How do I display static text
Perhaps the most basic task for any UI toolkit is drawing plain text on the screen. In wxPython, this is accomplished with the wx.StaticText class. Figure 7.1 displays the static text control.
In a wx.StaticText, you can change the alignment, font, and color of the text. A single static text widget can contain multiple lines of text, however, it cannot handle multiple fonts or styles. For multiple fonts or styles, use a more elaborate text control, such as wx.html.HTMLWindow, described in chapter 16. To display multiple lines within a static text control, include a string with newline characters inside it, and make the control big enough to display all the text. One feature that you cannot see from just the figure is that the wx.StaticText window never receives or responds to mouse events, and never takes the user focus.
- Figure 7.1 Samples of wx.StaticText, including font, alignment, and color changes
How to display static text
Listing 7.1 displays the code that produced figure 7.1.
Listing 7.1 A basic example of how to use static text import wx
1, 'Static Text Example',
Viewing basic static text is an example of static text", <-
Designating reversed colors
Designating center aligned class StaticTextFrame(wx.Frame):
wx.Frame._init_(self, None, size=(4 00, 300)) panel = wx.Panel(self, -1) wx.StaticText(panel, -1, "This (100, 10)) rev = wx.StaticText(panel, -1,
"Static Text With Reversed Colors" (100, 30)) rev.SetForegroundColour('white') rev.SetBackgroundColour('black') center = wx.StaticText(panel, -1, "align center", (100, 50), (160, -1), wx.ALIGN_CENTER) center.SetForegroundColour('white') center.SetBackgroundColour('black') right = wx.StaticText(panel, -1, "align right", (100, 70), (160, -1), wx.ALIGN_RIGHT) right.SetForegroundColour('white') right.SetBackgroundColour('black') str = "You can also change the font, text = wx.StaticText(panel, -1, str, font = wx.Font(18, wx.DECORATIVE, wx.ITALIC, wx.NORMAL) text.SetFont(font) wx.StaticText(panel, -1,
"Your text\ncan be split\n" "over multiple lines\n\neven blank ones", wx.StaticText(panel, -1,
"Multi-line text\ncan also\n" "be right aligned\n\neven with a blank", (220,150) style=wx.ALIGN_RIGHT)
Designating right aligned
Defining a new font
Displaying multi-lines
^^ Displaying aligned multi-lines if __name__ == '__main__': app = wx.PySimpleApp() frame = StaticTextFrame() frame.Show() app.MainLoop()
The constructor for wx.StaticText is identical to the basic wxWidget constructors, as in the following:
wx.StaticText(parent, id, label, pos=wx.DefaultPosition, size=wx.DefaultSize, style=0, name="staticText")
Table 7.1 displays what the parameters are—most wxPython widgets have a similar set in their constructor. Refer to the widget discussion in chapter 2 for a more detailed description of constructor parameters.
|
Parameter |
Purpose |
|
parent |
The containing widget |
|
id |
The wxPython identifier. To automatically create a unique identifier, use -1 |
|
label |
Contains the text that you want to display in the static control. |
|
pos |
The position of the widget as a wx.Point object or a Python tuple |
|
size |
The size of the widget as a wx.Size object or a Python tuple |
|
style |
The style flag |
|
name |
Name used for finding the object |
In the next section, we'll discuss style flags in more detail. Working with the styles
All of the methods called on the static text instances in listing 7.1 belong to the parent wx.Window class; wx.StaticText defines no new methods of its own. A few style bits are specific to wx.StaticText, and they are listed in table 7.2.
|
Style |
Description |
|
wx.ALIGN_CENTER |
Centers the static text within the size rectangle of the static text widget. |
|
wx.ALIGN_LEFT |
The text is left-aligned in the widget. This is the default. |
|
wx.ALIGN_RIGHT |
The text is right-aligned in the widget. |
|
wx.ST_NO_AUTORESIZE |
If this bit is used, the static text widget will not resize itself after the text is changed with SetLabel(). You would use this in conjunction with a center or right-aligned control to preserve the alignment. |
The wx.StaticText control overrides SetLabel() in order to resize itself based on the new text, which happens unless the wx.st_no_autoresize style is set.
When creating a single line static text control with a center or right alignment, you should explicitly set the size of the control in the constructor. Specifying the size prevents wxPython from automatically sizing the control. The wxPython default size is the minimum rectangle surrounding the text. Since by default the text control is no larger than the text contained, and there is no blank space to show the alignment, it is irrelevant whether the control is left, right, or center aligned. To change the text in the widget dynamically during the program without changing the size of the control, set the wx.st_no_autoresize style. This prevents the widget from resizing itself back to a minimum rectangle after the text is reset. If the static text is inside a dynamic layout, changing its size may move other widgets on the screen, creating a distraction for the user.
Other techniques for text display
There are other ways of adding static text onto your display. One is the wx.lib.stattext.GenStaticText class, which is a Python-only reimplementation of wx.StaticText. It is more consistent cross-platform than the standard C + + version, and it receives mouse events. It's also preferable when you want to subclass and create your own static text control.
You can draw text directly to your device context using the DrawText(text, x, y) method or the DrawRotatedText(text, x, y, angle) method. The latter is the easiest way to add angled text to your display, although a subclass of GenStatic-Text that handles rotation is also available. Device contexts were covered briefly in chapter 6, and will be covered in more detail in chapter 12.
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