Justify Alignment for Text

[g2mediagroup]

I will add to the vote for text justification tools! That has been assumed on almost ALL text related programs for many years...just say'n...not trying to complain, but...guess I just did!

[ArenMook]

Planned. Soon.

[renanse]

Yay!!

[renanse]

Any chance the character spacing added recently is related to justify?   

[ArenMook]

Sorry no... I haven't tackled this yet. Character spacing is just that -- spacing on every single character. Justification involves adding spaces only between certain characters, so it's basically a "post-process" on a line of text -- so it's a different task.

[sunspider]

Wow. NGUI seems so feature packed... it's sort of amazing that I can't justify my text   

[pretender]

This would be great!

[renanse]

Bump.  Maybe you could point me to the best place to implement this and I could take a crack at it?

[ArenMook]

Horizontal text alignment is done in a single function: NGUIText.Align. The tricky thing about justified alignment is that you'd want to modify vertices 4 at a time rather than individually, and to position them in a manner that spaces them out. The reason I haven't done this already is because Unity's TextAlignment enum doesn't have "justified" in it. Just left, center and right. My own fault for using it in the first place I suppose.

[renanse]

It looks as though you aren't using that enum in a way where it would be relatively painless to switch it out for a custom enum.  It's not a field on any of the UI widgets, etc. at least, so no prefab issues with switching types. 

[Unisip]

+1 for text justification
I read in the thread that it is planned, and I'm eager to have it integrated, as I'll need it very soon

[c4digit]

I created a quick hack for it. It works but haven't tested for speed with large text. It also overwrites the Left enum, but could easily add a Justify enum
UIFont.cs
public void Print
add the following
         int textLength = text.Length;

         // lets figure out justification here should probably do it earlier if this is too slow
         int maxlineWidth = 0;
         int currentLineWidth = 0;
         int numberSpaces = 0;
         List<int> lineWidths = new List<int>();
         List<int> lineSpaces = new List<int>();
         for (int i = 0; i < textLength; ++i) {
            char c = text;
            if (c == '\n') {
               lineWidths.Add(currentLineWidth);
               lineSpaces.Add(numberSpaces);
               if (currentLineWidth > maxlineWidth)
                  maxlineWidth = currentLineWidth;
               currentLineWidth = 0; numberSpaces = 0;
            }
            else {
               if (c == ' ')
                  numberSpaces++;
               BMGlyph glyph = mFont.GetGlyph(c);
               if (glyph != null)
                  currentLineWidth += glyph.advance;
            }
         }
         int lineArrayPos = 0;
         int spaceExtra = 0;
         if (lineWidths.Count > 0)
            spaceExtra = (maxlineWidth - lineWidths[lineArrayPos]) / lineSpaces[lineArrayPos];

then inside if (c == '\n')
               lineArrayPos++;
               if (lineArrayPos < lineWidths.Count && lineSpaces[lineArrayPos] != 0)
                  spaceExtra = (maxlineWidth - lineWidths[lineArrayPos]) / lineSpaces[lineArrayPos];
               else
                  spaceExtra = 0;

then find later down
               if (c == ' ')
               {
                  x += mSpacingX + glyph.advance + spaceExtra; // added spaceExtra at end
                  prev = c;
                  continue;
               }

[renanse]

Neat!

[ArenMook]

The trick is also modifying PrintCaretAndSelection and PrintCharacterPositions, and making sure it all works with spacing, font scale adjustments, and UIRoot scale adjustments. But still, nice, thanks.

[leothenorseman]

Hi, I became a member just so I could request justified text. I am UI artist for a game company, and my colleagues and I often wish we could justify text. It's a part of graphic design, so it is often required for layouts. Thanks!