GD::Text::Align(3)

NAME
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
METHODS
NOTES
BUGS
COPYRIGHT
SEE ALSO

NAME

       GD::Text::Align - Draw aligned strings

SYNOPSIS

         use GD;
         use GD::Text::Align;

         my $gd = GD::Image->new(800,600);
         # allocate colours, do other things.

         my $align = GD::Text::Align->new($gd
           valign => 'top',
           halign => 'right',
         );
         $align->set_font('arial', 12);
         $align->set_text('some string');
         @bb = $align->bounding_box(200, 400, PI/3);
         # you can do things based on the bounding box here
         $align->draw(200, 400, PI/3);

DESCRIPTION

       GD::Text::Align provides an object that draws a string
       aligned to a coordinate at an angle.

       For builtin fonts only two angles are valid: 0 and PI/2.
       All other angles will be converted to one of these two.

METHODS

       This class inherits everything from GD::Text. I will only
       discuss the methods and attributes here that are not dis-
       cussed there, or that have a different interface or
       behaviour. Methods directly inherited include "set_text"
       and "set_font".

       GD::Text::Align->new($gd_object, attrib => value, ...)

       Create a new object. The first argument to new has to be a
       valid GD::Image object. The other arguments will be passed
       on to the set method.

       $align->set(attrib => value, ...)

       Set an attribute. Valid attributes are the ones discussed
       in GD::Text and:

       valign, halign
           Vertical and horizontal alignment of the string. See
           also set_valign and set_halign.

       colour, color
           Synonyms. The colour to use to draw the string. This
           should be the index of the colour in the GD::Image
           object's palette. The default value is the last colour
           in the GD object's palette at the time of the creation
           of $align.

       $align->get(attribute)

       Get the value of an attribute.  Valid attributes are all
       the attributes mentioned in GD::Text, the attributes men-
       tioned under the "set" method and

       x, y and angle
           The x and y coordinate and the angle to be used. You
           can only do this after a call to the draw or bound-
           ing_box methods. Note that these coordinates are not
           necessarily the same ones that were passed in.
           Instead, they are the coordinates from where the GD
           methods will start drawing. I doubt that this is very
           useful to anyone.

       Note that while you can set the colour with both 'color'
       and 'colour', you can only get it as 'colour'. Sorry, but
       such is life in Australia.

       $align->set_valign(value)

       Set the vertical alignment of the string to one of 'top',
       'center', 'base' or 'bottom'. For builtin fonts the last
       two are the same. The value 'base' denotes the baseline of
       a TrueType font.  Returns true on success, false on fail-
       ure.

       $align->set_halign(value)

       Set the horizontal alignment of the string to one of
       'left', 'center', or 'right'.  Returns true on success,
       false on failure.

       $align->set_align(valign, halign)

       Set the vertical and horizontal alignment. Just here for
       convenience.  See also "set_valign" and "set_halign".
       Returns true on success, false on failure.

       $align->draw(x, y, angle)

       Draw the string at coordinates x, y at an angle angle in
       radians. The x and y coordinate become the pivot around
       which the string rotates.

       Note that for the builtin GD fonts the only two valid
       angles are 0 and PI/2.

       Returns the bounding box of the drawn string (see "bound-
       ing_box()").

       $align->bounding_box(x, y, angle)

       Return the bounding box of the string to draw. This
       returns an eight-element list (exactly like the
       GD::Image->stringTTF method):

         (x1,y1) lower left corner
         (x2,y2) lower right corner
         (x3,y3) upper right corner
         (x4,y4) upper left corner

       Note that upper, lower, left and right are relative to the
       string, not to the canvas.

       The bounding box can be used to make decisions about
       whether to move the string or change the font size prior
       to actually drawing the string.

NOTES

       As with all Modules for Perl: Please stick to using the
       interface. If you try to fiddle too much with knowledge of
       the internals of this module, you may get burned. I may
       change them at any time.

       You can only use TrueType fonts with version of GD > 1.20,
       and then only if compiled with support for this. If you
       attempt to do it anyway, you will get errors.

       In the following, terms like 'top', 'upper', 'left' and
       the like are all relative to the string to be drawn, not
       to the canvas.

BUGS

       Any bugs inherited from GD::Text.

COPYRIGHT

       copyright 1999 Martien Verbruggen (mgjv@comdyn.com.au)

GD::Text::Align(3)

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