1.152 class style

A style object describes the visual appearance of a fragment object in an editor object or dict_item objects in a list_browser object: font, highlighting, underlining, etc. Style objects are associated with editors using the editor->style method. Fragments that have fragment<->style equal to name will be displayed according to the associated style.

The online manual uses various styles. E.g.

title	Section titles in helvetica bold font
code	code fragments in a fixed-width screen font
active	attribute-bold for links to definitions.

An elaborate example of using editors, fragments and styles is the XPCE help browser, whose sources are in the XPCE library file pce_helper.pl. A simple example is in the example Multiple Fonts.

Bugs:

When a style is changed, the corresponding text is not immediately updated. It is adviced to use styles in a read-only fashion.

See also

- class text_margin
- editor->style
- editor-selected_fragment_style
- class editor
- class fragment

1.152.1 Instance variables

style-attributes: alien:long

Or'ed bits for style->underline, style->highlight, style->grey, style->closed and style->bold.

style <-> background: [colour|pixmap|elevation]

Background for the characters. If it is an instance of class elevation, the characters are placed in an elevated box. See also style->colour.

style <-> colour: [colour]

Colour of the characters. See also style->background.

style <-> font: [font]

Font used to display the characters of the fragment. When two fragments overlap and they do not agree on the font to be used, the font of the smallest fragment is used.

Defaults: @default (meaning use editor<->font).

style <-> icon: image*

When a style object is associated with an editor that has a text_margin object attached to it, the start of fragments related to this style object is marked in the margin using this image object. See class text_margin and editor->margin_width.

See also

- class text_margin
- editor->margin_width

style <-> left_margin: int

Left- and right-margins. Used by class text_image (underlying class editor and class view) to control indentation and wrapping.

In combination with text_image->wrap, the margins may be used to realise quotations and intended lists in WYSIWYG like editors.

Class text_image fetches the new margins whenever it starts a new screen line.

style <-> right_margin: int

Inherits description from: style-left_margin

style <-> underline: [bool|texture_name|colour]

Underline text. If @default, underlining of overlapping fragments is respected. If @off there is no underlining. If @on, the text is underlined using the same colour as the text. If an explicit colour is used the line is painted in this colour.

1.152.2 Send methods

style ->bold: bool

Inherits description from: style<-bold

style ->grey: bool

Inherits description from: style<-bold

style ->hidden: bool

If a style object has style->hidden: @on, the text will be made invisible. Currently this attribute is ignored if the style is used for a dict_item object.

May be used to implement outline editors or to hide control sequences.

See also class fragment and class editor.

style ->highlight: bool

Inherits description from: style<-bold

style ->initialise: icon=[image]*, font=[font], colour=[colour], highlight=[bool], underline=[bool|texture_name|colour], bold=[bool], grey=[bool], background=[colour|pixmap|elevation], hidden=[bool], left_margin=[int], right_margin=[int], strikethrough=[bool|texture_name|colour]

Create a style object from its (margin-)image, font and text-attributes. For example:

send(Editor, style, section_header,
     style(font := huge)).

The arguments are:

style->icon	Image shown in text_margin object
style->font	Font used to display characters
style->colour	Colour for characters
style->highlight	Swap colour and background
style->underline	Underline text
style->bold	Print bold
style->grey	Print grey using colour<-reduce
style->background	Colour/elevation for background
style->hidden	If true, text is invisible
style->left_margin	Left margin (pixels)
style->right_margin	Right margin (pixels from right)

NOTE: this method defines a large number of arguments. It is advised to use the keyword := value construct for specifying the arguments. The following two terms define a bold style:

style(bold := @on)
style(@default, @default, @default, @default, @default, @on)

See also class := and send_method->send.

style ->underline:

Bugs: Underlining is done at a fixed distance of the base-line with a fixed line thickness (1). These parameters ought to be read from the (X-)font attributes.

Inherits description from: style<-bold

1.152.3 Get methods

style <-grey: -> bool

style <-highlight: -> bool

style <-underline: -> [bool|texture_name|colour]

style <-bold: -> bool

These methods set/query the appropriate field from the style -attributes slot. The attributes are:

style->bold	bold-face using double-strike (see also style->font)
style->underline	underlined text.
style->highlight	inverted background and foreground.
style->grey	greyed-out by and'ing with @grey50_image.

Bugs: style<->closed is not implemented. Future versions might use this to hide the text of a fragment temporary.

style <-hidden: -> bool

Inherits description from: style->hidden