Because of the large numbers of controls for Easytext, there are five sub-pages available when you select the Easytext page.
Text Style
From this dialog, you can change the all attributes of Easytext Text boxes, including typeface, point size and text colour. Note that as you change the box number the style information will be updated to show the current style for the selected box. If the box you select is not a valid Easytext template box, then the font name field will be blank.
By ticking the to Box No field and entering a second box number in it you can modify a range of boxes simultaneously.
You can control the transparency, wrapping and tracking for each text box. Tracking is measured in 1/10th of a pixel increment per character, and can be used to vary the inter-character spacing of text.
Normally, you will only see the results of the changes you make here when you select Update Box. This tells the Imagestore to redraw the text using the new set of parameters that have been sent. If you select Interactive Update then the changes you make will be sent immediately to the Imagestore. This is helpful for quick interactive adjustments.
The ‘drop-down’ button by the Font box will display a list of the filenames of all fonts currently installed in the Imagestore.
Background
The background settings allow parameters for the overall background for an Easytext image to be changed. Images with a graphic as a background are not adjustable via this page.
Text Contents
This page allows you to enter new text for a box. Text can be manually pasted into the main text area from other applications.
Once text has been entered, press Update Text to send it to the Imagestore.
Checking the Append box will cause the text to be appended to the text currently displayed for the box.
If Render is deselected, the text box will not be redrawn until Update Box on the Text Style page is pressed.
Commander-IS handles Unicode text and right-to-left text entry. It will also reformat right-to-left text into the correct ‘visual’ order, and apply cursive joining and ligature replacement rules before sending the text to the Easytext system. This is controlled by options in the Preferences dialog accessible from the main Manager window.
Note that Easytext cannot yet correctly split right-to-left scripts across multiple lines. You should insert new lines required manually, rather than letting Easytext wrap the text itself, and also make sure that Wrap Text in the Text Style page is disabled.
Straps
This page gives simple controls for stopping and restarting straps, and adjusting the strap speed. The strap speed is measured in pixels or lines per field.
Datasources
Datasources are a powerful way of setting up text within the Imagestore, ready for use when a particular template is loaded
As an example, set up a datasource called “WEATHER” as shown above. Now click on Update.
Now enter the following in a text box
“Today’s weather: |WEATHER|”
The vertical bar characters must be either side of the datasource name to tell Imagestore to search for a datasource. The Imagestore video should now show:-
“Today’s weather: Mostly overcast, with occasional showers”
If you now just change the datasource value to be “Snowy”, the Imagestore will display the new message. An important advantage is that the writing of values into the datasource can be entirely separated from the loading of templates. Once your datasource is set up, any template which references “|WEATHER|” will automatically show the current weather message held by the system.
Unicode datasource values and names are supported. Datasource text is processed for bi-directional scripts, cursive joining and ligature replacement in the same way as text sent directly to a box.