Defold-RichText is a system to create styled text based on an HTML inspired markup language.

You can use RichText in your own project by adding this project as a Defold library dependency. Open your game.project file and in the dependencies field under project add:

https://github.com/britzl/defold-richtext/archive/master.zip

Or point to the ZIP file of a specific release.

The markup format is HTML inspired, but not intended to be fully compatible with standard HTML. Just like in HTML the idea is that sections of text can be enclosed in matching start and end tags:

This is a <b>bold</b> statement!

This is a bold statement!

Nested elements are supported. Use this to give a section of text a combination of styles:

This is a <b>bold <i>italic</i></b> statement!

This is a bold italic statement!

The following tags are supported:

Note that there is no need for the HTML <br/> tag since line breaks (i.e. \n) are parsed and presented by the system. Note that a single <br> (ie without a closing or empty tag) isn't supported (even though most browsers accept it).

The following named colors are supported:

Name	Hex value	Swatch
aqua	#00ffffff
black	#000000ff
blue	#0000ffff
brown	#a52a2aff
cyan	#00ffffff
darkblue	#0000a0ff
fuchsia	#ff00ffff
green	#008000ff
grey	#808080ff
lightblue	#add8e6ff
lime	#00ff00ff
magenta	#ff00ffff
maroon	#800000ff
navy	#000080ff
olive	#808000ff
orange	#ffa500ff
purple	#800080ff
red	#ff0000ff
silver	#c0c0c0ff
teal	#008080ff
white	#ffffffff
yellow	#ffff00ff

You can add your own named colors as well:

local color = require "richtext.color"

color.add("blood", "#8A0303")
color.add("asparagus", "#87a96b")
color.add("denim", "#1560bd")

The RichText library has limited support for HTML entities (reserved characters):

• > converts into >
• < converts into <
•   converts into a non-breaking space between two words, ie 100 km becomes 100 km with 100 and km acting as a single word with a space between.
• &zwsp; converts into a zero-width space character (\226\128\139). This is not an official HTML entity but it is provided as a convenient way to insert one into text.

The RichText library will create gui text nodes representing the markup in the text passed to the library. It will search for tags and split the entire text into words, where each word contains additional meta-data that is used to create and configure text nodes. This means that the library will create as many text nodes as there are words in the text.

A simple example with some color and linebreaks:

richtext.create("Single line text with a dash of <color=red>color</color>\nBy default left aligned.", "Roboto-Regular")

A more complex example with different fonts, colors, inline images and automatic linebreaks:

local settings = {
	fonts = {
		Roboto = {
			regular = hash("Roboto-Regular"),
			italic = hash("Roboto-Italic"),
			bold = hash("Roboto-Bold"),
			bold_italic = hash("Roboto-BoldItalic"),
		},
		Nanum = {
			regular = hash("Nanum-Regular"),
		},
	},
	width = 400,
	parent = gui.get_node("bg"),
	color = vmath.vector4(0.95, 0.95, 1.0, 1.0),
	shadow = vmath.vector4(0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0),
}

local text = "<size=3><outline=green>RichText</outline></size>Lorem <color=0,0.5,0,1>ipsum </color><img=smileys:zombie/> dolor <color=red>sit </color><color=#ff00ffff>amet, </color><size=1.15><font=Nanum>consectetur </font></size>adipiscing elit. <b>Nunc </b>tincidunt <b><i>mattis</i> libero</b> <i>non viverra</i>.\n\nNullam ornare <img=smileys:hungry/>accumsan rhoncus.\n\nNunc placerat nibh a purus auctor, id scelerisque massa <size=2>rutrum.</size>"

richtext.create(text, "Roboto", settings)

Custom tags can be accessed and used in two ways:

• Use richtext.tagged(words, tag) to get all words with a certain tag, even a custom one
• Use tags.register(tag, fn) to register a custom tag handler:

	tags.register("boldred", function(params, settings)
		tags.apply("color", "red", settings)
		tags.apply("b", nil, settings)
	end)
	richtext.create("I am <boldred>bold and red</boldred>!", "Roboto", settings)

Creates rich text gui nodes from a text containing markup.

PARAMETERS

• text (string) - The text to create rich text from
• font (string) - Name of default font. Must match the name of a font in the gui scene or a key in the fonts table in settings (see below).
• settings (table) - Optional table containing settings

The settings table can contain the following values:

• width (number) - Maximum width of a line of text. Omit this value to present the entire text on a single line
• position (vector3) - The position that the text aligns to (refer to the align setting for details). Defaults to 0,0 if not specified.
• size (number) - Default size of any created node. Same as using a <size=2> tag in the text. Defaults to 1 if not specified.
• parent (node) - GUI nodes will be attached to this node if specified.
• fonts (table) - Table with fonts, keyed on font name. See separate section below. If no fonts table is provided the font used will be the one passed to richtext.create().
• layers (table) - Table with font, texture and spine scene mappings to layer names. See separate section below.
• color (vector4) - The default color of text. Will be white if not specified.
• shadow (vector4) - The default shadow color of text. Will be transparent if not specified.
• outline (vector4) - The default outline color of text. Will be transparent if not specified.
• align (hash) - One of richtext.ALIGN_LEFT, richtext.ALIGN_CENTER, richtext.ALIGN_RIGHT and richtext.ALIGN_JUSTIFY. Defaults to richtext.ALIGN_LEFT. Defines how the words of a line of text are positioned in relation the provided position. Width must be specified for richtext.ALIGN_JUSTIFY.
• valign (hash) - One of richtext.VALIGN_TOP, richtext.VALIGN_MIDDLE and richtext.VALIGN_BOTTOM. Defaults to richtext.VALIGN_TOP. Defines how the words of a line of text are positioned vertically on the line.
• line_spacing (number) - Value to multiply line height with. Set to a value lower than 1.0 to reduce space between lines and a value higher than 1.0 to increase space between lines. Defaults to 1.0.
• paragraph_spacing (number) - Space to leave after lines with where <p> tags end. Relative to the line height. Defaults to 0.5 lines.
• image_pixel_grid_snap (boolean) - Set to true to position image on full pixels (positions rounded to nearest integer) to avoid effects of anti-aliasing. Defaults to false.
• combine_words (boolean) - Set to true to combine words with the same style on a line into a single node. This is useful for very long texts where the maximum number of nodes would exceed the limit set in the GUI. The disadvantage is that any per word operations will not work since the words have been combined.
• dryrun (boolean) - Set to true to perform a complete layout of the words without creating gui nodes.

The fonts table should have the following format:

	name (string) = {
		regular (string) = font (hash),
		italic (string) = font (hash),
		bold (string) = font (hash),
		bold_italic (string) = font (hash),
	},
	name (string) = {
		...
	},

Where name is the name specified in a <font> tag and the font for each of regular, italic, bold and bold_italic should correspond to the name of a font added to a .gui scene.

The layers table should map fonts, textures and spine scenes to layer names. It should have the following format:

	fonts = {
		font (hash) = layer (hash),
		...
		font (hash) = layer (hash),
	},
	images = {
		texture (hash) = layer (hash),
		...
		texture (hash) = layer (hash),
	},
	spinescenes = {
		spinescene (hash) = layer (hash),
		...
		spinescene (hash) = layer (hash),
	}

Where layer is the name of a layer in the .gui scene, font is the value returned from a call to gui.get_font(node), texture is the value returned from a call to gui.get_texture(node) and finally spinescene is the value returned from a call to gui.get_spine_scene(node).

RETURNS

• words (table) - A table with all the words that the text has been broken up into. Each word is represented by a table with keys such as node, tags, text etc
• metrics (table) - A table with text metrics.

The metrics table contains the following values:

• width (number) - Width of the text
• height (number) - Height of the text
• char_count (number) - Number of characters in the text including whitespace
• img_count (number) - Number of images in the text
• spine_count (number) - Number of spine models in the text

A word in the words table contains the following values:

• size (number) - Size of the word
• color (vector4) - Color of the word
• shadow (vector4) - Shadow color of the word
• outline (vector4) - Outline color of the word
• node (node) - The GUI node representing the word
• metrics (table) - Word metrics (width, height, total_width and additionally for text nodes: max_descent, max_ascent)
• font (string) - Font name
• text (string) - Word text (empty for non text nodes)

Get all words with a specific tag.

PARAMETERS

• words (table) - The words to search, as received by a call to richtext.create().
• tag (string) - Name of the tag to search for. Pass nil to get all words without tags.

RETURNS

• words (table) - A table with all the words that matches the tag.

Truncate a text down to a specific length. This function has two modes of operation: 1) It can truncate the text on a per word basis or 2) on a per character/image basis. The function will disable nodes that shouldn't be visible and in the case of truncating on a per character basis also update the text in nodes that should be partially visible. The text metrics of a truncated word will be updated.

PARAMETERS

• words (table) - The words to truncate, as received by a call to richtext.create().
• length (number) - Maximum number of words or characters and images to show.
• options (table) - Optional table with options when truncating.

Available options in the option table are:

• words (boolean) - True if the function should truncate down to the nearest full word instead of truncating to a partial word.

RETURNS

• word (table) - The last visible word.

Get the length of a text ignoring any tags except image and spine tags which are treated as having a length of 1.

PARAMETERS

• text (string|table) - The text to measure. This can either be a string or a list of words, as received by a call to richtext.create().

RETURNS

• length (number) - The length of the provided text.

Split a word into it's characters, including the creation of the gui nodes. Each of the characters will be given the same attributes as the word, and they will be positioned correctly within the word.

PARAMETERS

• word (table) - The word to split, as received from a call to richtext.create() or richtext.tagged().

RETURNS

• characters (table) - The individual characters of the word.

Call this function when a click/touch has been detected and your text contains words with an a tag. These words act as "hyperlinks" and will generate a message when clicked. The generated message will contain the following values:

• node_id (hash) - Id of the node which was clicked
• text (string) - Text of the clicked word
• screen_x (number) - Horizontal position of the click
• screen_y (number) - Vertical position of the click
• tags (table) - All tags on the clicked word

PARAMETERS

• words (table) - A list of words, as received from richtext.create() or richtext.tagged().
• action (table) - The action table from the on_input lifecycle function.

RETURNS

• consumed (boolean) - True if any word was clicked.

Removes all gui text nodes created by richtext.create().

PARAMETERS

• words (table) - Table of words, as received from a call to richtext.create().

Returns the words created by richtext.create() as a plain text string without any formatting or tags. Linebreaks are included in the returned string.

PARAMETERS

• words (table) - Table of words, as received from a call to richtext.create().

RETURNS

• plaintext (string) - Plain text version of the words.

Left-align text. The words of a line starts at the specified position (see richtext.create settings above).

Center text. The words of a line are centered on the specified position (see richtext.create settings above).

Right-align text. The words of a line ends at the specified position (see richtext.create settings above).

Justify text. The words of a line start at the specified position and are spaced such that the last character of the last word ends at the right edge of the line bounds (see richtext.create settings above).

Vertically align the words on a line so that the top of the words on the line align.

Vertically align the words on a line so that the middle of the words on the line align.

Vertically align the words on a line so that the bottom of the words on the line align.

• Smiley icons in example app from Flaticons
• UTF8 decoding from utf8.lua