I hate to do text in games. Is there any good widgets etc?

[Outcast]

I really love to make games, but one thing I really dislike to do is the UI, and even more I despise to do the actual text on it, for example the text for information boxes etc. I have looked at some examples etc in the past and I have got some that works quite well, but it is still a drag to work with I have found. Especially when you have different needs, for example you might need one text blitter to be centered over an object with as much space both to the right and the left. Or you might need your text to auto adjust within a given space, like in a speak bubble.

What widgets and examples do you guys use? Is there some really good ones out there that I might have missed that makes this a lot easier and straightforward? I work cross platform so I only use extensions that are supported on all platforms (mobile,flash,html5 etc)

[BoxFigs]

I always use Strings for text. It's easy to create and manipulate text with it.

I used Formatted Text when I was starting out, but that was a pain to use because Auto Vertical Scrollbar is enabled by default and it needed a background color that matched whatever was behind it. The latter makes it look bad over anything that isn't a solid color. The guide specifically says the String object's "purpose is not to display complex strings or text: use the Formatted Text or the Rich Edit text objects instead.", which is why I used Formatted Text at first. I don't really see why, though.

By the way, if you're going to have a bunch of separate Strings in one frame that all have the same font/size/color, it's easier to clone the objects instead of setting up the formatting all over again.

[Outcast]

But strings is problem since you need to have the font used installed on the machine to display the correct font?

[DaveC]

A good place to start/build from is the various text blitting tutorials/guides found here - http://www.diybandits.com.au/MMF/tut...textblit1.html

[Skyhunter]

But strings is problem since you need to have the font used installed on the machine to display the correct font?

You can use font embeed extension to pack the font in the app.

[Outcast]

Font embeed extension only windows?

[BartekB]

I'm actually really interested in this, I'll have a go at making a widget or something like that

[schrodinger]

I recall having some problems with font embed extension.
Worked on some machines but not on others...

Having something solid for font embedding would be really, really useful.

[BartekB]

So I was messing about with this for quite a long time and reached this state:
string_widget_test.mfa
You can have your own fonts, pretty easy to use, has line breaks and you can angle and scale your text.

The only thing that this is missing is text alignment and some other stuff
To make the Character Sheet, simply place the Character Image Object, click generate from font and save all the frames inside it.
Then load all the frames in a new animation inside the TypeFont Active.
(Don't actually use it though, it corrupted my .mfa for some reason. So when you generate your font, remove the object)

Don't have Character Image Object?
CharacterImage.zip

[Robotica]

Scroll down on this link to "RPG Text Widget":

http://www.castles-of-britain.com/mmfexamples-q.htm