that most of the GD::Text::Align methods are available for this class, specifically CWset_font and CWfont_path. Other methods and methods with a different interface are described here: Create a new object. The first argument to new has to be a valid GD::Image object. The other arguments will be passed to the set() method for initialisation of the attributes.

set the value for an attribute. Valid attributes are:

width

The width of the box to draw the text in. If unspecified, they will default to the width of the GD::Image object.

line_space

The number of pixels between lines. Defaults to 2.

para_space, paragraph_space

The number of extra pixels between paragraphs, above line_space. Defaults to 0.

color, colour

Synonyms. The colour to use when drawing the font. Will be initialised to the last colour in the GD object's palette.

align, alignment

Synonyms. One of 'justified' (the default), 'left', 'right' or 'center'.

text

The text to draw. This is the only attribute that you absolutely have to set.

preserve_nl

If set to a true value, newlines in the text will cause a line break. Note that lines will still be justified. If only one word appears on the line, it could get ugly. Defaults to 0.

As with the methods, attributes unknown to this class get delegated to the GD::Text::Align class.

Get the current value of an attribute. All attributes mentioned under the CWset() method can be retrieved

Returns the bounding box of the box that will be drawn with the current attribute settings as a list. The values returned are the coordinates of the upper left and lower right corner.

        ($left, $top, $right, $bottom) = $wrapbox->get_bounds();

Returns an empty list on error.

NOTE: The return list of this method may change in a future implementation that allows angled boxes.

Draw the box, with (x,y) as the top right corner. Returns the same values as the CWgetbounds() method.

NOTE: The return list of this method may change in a future implementation that allows angled boxes.

As with all Modules for Perl: Please stick to using the interface. If you try to fiddle too much with knowledge of the internals of this module, you may get burned. I may change them at any time.

You can only use TrueType fonts with version of GD > 1.20, and then only if compiled with support for this. If you attempt to do it anyway, you will get errors.

Even though this module lives in the GD::Text namespace, it is not a GD::Text. It does however delegate a lot of its functionality to a contained object that is one (GD::Text::Align).

None that I know of, but that doesn't mean much. There may be some problems with exotic fonts, or locales and character encodings that I am not used to.

Angled boxes.

At the moment, the only bit of the box that is allowed to be unspecified and in fact must be unspecified, is the bottom. If there is enough need for it, I might implement more flexibility, in that that you need to only specify three of the four sides of the box, and the fourth will be calculated.

Automatic resizing of a TrueType font to fit inside a box when four sides are specified, or maybe some other nifty things.

More flexibility in the interface. Especially draw needs some thought.

More and better error handling.

Warnings for lines that are too long and stick out of the box. Warning for emptyish lines?

copyright 1999 Martien Verbruggen (mgjv@comdyn.com.au)

GD, GD::Text, GD::Text::Align