UI Label Widget text ignores newline character

[StOneDOes]

The UI label widget appears to ignore the \n newline character, whereas the Text Area widget utilizes it correctly.

Is this the expected behaviour? Because for something like on-screen debug info I personally would prefer to have a single widget with all the text assigned to the one label, rather than having eg. 10 label widgets and having to set their positions.

[SpiderPig]

I've noticed the same thing and I think it's intended but not positive.  You can probably use the textarea widget and set its background to be transparent.

[Josh]

This is the intended behavior. The TextArea widget is intended for displaying multi-line text.

It might be possible in the future for labels to support multiple lines, but it needs to be done carefully because labels have a lot of alignment options in their style flags.

[Josh]

Actually, I take that back. I already programmed it with multi-line support:

#include "UltraEngine.h"

using namespace UltraEngine;

int main(int argc, const char* argv[])
{
    //Get the displays
    auto displays = GetDisplays();

    //Create a window
    auto window = CreateWindow("Ultra Engine", 0, 0, 800, 600, displays[0]);

    //Create User Interface
    auto ui = CreateInterface(window);

    //Create widget
    auto label1 = CreateLabel("First line\nSecond line\nThird line", 20, 20, 120, 60, ui->root, LABEL_BORDER | LABEL_CENTER | LABEL_MIDDLE );

    while (window->Closed() == false)
    {
        WaitEvent();
    }
    return 0;
}

However, when a 3D GUI is in use the line return is ignored:

#include "UltraEngine.h"

using namespace UltraEngine;

int main(int argc, const char* argv[])
{
    auto displays = GetDisplays();
    auto window = CreateWindow("Ultra Engine", 0, 0, 800, 600, displays[0]);
    auto framebuffer = CreateFramebuffer(window);

    auto world = CreateWorld();
    auto camera = CreateCamera(world, PROJECTION_ORTHOGRAPHIC);
    camera->SetPosition(float(framebuffer->size.x) * 0.5f, float(framebuffer->size.y) * 0.5f, 0);

    auto font = LoadFont("Fonts/arial.ttf");
    auto ui = CreateInterface(world, font, framebuffer->size);
    auto label = CreateLabel("First line\nSecond line\nThird line", 20, 20, 120, 60, ui->root, LABEL_BORDER | LABEL_CENTER | LABEL_MIDDLE );

    while (window->Closed() == false)
    {
        world->Update();
        world->Render(framebuffer);
    }
    return 0;
}

So I need to adjust the sprite creation code to handle multi-line text and then everything should work the same in Vulkan.

[Josh]

Working on this now...

[reepblue]

Can text sprites also properly support this if they don't already? Would be nice to have for close captioning.

[Josh]

Yeah, that is the part I have done so far.

[Josh]

Here's an example of it working. I will have an update up shortly:

#include "UltraEngine.h"
#include "ComponentSystem.h"

using namespace UltraEngine;

#define UI3D

int main(int argc, const char* argv[])
{
    //Get the display list
    auto displays = GetDisplays();

    //Create a window
    auto window = CreateWindow("Ultra Engine", 0, 0, 1280, 720, displays[0], WINDOW_CENTER | WINDOW_TITLEBAR);

    //Create a world
    auto world = CreateWorld();
    world->SetAmbientLight(0);

    //Create a framebuffer
#ifdef UI3D
    auto framebuffer = CreateFramebuffer(window);
#endif

    //Create a camera
    auto camera = CreateCamera(world, PROJECTION_ORTHOGRAPHIC);
#ifdef UI3D    
    camera->SetPosition(float(framebuffer->size.x) * 0.5f,float(framebuffer->size.y) * 0.5f);
#endif

    auto font = LoadFont("Fonts/arial.ttf");
    auto sprite = CreateSprite(world, font, "AAAAAAAAAAAAA", 26, TEXT_CENTER | TEXT_MIDDLE, 400000.0f);

    auto ss = CreateSprite(world, 100, 100);
    ss->SetColor(1, 0, 0);

#ifdef UI3D    
    auto ui = CreateInterface(world, font, framebuffer->size);
#else
    auto ui = CreateInterface(window);
#endif

    auto label = CreateLabel("test 1\ntest line 2\ntest 3", 20, 20, 200, 200, ui->background, LABEL_BORDER | LABEL_MIDDLE | LABEL_RIGHT );

    //Main loop
    while (window->Closed() == false and window->KeyDown(KEY_ESCAPE) == false)
    {
        Sleep(10);
#ifdef UI3D 
        world->Update();
        world->Render(framebuffer);
#endif
    }
    return 0;
}