Calculate real TQRMemo Height on QuickReport - delphi

I have several memos with different font on QuickReport. Now I'd like to know the most bottom point for all (for set some shape below). How? If I calculate TextHeight for each and multiple by lines count (aMemo.ParentReport.TextHeight(aMemo.Font, 'W') * aMemo.Lines.Count), results are not correctly - QuickReport print lines like with strange height and position of my shape for some fonts are too high or too low.

Ok, I got it. TextHeight cannot be call from QuickReport, but from Printer.Canvas. Then divide it by Y-Resolution for printer, next divide by 254 and multiple by 96. Result will be round and this is real value of Height of text in TQRMemo. All values are not accessible before print from QuickReport. It's very "smart" to return not real values based on same properties like during printing by component (by TQuickRep.TextHeight method).

Related

Changing font size (or tick mark spacing?) of plotted x axis values

I found some article about changing the font size of the actual x axis TITLE but what I would like to do is see if I can make the font for the actual values small enough so that it shows the value for each point in the series. As in example image, I have twice as many data points as x-axis labels for them, is there some way to force the plot to show all the values (i.e for each point), either explicitly or by changing font size?
(sorry I clipped off the top of the image but the points which align with the white horizontal lines get the x axis labels and the ones inbetween don't). I don't know if this is a tick mark spacing issue or a font size/display limitation.
I am plotting in a Jupyter notebook 8 of these figures 2 cols, 4 rows, so I am pretty limited by display size

TeeChart X Axis Label Formatting

I’ve got my TeeChart looking pretty good, the grid lines / ticks appear where I wish and so forth (the X Axis LabelStyle is set to talAuto). Now I need to format the X Axis labels so they display a time offset rather than the data point number.
I’ve changed the LabelStyle to talMark and am handling the chart’s OnGetAxisLabel. The problem is that my event handler is called for every X Axis point rather than just the points which displayed labels when I had LabelStyle set to talAuto.
How can I set things up so my event handler is only called for the labels which were drawn when LabelStyle was talAuto?
I’m using C++ Builder XE3 and the version of TeeChart included with IDE.
UPDATE inspired by Yeray's comment:
With LabelStyle set to talAuto I always get ValueIndex of -1 passed to my event handler. In looking at the LabelText, I see values that I would have expected in ValueIndex, but I also get an equal number of incorrect values (ignoring non-X Axis values). For example...
My chart displays 5 X-Axis values: 200, 400, 600, 800, 1000. My event handler is called 10 times, in this order:
ValueIndex LabelText
-1 937.5
-1 0
-1 240,000
-1 200
-1 239,800
-1 1,000
-1 800
-1 600
-1 400
-1 200
I have no idea where the first 5 values came from or why my event handler was called.
NOTE: I removed the C++ Builder tag because this question might be answered by anyone using TeeChart regardless of their language; the fact that I'm using BCB is not important to the question.
I’ve changed the LabelStyle to talMark and am handling the chart’s
OnGetAxisLabel. The problem is that my event handler is called for
every X Axis point rather than just the points which displayed labels
when I had LabelStyle set to talAuto.
Right, using the talMark LabelStyle, the axis will draw as many labels as points in the series.
You can use the talAuto LabelStyle to get the number of labels you wish and you can still format the labels in the OnGetAxisLabel event.
UPDATE:
When I use talAuto, ValueIndex is always -1 so I have no idea which
data point is associated with the event.
When talAuto is set and the series has labels, it behaves like talText and talMark: these strings are used in the bottom axis and the ValueIndex in OnGetAxisLabel event can be used.
When talAuto is set but the series has no label, it behaves like talValue: the bottom axis calculates the labels to show in function of the Minimum, Maximum and Increment. The ValueIndex in OnGetAxisLabel event can't be used because the axis labels don't correspond to a series point.
I guess you don't have labels in your series. Otherwise, changing from talAuto to talMark shouldn't change anything.
So you have to decide between one or the other. Maybe you can use talValue (or talAuto without labels) to get the number of labels you wish, and extract the info you need from the string that is going to be drawn.
Alternatively, it could be easier to use CustomLabels. They will allow you to control both the positions and the text of the axis labels without needing any event. In example:
procedure TForm1.FormCreate(Sender: TObject);
var i: Integer;
begin
Chart1.View3D:=false;
Chart1.AddSeries(TBarSeries).FillSampleValues;
Chart1.Axes.Bottom.Items.Clear;
for i:=0 to Chart1[0].Count-1 do
Chart1.Axes.Bottom.Items.Add(Chart1[0].XValue[i], 'label ' + IntToStr(i));
end;

How to get font size in delphi

I am looking for a function which should take parameters as Font name, sample character, width, height of the sample character and should return Font Size.
It must look like this:
GetFontSize(<Font Name>, <Sample Character>, <Sample Character Width>,
<Sample Character Height>)
which must return the font size,
Is this possible in delphi?
You may want to take a look at this page that discusses font size and points.
It uses the following to convert between the points and pixel size:
Arial 12pt at 96 dpi:
font size in points 12
font size in pixels = ------------------- × 96 dpi = ---- × 96 = 16 pixels
72 points per inch 72
You could use that for your conversion. You just need to be aware of possible differences in your screen dpi as Blorgbeard stated. Points are usually used to describe the size on paper. You need to decide how you want to map that to the screen. For example many programs will allow you to set a zoom level. That does not change the printed size on paper but does affect the pixel height on the screen.
Depending on what you are trying to accomplish you may need to get the actual sizes of the font. If you are trying to find out exactly how the font is put together take a look at Obtaining Font Metrics The code on that page uses the .Net libraries but it has a good explanation. If you want to get the Text Metrics in Delphi you would use the GetTextMetrics function.
As Rob stated in his comment you can draw text at a specific height by setting the Font.Size property to the negative height in pixels. Windows will then draw the text out at that height. In that case you don't need a specific letter or the width as you have in your prototype function. For a given font size each letter will have a different height and width. I.E. capital letters will be taller than lower case letters and letters like "W" will be wider than letters like "i".
I'm only aware of methods to do the opposite - that is, to get pixel sizes from point sizes.
The only way I can think of is to set up a TCanvas, and repeatedly call GetTextExtent on it, changing the font size each time, until you get a size that's acceptably close to what you want.
Depending on how accurate you need this, you could just convert your desired height in pixels to points - a point is 1/72 of an inch, and your screen is probably 96 pixels per inch (but check GetDeviceCaps to get the real figure). See this question.
That would get you a font size pretty close to the pixel size you want.

Converting LogFont height to Font size in points

I have a LOGFONT structure. Now all i'd like to do is get the associated font size in points from the LOGFONT height.
When the mapping mode is mm_Text (which it usually is), and when the lfHeight field is positive, it already gives the height in points. When it's negative, the units are pixels. MSDN for LogFont gives you the formula to convert between them:
lfHeight = -MulDiv(PointSize, GetDeviceCaps(hDC, LOGPIXELSY), 72);
There are 72 points per inch. GetDeviceCaps tells you the number of pixels per inch on a given device. Invert the formula to get pixels from points:
PointSize := MulDiv(-lfHeight, 72, GetDeviceCaps(hDC, LogPixelsY);
The important thing to realize here is that you need a device context. Font sizes don't exist independently of the media they appear on. The pixel height of a font on the screen will be different from the pixel height of a font on a printer. Use the Handle property of whatever canvas you're planning on drawing to.
I find this a bit confusing, as well.
Here are a few things that I háve learned. ;)
Examine the two low-order bits of lfPitchAndFamily to determine the font type.
For fixed-pitch fonts, use GetTextMetrics and the TEXTMETRIC structure.
For variable-pitch fonts (true-type, etc), use GetOutlineTextMetrics and the OUTLINETEXTMETRIC structure. Be sure you have the structure aligned properly. Also, the structure is variable-sized. Call the function once to get the size, allocate space, then call the function again to fill the structure.
From there, you can find proper ascent, descent, and other size-related information.
Keep in mind that they are recommended values and not all display routines will use them properly. For example, I am in the process of figuring out a correct method of determining the required height of a dialog box static control for a given string of text.
It does not appear that Microsoft has followed their own documentation. ;)
Not that the documentation is all that clear or complete, to begin with.

BCB: how to get the (approximate) width of a character in a given TFont?

It's a TMemo, not that that should make any difference.
Googling suggests that I can use Canvas->TextWidth() but those are Delphi examples and BCB doesn't seem to offer this property.
I really want something analogous to memo->Font->Height for width.
I realize that not all fonts are fixed width, so a good estimate will do.
All that I need is to take the width of a TMemo in pixels and make a reasonable guess at how many characters of the current font it will hold.
Of course, if I really want to be lazy, I can just google for the average height/width ratio, since height is known. Remember, an approximation is good enough for me if it is tricky to get exact.
http://www.plainlanguagenetwork.org/type/utbo211.htm says, " A width to height ratio of 3:5 (0.6) is recommended for most applications"
Actually your google search is not entirely off. You do need access to a canvas object, or at least a handle to a DC object. In general when searching for help concerning VCL classes it often pays to search for delphi examples since these are more common.
Anyway to calculate the size of a string you could have a look at the TextExtent function, it is a function for the TCanvas class. Simply pass the character which width you want to test, and the return value will be a TSize construct. However there is also a TextWidth function, as well as a TextHeight function. You can use these as well. Actually these call the TextExtent internally.
You have to note one thing though, the functions use the current font of the TCanvas object, more specifically the font bound to the DC the canvas uses. So assign the font you wish to test with first, and then pass the character.
I have some old code that calculates the width of a string like this:
// This canvas could be the form canvas: canvas = Form1->Canvas or the
// memo canvas which will probably be what you want.
canvas->Font->Assign(fontToTest);
int textwidth = TextWidth(textToTest);
If you want more control of what to do, you can also do this using the Windows API, this is essentially what the VCL does for you, in that case the following example would look like this:
// This canvas could be the form canvas: canvas = Form1->Canvas
canvas->Font->Assign(fontToTest);
// The initial size, this is really important if we use wordwrapping. This is
// the text area of the memo control.
TRect rect = ClientRect;
// This is the font format we wish to calculate using, in this example our text
// will be left aligned, at the top of the rectangle.
fontformat = DT_LEFT | DT_TOP;
// Here we calculate the size of the text, both width and height are calculated
// and stored in the rect variable. Also note that we add the DT_CALCRECT to the
// fontformat variable, this makes DrawTextEx calculate the size of the text,
// without drawing it.
::DrawTextEx(canvas->handle,
textToTest.c_str(),
textToTest.Length(),
&rect,
fontformat | DT_CALCRECT,
NULL);
// The width is:
int width = rect.Width();
The fontformat is a parameter that specifies different options for how to align and layout the text, if you plan on drawing text it will be a good idea to check out the different possibilities it offers: DrawTextEx Function [1]
EDIT: Reading through your question again, it struck me that the function you might be searching for is: GetTextExtentExPoint Windows API documentation states the following about this function:
The GetTextExtentExPoint function
retrieves the number of characters in
a specified string that will fit
within a specified space and fills an
array with the text extent for each of
those characters. (A text extent is
the distance between the beginning of
the space and a character that will
fit in the space.) This information is
useful for word-wrapping calculations.
You can find more information about the GetTextExtentExPoint function here: GetTextExtentExPoint Function [2]
[1] http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd162499%28VS.85%29.aspx
[2] http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd144935%28VS.85%29.aspx
What you could do, if you have access to Win32 API functions, is create a RichEdit Window the same size as your TMemo window, place the text in the RichEdit window, send the EM_FORMATRANGE message to the window and from the result determine how many characters it will hold. Of course this method will work with multiple lines etc...

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