Some months ago I bought the Formatted Text control.
Almost immediately I learned it didnt work under 64 bit, and shelved it.
So basically money thrown away so far…
I have spent the last month trying to get some use from it ,but Im finding the example project simply too ‘wrapped’ to make any sense out of it. Tracking down what happens when a menu is selected or an event happens on screen is kinda convoluted.
Does anyone have a simpler example of how it can be used?
What do I want?
I want to present an area to a user where they can enter /paste text, and change the color, font, size and alignment.
I want to allow them to paste small images, (preferably inline with text, but that doesn’t seem to be possible)
I want the design area to be the same shape as a piece of paper such as A4 or Letter, (scrollable is fine) and I don’t want to get more than one page happening.
Finally (the end game) , I want to be able to embed what they create into a PDF at a good resolution (I use DynaPDFMBS)
What problems am I having?
The example project has more code than many apps do.
It maintains an internal bitmap view of the screen, but it’s low resolution and only holds the visible area, rather than the whole page (I could have pasted the image into the PDF if it existed entire)
So… anyone have a simpler example of the control on a dialog, or a recommendation for something easier to use than FTC?
I’m sure I heard that Christian had managed to redo the required underlying library into 64 bit
That should allow the Xojo IDE to become 64 bit, I also hear.
So, not too worried about the 64 bit aspect…
(I trialled 64bit on OSX, it worked, but Im currently shipping 32bit.
Windows 64 bit doesn’t seem to be stable yet.)
But as far as I can tell, it’s Bob’s example code I can’t understand.
Theres so many options and windows and classes built on helper classes…
You probably wouldn’t want to use the bitmap for the PDF as the user is entering text, if you render the bitmap to the PDF you would lose the text content (it wouldn’t be selectable, or usable.)
HTML Edit might be simpler for you to use, image support is almost built in. With a little hacking you can store the actual image in the data you send to/from the control instead of the URI. Though to be upfront about where it may not work for you: It does not have a way to limit the user to 1 page, or do word-processor style layout of images and text.
I’m happy to answer any questions to find out if it’s the right solution for you
Ive already been looking at that. It’s much simpler to follow, (not yet sure about the image part).
Happy to chat about it if I have any questions after I’ve given it a run around the block.
To be fair, we are not the original authors of FTC. So yeah, even after all these years I find it little obtuse. Try updating it with new features. That’s fun I tell you. NOT.
I think the trick with FTC is to start simple and add to it. The demo has a bunch of moving pieces but start with the plain FormattedText canvas subclass. Add it to a window. See what does and doesn’t work and then poke around in the demo to see where it’s being manipulated.
Also, it might be worth looking at the smaller demo’s that are part of the download package rather than using the all-inclusive demo. Those are a lot simpler to work with and understand. With what you’re saying, I’d probably start with the Formatting Demo project. Has a single window with FTC and a formatting toolbar that updates as you change selections and cursor location.
As far as 64 bit is concerned, we’ve had it working in 64 bit. TextInputCanvas has been redone to include 64 bit but the project is using XojoScript which is not 64 bit yet. So if you strip the XojoScript stuff out it runs.
But I have no real plans on 64 bit until XojoScript works in it and we can use the debugger with it. Debugging without the debugger is…um…a pain to put it mildly.
I bought FTC in the last month and assumed it compiled as 64-bit just tried and it gives the following error:
So thanks for telling me!
My plan is to incorporate all of the FTC functionality into one Container at looks a lot like a MS Word for web ribbon. Pass the Container the document object and it does the rest. This will allow me to place it into any desktop project I want. If you want to check out the development version Click here. There are lots not yet functional. I’ve created it by copying the example code from Bob’s sample. This is what it looks like so far.
My aim for PDF is to export to HTML then use wkHTML2PDF to convert to PDF format. There is no DynaPDF importer for either RTF or HTML, I’ve asked!
Ive logged into the source code site and selected many items by clicking on download.
Nothing downloads for me, it just adds the name to the ‘list of things I have downloaded’
David… could you email the sample to me by any chance? (pm me)
[quote=264986:@Jeff Tullin]Some months ago I bought the Formatted Text control.
Almost immediately I learned it didnt work under 64 bit, and shelved it.
So basically money thrown away so far…
I have spent the last month trying to get some use from it ,but Im finding the example project simply too ‘wrapped’ to make any sense out of it. Tracking down what happens when a menu is selected or an event happens on screen is kinda convoluted.
Does anyone have a simpler example of how it can be used?
What do I want?
I want to present an area to a user where they can enter /paste text, and change the color, font, size and alignment.
I want to allow them to paste small images, (preferably inline with text, but that doesn’t seem to be possible)
I want the design area to be the same shape as a piece of paper such as A4 or Letter, (scrollable is fine) and I don’t want to get more than one page happening.
Finally (the end game) , I want to be able to embed what they create into a PDF at a good resolution (I use DynaPDFMBS)
What problems am I having?
The example project has more code than many apps do.
It maintains an internal bitmap view of the screen, but it’s low resolution and only holds the visible area, rather than the whole page (I could have pasted the image into the PDF if it existed entire)
So… anyone have a simpler example of the control on a dialog, or a recommendation for something easier to use than FTC?[/quote]
Hey Jeff, is this work in progress? What’s the state of your own TextInputCanvas? There’s no documentation for this plugin
I gave up.
I struggled to incorporate it into an app of my own, and since it wasn’t 64 bit, there wasn’t any point in wasting time on it.
Sometimes you buy stuff and never use it. It’s currently under the stairs with the icecream maker and the foot spa.
I see it is 64 bit now, so maybe I’ll have another try next year.
