[Solved] Much faster static text widget

[ShadowTiger]

I need to do what CE suggested in this thread... however I have no idea how to do this.

" I would suggest skinning DefaultWindow using the Falagard/Default window renderer to create a basic label class and replace the static text instances with that, since - unless you want scrollbars and a bunch of other bloat in your labels - this will lighten the load considerably IMO."

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=5229&p=25505&hilit=static+text#p25505

Right now, I create all my windows using the create("") function in C++, I don't usually mess with layouts, looknfeels or schemes.

I tried modifying the existing windows such as WindowsLook/StaticText but it gives errors, I'm guessing i would have to change the CEGUI source code for this method to work.

the reason why I am doing this is for performance reasons, it seems like static text is about 10 times slower to create than a static image. Hopefully I can make them equal.

I am really lost here... maybe someone can give me a list of steps on how to do this?

Heres what I have:

1. Add a new entry to windowslook.looknfeel.
2. Add a new entry to windowslook.scheme and windowslookwidgets.scheme (why is there 2?)
3. Start using it in the code.

I'm using cegui 7.5.

[Jamarr]

I believe this post covers everything: viewtopic.php?p=22795#p22795

[ShadowTiger]

Hey, thanks to Jamarr for the link... great success.

I reduced the load time of my GUI from 1.156 seconds to 0.051 seconds... 95% reduction in load times!!!

That was with 61 Static Text widgets being used (in addition to dozens of image windows).

If you are using a static text widget... I highly recommend you implement this change immediately.

Heres the code to put in your looknfeel, I put in some properties for backwards compatibility. Note that frame enabled and background enabled don't do anything.

Edit: It looks like the spacing is different... trying to fix that now...

VertFormatProperty and HorzFormatProperty are not being used on the window...

to be specific, you can left/right and top/bottom align the text, but you cannot centre align them or word wrap them... making this window almost useless to me.

Code: Select all

<!--
    ***************************************************
        WindowsLook/StaticLabel
    ***************************************************
    -->
    <WidgetLook name="WindowsLook/StaticLabel">
    <PropertyDefinition name="FrameEnabled" initialValue="false" redrawOnWrite="false" />
    <PropertyDefinition name="BackgroundEnabled" initialValue="false" redrawOnWrite="false" />
    <PropertyDefinition name="TextColours" initialValue="tl:FFFFFFFF tr:FFFFFFFF bl:FFFFFFFF br:FFFFFFFF"  redrawOnWrite="true" />
    <PropertyDefinition name="VertFormatting" initialValue="CentreAligned" redrawOnWrite="true" />
    <PropertyDefinition name="HorzFormatting" initialValue="CentreAligned" redrawOnWrite="true" />
    <ImagerySection name="label">
        <TextComponent>
            <Area>
                <Dim type="LeftEdge"><AbsoluteDim value="0" /></Dim>
                <Dim type="TopEdge"><AbsoluteDim value="0" /></Dim>
                <Dim type="Width"><UnifiedDim scale="1" type="Width" /></Dim>
                <Dim type="Height"><UnifiedDim scale="1" type="Height" /></Dim>
            </Area>
            <VertFormatProperty name="VertFormatting" />
            <HorzFormatProperty name="HorzFormatting" />
        </TextComponent>
    </ImagerySection>
    <StateImagery name="Enabled">
        <Layer>
            <Section section="label">
         <ColourRectProperty name="TextColours" />
         </Section>
        </Layer>
    </StateImagery>
    <StateImagery name="Disabled">
        <Layer>
            <Section section="label">
         <ColourRectProperty name="TextColours" />
         </Section>
        </Layer>
    </StateImagery>
    </WidgetLook>

here is the addition to the .scheme file... pretty basic

Code: Select all

<FalagardMapping WindowType="WindowsLook/StaticLabel"      TargetType="DefaultWindow" Renderer="Falagard/Default"      LookNFeel="WindowsLook/StaticLabel" />

[ShadowTiger]

Does anyone know if the default window renderer will allow me to use Word wrap and and centering of text?

It doesn't seem to work. Also, I tried using a static window renderer and that didn't seem to support this either, and I couldn't get colours to show up but maybe im doing it wrong.

I really feel like I should just modify the cegui library directly at this point since its so difficult to figure out what will work and what wont with the xml.

However I would like to avoid this if possible because it makes upgrading to new version harder. It would also be alot of work figuring out what to change and where.

[Kulik]

Does anyone know if the default window renderer will allow me to use Word wrap and and centering of text?

It will. See the code in this thread.

[ShadowTiger]

I was using stuff like "HorzCentred" and "VertCentred"

Maybe these are deprecated and left for backwards compatibility in the static-text widget... but not for other widgets

switching to "centreAligned" seems to fix this.

Yeah... thanks for pointing out that what I had was correct.