Justifying Text

Date:    Fri, 7 Jul 1995 03:18:19 -0400
From:    "Terry R. Schussler (gray matter design)" <Schussler@AOL.COM>
Subject: justifying text- can it be done?

> Does anyone know of a way to justify text flush left _and_ right? Is
> there an Xobject that will do this trick? Any help appreciated. Thanks.

Yes! Here's a function I wrote for The MediaBook CD for Director which provides what you need. You could call it in a repeat loop to format a series of lines if desired. Enjoy.

Terry R. Schussler
gray matter design
mediabook@aol.com

  justifyString(theString, justification, displayWidth)

Syntax

theString -- a string
justification -- a symbol representing the justification desired - #left, #right, #center
displayWidth -- an integer number of characters to format the string within

Returns

A string formatted as required.

Description

This function will justify the string 'theString' within displayWidth characters and then return the formatted result Lingo Code:

on justifyString theString, justification, displayWidth
  -- record the length of theString
  put length(theString) into theChars
  -- left justification
  if justification = #left then
    -- add the necessary spaces to the end of theString
    put spaces(displayWidth - theChars) after theString
    -- return the formatted string
    return theString
    exit
  end if
  -- right justification
  if justification = #right then
    -- add the necessary spaces to the beginning of theString
    put spaces(displayWidth - theChars) before theString
    -- return the formatted string
    return theString
    exit
  end if
  -- center justification
  if justification = #center then
    -- how many characters are not being used by theString?
    put displayWidth - theChars into blanks
    -- divide the result in half
    put blanks/2 into half
    -- put half of the spaces at the beginning of theString
    put spaces(half) before theString
    -- put half of the spaces at the end of theString
    put spaces(blanks-half) after theString
    -- return the formatted string
    return theString
    exit
  end if
  -- no justification was asked for so return theString as it is
  return theString
end justifyString


-- this utility function will return
-- a string of howMany spaces
on spaces howMany
  -- initialize the space container
  put EMPTY into answer
  -- start putting spaces into the container
  repeat with counter = 1 to howMany
    put " " after answer
  end repeat
  -- return the string of spaces
  return answer
end spaces

How You Can Use It

You can use this function to format text display for onscreen fields and printing.

You can use this function to limit or truncate a string to a specific number of characters.