Right justify of strings in PBCC

[Denny Mela]

I might be missing something in the commands of PBCC, however I am looking for a way to right-hand justify a proportional font in an XPRINT statement such that on the printed paper all of the text aligns on right. An example would be:
Name: Joe Smith
Address: 111 First Street
Where the colons would line up on the printed page - a sort of "reverse XPRINT SET POS" command. Is there already an intrinsic capability or will I have to come up with my own function to provide this ability?

[Michael Mattias]

Using a proportional font, you have to print the colon at 'the spot' then print the label right-justified to its left and the data left-justified to its right.

Or you can print 'label & ":"' right-justified at "the spot" and add the data left-justified to the right of that.

It's a little easier using a non-proportional font, but of course that tends to look cheap and dirty. (Probably because it is cheap and dirty).


MCM

[Mel Bishop]

Print to the screen:

print;tab(x) - len(text$);text$

Just make sure the resuling TAB is within a valid range.

[Paul Dixon]

Denny,
first use the XPRINT TEXT SIZE statement with your string to determine how big your printed string will be. Then set the printing position so your string will end exactly where you want.

Paul.

[Michael Mattias]

IF "label" and "data" are not always the same length - meaning "equal" when using a proportional font - you cannot line up the colons without using at least two (2) PRINT statements per line. (Unless you set the TABs just right and no one label is longer than one tabstop-length).

[Denny Mela]

Mike:
I appreciate the explanation as that is exactly what I need to do. However, is there such an animal as right justified xprint or left justified xprint?

[Denny Mela]

Paul:
Will the xprint text size return the size of the text in the XPRINT scale so that I can subtract the returned value from a virtual XPRINT POS on the paper?

[Richard Angell]

PB Help says:

This statement calculates the total size of the printed text, based upon the current font for the graphic target. The sizes returned are specified in the same terms (pixels or dialog units) as the parent dialog (or world coordinates, if those were chosen with GRAPHIC SCALE).
This allows you to easily calculate the appropriate print position, particularly when using a proportional font.

[Denny Mela]

Mike:
I don't mind using two XPRINT's per line if I can exactly XPRINT SET POS the right justified text at a calculated point. The left justified text is a no brainer, as it just flows from the colon as any text would after XPRINT SET POS at a point after the colon.

All of the left justified stuff is working out perfect. I print the colon at a predetermined coordinate on the line, space to the right by taste, and print the text that follows the colon. The text to the left of the colon is the part that I would like to do with a calculated position derived by subtracting from the colon's position ( much like Paul's suggestion previously ) once knowing how much space the text will take. The issue, I think is, can I calculate this position within the XPRINT SCALE established?

[Denny Mela]

Rick:
I'm sorry I missed which statement you were refering to.

[Richard Angell]

Rick:
I'm sorry I missed which statement you were refering to.

"Will the xprint text size return the size of the text in the XPRINT scale so that I can subtract the returned value from a virtual XPRINT POS on the paper?"

I think there are other posts in the forum showing the justification of text. Having specific commands was wished for some time ago. At any rate, pop the code below into PBWin, compile and press test

#COMPILE EXE
#CONSOLE OFF
#DIM ALL
#INCLUDE "Win32API.inc"
'
SUB LJGRAPHICPRINT(BYVAL ploc AS SINGLE,BYVAL txt AS STRING)
    'GRAPHIC ATTACH should have already been made
    LOCAL x!, y!
    GRAPHIC GET POS TO x!, y!
    'ploc is the print position left side
    GRAPHIC SET POS (ploc, y!)
    GRAPHIC PRINT txt
END SUB
'
SUB RJGRAPHICPRINT(BYVAL ploc AS SINGLE,BYVAL txt AS STRING)
    'GRAPHIC ATTACH should have already been made
    LOCAL x!, y!, nWidth!, nHeight!
    GRAPHIC GET POS TO x!, y!
    GRAPHIC TEXT SIZE txt$ TO nWidth!, nHeight!
    'ploc is the print position right side
    ploc =  ploc - nWidth!
    GRAPHIC SET POS (ploc, y!)
    GRAPHIC PRINT txt
END SUB
'
SUB CJGRAPHICPRINT(BYVAL ploc AS SINGLE,BYVAL txt AS STRING)
    'GRAPHIC ATTACH should have already been made
    LOCAL x!, y!, nWidth!, nHeight!
    GRAPHIC GET POS TO x!, y!
    GRAPHIC TEXT SIZE txt$ TO nWidth!, nHeight!
    'ploc is the cener of the desired print area
    ploc =  ploc - (nWidth!/2)
    GRAPHIC SET POS (ploc, y!)
    GRAPHIC PRINT txt
END SUB
'
FUNCTION PBMAIN () AS LONG
    LOCAL caption$,hWin???
    LOCAL ts1$,ts2$,ts3$,psloc!,ncWidth!, ncHeight!
    
    GRAPHIC WINDOW caption$, 200,100, 400, 300 TO hWin???
        GRAPHIC ATTACH hWin???,0
        GRAPHIC GET CLIENT TO ncWidth!, ncHeight!
        GRAPHIC SET POS (0,10)

        ts1$ = "The short string goes here:"
        ts2$ = "The nominal string goes here:"
        ts3$ = "The long string goes here:"
        psloc! = ncWidth!/2
        'right justified
        RJGRAPHICPRINT(psloc!,"RIGHT JUSTIFIED")
        RJGRAPHICPRINT(psloc!,ts1$)
        RJGRAPHICPRINT(psloc!,ts2$)
        RJGRAPHICPRINT(psloc!,ts3$)
        GRAPHIC PRINT ""
        'center justified
        RJGRAPHICPRINT(psloc!,"CENTER JUSTIFIED")
        CJGRAPHICPRINT(psloc!,ts1$)
        CJGRAPHICPRINT(psloc!,ts2$)
        CJGRAPHICPRINT(psloc!,ts3$)
        GRAPHIC PRINT ""
        'left justified
        RJGRAPHICPRINT(psloc!,"LEFT JUSTIFIED")
        LJGRAPHICPRINT(psloc!,ts1$)
        LJGRAPHICPRINT(psloc!,ts2$)
        LJGRAPHICPRINT(psloc!,ts3$)
        
        SLEEP 5000
        GRAPHIC WINDOW END
END FUNCTION
'

.

[Denny Mela]

I'm using PBCC, Rick. Won't work.

[Richard Angell]

picky, picky!

Replaced code with PBCC example, no change to the justification functions.

[Michael Mattias]

> The issue, I think is, can I calculate this position within the XPRINT SCALE established?

What happened when you tried?

(Show test code if it didn't work and you need more help)

[Denny Mela]

Hey guys:

Thanks to all for your help. I now know how to do this with your help. I have used the XPRINT TEXT SIZE FUNCTION as suggested and can now figure out where to XPRINT SET POS based on the returned values. I'll creating a sub much like Rick's example and will be able to use the info as described in your responses to create lined up colons in the header of my invoice routine.

You guys have put me on the right track where before I was frustrated.