Text Art... is it even possible

Veneficus · 07-21-2003, 05:27 AM

I am accustomed to programs such as MS Publisher, MS Word, and other document-creating software that includes text art (or Word Art for MS users). Things such as slanting or arcing text, etc. However, the only examples I have seen on-line of anyone using text art rely on graphics files and bandwidth-hogging images. I believe it should be possible to accomplish this strictly through the code, instead of using images. Am I right? Can it be coded? And if so, can someone please either tell me how or direct me to a place where I can learn.

beetle · 07-21-2003, 05:50 AM

This *could* be done, but I've never seen it, and it would be alot of work.

There's no "ready-made" solution that I know of, sorry.

Veneficus · 07-21-2003, 06:17 AM

I don't expect it to be easy. I didn't really expect a ready-made solution either. But I am kind of hoping that maybe someone else has thought about this in the past and/or knows something they can teach me.

beetle · 07-21-2003, 07:47 AM

I'm not 100% positive on how long this would take, but it would be fairly complicated and not something I'm personally prepared to become involved with.

cg9com · 07-21-2003, 10:02 AM

Clarify?
You mean making images with code?
Anything that would be done, will take alot of actual code, and wouldn't completely rule out just using an image anyway.

You can use PHP to draw lines, fill in color etc.
But that would also be time consuming, and need alot of loading.

Roy Sinclair · 07-21-2003, 05:15 PM

SVG is a standard specification which allows for text being strung out along a path (not just a straight line).

Of course the browser has to have the SVG plugin, Flash allows the same thing with wider support right now but it's not a standard like SVG.

beetle · 07-21-2003, 05:46 PM

For the record (since I didn't say) I was thinking of DHTML solutions using HTML text.

Veneficus · 07-21-2003, 09:44 PM

Well, I've been doing some searching, and got the hint that maybe Java can accomplish what I want. The problem is, I'm not understanding all of this yet. I obviously have some studying to do.

swmr · 07-28-2003, 10:49 AM

This probably isn't what you're looking to do, but I found it interesting: ASCII Generator is a free program that converts images to text (which could then be manupulated w/javascript). Setting the font-size to 1px shows the greatest detail...

Drakain Zeil · 08-07-2003, 04:59 AM

1pixel font kinda defeats the purpse eh?

.

I beleive the effect you are looking for can be done in PHP, how to do it is somthing I'm not sure of.

jkd · 08-07-2003, 05:28 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Roy Sinclair
Of course the browser has to have the SVG plugin

Or native support for the SVG namespace, like Mozilla or Amaya.

swmr · 08-07-2003, 02:11 PM

Quote:

1pixel font kinda defeats the purpse eh?

Well, no... but the file size becomes a problem.

Roy Sinclair · 08-07-2003, 03:38 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by jkd
Or native support for the SVG namespace, like Mozilla or Amaya.

Mozilla doesn't have native support yet. I know a group is working on it and I can get a draft version but it isn't in the released versions yet.

jkd · 08-07-2003, 06:11 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Roy Sinclair
Mozilla doesn't have native support yet. I know a group is working on it and I can get a draft version but it isn't in the released versions yet.

It just takes a compiler flag to enable it. I've been using SVG builds since 1.0. Check in the directory with the other releases, you'll see them available for download.