Java Development

[BlueBerry1988]

I have a field in which I need to draw text in a given range and if the text is long, it should wrap around. I tried to use Graphics.drawText(text, x, y, DrawStyle.TOP|DrawStyle.Left, width) but it seems to simply chops text at end.

What's the best way of wrapping text? I do hope that I do not have to compute number of words and manually draw each line...

Thanks

[pwerry · Accepted solution]

RIM does not currently expose their string wrapping algorithms through the public api set. You would have to calculate those yourself (very slow in java and quite complex) unless you throw your text into a text field.

[kylefowler]

I know this thread has been dead for a while but I just wanted to post this here in case anyone ever needs an algorithm for this... found this over on nokia's j2me boards, Ive modified it to work with BB api

private Vector wrap (String text, int width) 
	{
	    Vector result = new Vector ();
	    if (text ==null)
	       return result;
	 
	    boolean hasMore = true;
	 
	    // The current index of the cursor
	    int current = 0;
	 
	    // The next line break index
	    int lineBreak = -1;
	 
	    // The space after line break
	    int nextSpace = -1;
	 
	    while (hasMore) 
	    {
	       //Find the line break
	       while (true) 
	       {
	           lineBreak = nextSpace;
	           if (lineBreak == text.length() - 1) 
	           {
	               // We have reached the last line
	               hasMore = false;
	               break;
	           } 
	           else 
	           {
	               nextSpace = text.indexOf(' ', lineBreak+1);
	               if (nextSpace == -1)
	                  nextSpace = text.length() -1;
	               int linewidth = this.getFont().getAdvance(text,current, nextSpace-current);
	               // If too long, break out of the find loop
	               if (linewidth > width) 
	                  break;
	           }
	      }
	      String line = text.substring(current, lineBreak + 1);
	      result.addElement(line);
	      current = lineBreak + 1;
	 }
	 return result;
	}
	public void drawListRow(ListField lf, Graphics g, int row, int y, int width) {

		String sh = "whatever content you want";
		Vector lines = wrap(sh, textwidth);
		for (int i = 0; i < lines.size(); i++) 
		{
		      int liney = y + (i * this.getFont().getHeight());
		      g.drawText((String)lines.elementAt(i), 0 ,liney,TOP | LEFT | DrawStyle.ELLIPSIS, textwidth);
		     
		}	
	}

[sonicboomboy]

kylefowler

thanks a lot man! it really helped and was in time!

[Afzal]

Thanks a lot man ! I was looking for this from a long time...works like a charm !

Thank you so much.

Afzal

[Afzal]

Oops I found one case where the above code does not work i.e. when there are no spaces in the text. I did something on my own and it seems to work (until now at least )

private Vector wrap (String text, int width) 
	{
	    Vector result = new Vector ();
	  
	    String remaining = text;
	    
	    
	    while (remaining.length()>=0)
	    {
	    	int index = getSplitIndex(remaining, width);
	    	
	    	if (index == -1)
	    		break;
	    	
	    	result.addElement(remaining.substring(0,index));
	    	
	    	remaining = remaining.substring(index);
	    	
	    	if (index == 0)
	    		break;
	    }
	    
	    return result;
	}
	
	private int getSplitIndex(String bigString, int width)
	{
		int index = -1;
		int lastSpace = -1;
		String smallString="";
		boolean spaceEncountered = false;
		boolean maxWidthFound = false;
		
		for (int i=0; i<bigString.length(); i++)
		{
			char current = bigString.charAt(i);
			smallString += current;
			
			
			if (current == ' ')
			{
				lastSpace = i;
				spaceEncountered = true;
			}
			
			int linewidth = this.getFont().getAdvance(smallString,0,  smallString.length());
			
			if(linewidth>width)
			{
				if (spaceEncountered)
					index = lastSpace+1;
				else
					index = i;
				
				maxWidthFound = true;
				
				break;
				
				
			}
			
			
		}
		
		if (!maxWidthFound)
			index = bigString.length();
		
		
		return index;
	}

 I am still testing it.

Afzal

[CMY]

   public static Vector parseMessage(String message,Font fnt,int fontSize,int width){
      Vector parsedStrings = new Vector();
      int start = 0, stop = 0;
      Font f = fnt.derive(Font.PLAIN, fontSize, Ui.UNITS_px);
      int lineWidth = width;
      int numChars = message.length();

      boolean ok = false;
      start = 0;
      stop = 0;

      Character space  = new Character(' ');
      Character nLine  = new Character('\n');
      Character comma  = new Character(',');
      Character period = new Character('.');
      Character dash   = new Character('-');
      Character fslash = new Character('/');
      Character bslash = new Character('\\');

      while( (start < numChars) ){
         int check = start;
         int subLength = 0;
         while( !ok ){
            if( space.charValue() == message.charAt(check) ){
               subLength = f.getAdvance( message.substring(start, check) );
               if( subLength < lineWidth ) stop = check;
               else ok = true;
            } else
            if( comma.charValue() == message.charAt(check) ){
               subLength = f.getAdvance( message.substring(start, check) );
               if( subLength < lineWidth ) stop = check;
               else ok = true;
            } else
            if( period.charValue() == message.charAt(check) ){
               subLength = f.getAdvance( message.substring(start, check) );
               if( subLength < lineWidth ) stop = check;
               else ok = true;
            } else
            if( dash.charValue() == message.charAt(check) ){
               subLength = f.getAdvance( message.substring(start, check) );
               if( subLength < lineWidth ) stop = check;
               else ok = true;
            } else
            if( fslash.charValue() == message.charAt(check) ){
               subLength = f.getAdvance( message.substring(start, check) );
               if( subLength < lineWidth ) stop = check;
               else ok = true;
            } else
            if( bslash.charValue() == message.charAt(check) ){
               subLength = f.getAdvance( message.substring(start, check) );
               if( subLength < lineWidth ) stop = check;
               else ok = true;
            } else
            if( nLine.charValue() == message.charAt(check) ){
               stop = check;
               ok = true;
            } else
            if( f.getAdvance( message.substring(start, check) ) >= lineWidth ){
               ok = true;
            }

            if( !ok ){
               if( check == (numChars-1) ){
                  stop = check+1;
                  ok = true;
               } else {
                  check = check + 1;
               }
            }
         }

         if( stop == numChars ){
            parsedStrings.addElement( message.substring(start) );
         }else{
            parsedStrings.addElement( message.substring(start, stop) );
         }

         start = stop + 1;
         stop = start;
         ok = false;

      }
      return parsedStrings;
   }

Just to put in my two cents, here is a routine that I came up with that allows you to adjust for the font size. You can add or remove any of the delimiter characters to break up the string where you want.

[zuby52]

Hi Kylefowler,

thanks for the code, I am not sure if i made progress because the list displays but the text is blank and if a scrow down i see the blue background highlighter, so I can see if the text is wrapped or not.

-so i am  not sure what i am doing wrong?  

-first of, should the methods be in the ListCallBack class

Please everyone, I really need help on this , its the only thing left to complete my project.

Thanks in advance.