How to rotate the text label created with drawAtPoint or any other method

Scripting
1

Hi! I make a plugin for myself that will show a text label rotated with a specified angle.
I started with drawAtPoint_ , drawTextAtPoint and using NSAffineTransform.
But I can’t realize how to apply transformation to the drawn text.

The result I expect to achieve:
text-label-rotated

text = "211"
position = NSPoint(x, y)
angle = 25
attr = {fontsize, color}

label = NSAttributedString.alloc().initWithString_attributes_(text, attr)
#label.applyTransform(NSAffineTransform.transform().rotateByDegrees_(angle))
label.drawAtPoint_(position)

The Macro panel output printed an error for applyTransform:

AttributeError: 'NSConcreteAttributedString' object has no attribute 'applyTransform'

If this logic is wrong, the next thought is… to draw a rectangle/image, place the text in it, and transform it. Any ideas?

2

There is a helper method provided by Glyphs:

handleSize = -1 # if -1, it will follow the user defaults UI size. Otherwise use 0–2
color = None # if None, it will use "NSColor.textColor()"
"""
alignment can pick from one of the following.
GSTopLeft
GSTopCenter
GSTopRight
GSCenterLeft
GSCenterCenter
GSCenterRight
GSBottomLeft
GSBottomCenter
GSBottomRight
"""
alignment = GSCenterLeft
label.drawAtPoint_angle_offset_handleSize_color_alignment_(position, angle, 4, handleSize, color, alignment)
3

@GeorgSeifert Thanks.
Should I import some additional module to make that helper works?
I tried it on both Glyphs 3.1.2 and the latest cutting edge version.

from __future__ import division, print_function
from GlyphsApp import *
from GlyphsApp.plugins import *

@objc.python_method
def foreground(self, layer):

	label = NSAttributedString.alloc().initWithString_attributes_(
		'Hello',
		{
			NSFontAttributeName: NSFont.labelFontOfSize_(10 / self.getScale()),
			NSForegroundColorAttributeName: NSColor.brownColor()
		}
	)
	label.drawAtPoint_angle_offset_handleSize_color_alignment_(
		NSPoint(300, 100), 25, 4, -1, None, GSBottomCenter
	)

An error message:

AttributeError: 'NSConcreteAttributedString' object has no attribute 'drawAtPoint_angle_offset_handleSize_color_alignment_'

I also tried a few different options:

label.drawAtPoint_() # works
label.drawAtPoint_alignment_() # works
label.drawAtPoint_angle_offset_handleSize_color_alignment_() # error
4

you don’t need the attributed string. Use the NSString directly.

If you need the attributed string, you can use this:

	NSGraphicsContext.saveGraphicsState()
	transform = NSAffineTransform.new()
	transform.translateXBy_yBy_(postion.x, postion.y)
	transform.rotateByDegrees_(angle)
	transform.translateXBy_yBy_(-postion.x, -postion.y)
	transform.concat()
	label.drawAtPoint_(position)
	NSGraphicsContext.restoreGraphicsState()

(import from AppKit whatever is missing)

5

@GeorgSeifert
The transform approach actually works! :tada:
And just this was required:
from AppKit import NSGraphicsContext

But I suppose an approach with drawAtPoint_angle_offset_handleSize_color_alignment_() will be simpler (in terms of the number of memory operations). However, it still doesn’t work for me. As I understand, NSString doesn’t support attributes (?) such as font size so I call it like this:

text = "Hello"
label = NSString.stringWithString_(text)
label.drawAtPoint_angle_offset_handleSize_color_alignment_(
	NSPoint(300, 100), 25, 4, -1, None, GSBottomCenter
)

An error message is very similar to a previous one:

AttributeError: 'NSTaggedPointerString' object has no attribute 'drawAtPoint_angle_offset_handleSize_color_alignment_'
6

Ah, that is only available in 3.2.
in 3.1.2:

text = "Hello"
label = NSString.stringWithString_(text)
label.drawAtPoint_angle_offset_size_color_alignment_(
	(300, 100), 25, 4, 13, None, GSBottomCenter
)
1 Like
7

Thanks, I added the conditions for checking the Glyphs version.

Yes, it works now!
The only thing I can’t understand is what does offset and size/handleSize affect? I tried to set different values for them but it doesn’t change anything.

For size I set 10 / self.getScale() and also tried just 10 and -1 value but the drawn text continues to change its visual size when scaling interface.

I expect that the font size (rotated text colored with brown on the image below) will always be optically the same (as the black colored text drawn with drawTextAtPoint). @GeorgSeifert is it possible with this approach, or do I have to go back to the drawTextAtPoint + transform approach anyway?

drawAtPoint_angle_offset_size_color_alignment_ :

scale

drawTextAtPoint + transform :

scale_affine_transform

Just ran a performance test (selecting the path to draw the coordinates, and unselecting it, every half a second) and both methods described above load the CPU exactly the same – somewhere by 5—5.7%.

8

You should use one of the “InViewCoords” methods. There you need to scale the position but not the size.

9

It gets too complicated, especially with the lack of documentation for such specific things like InViewCoords. So I’ll stick to using Affine Transform. It works as I need it to :tada:, and I haven’t seen any difference in performance between the approaches.

@GeorgSeifert, many thanks for the explanation and your time :slight_smile: