Silverlight: Convert Text to Path

The WPF APIs provide a FormattedText object that allows you to export its contents as a Geometry, which in turn allows you to generate its contents in the XAML Path Mini Language. 

Here's an example of a Web service that takes in the text, typeface, size and other parameters, loads them into a FormattedText, and uses this to generate a Path as a result.

You can then take the returned value from this Web service and load it into the Data attribute of a Path to get the desired text rendered in Silverlight. This will allow you to have any text from any font rendered in your Silverlight page.

This will allow you to:

• Provide text from unsupported fonts
• Provide text from languages other than English

Here's the Source Code for the Web Service:

 

[WebMethod]
public string Text2Path(String strText, string strCulture, bool LtoR, string strTypeFace, int nSize)
{
// Set up the Culture
if (strCulture == "")
strCulture = "en-us"
System.Globalization.CultureInfo ci = new System.Globalization.CultureInfo(strCulture);

    // Set up the flow direction
System.Windows.FlowDirection fd;
if (LtoR)
fd = FlowDirection.LeftToRight;
else
fd = FlowDirection.RightToLeft;

    // Set up the font family from the parameter
FontFamily ff = new FontFamily(strTypeFace);

    // Create the new typeface
System.Windows.Media.Typeface tf = new System.Windows.Media.Typeface(ff,  

        FontStyles.Normal, FontWeights.Normal, FontStretches.Normal);

    // Create a formatted text object from the text,

    // culture, flowdirection, typeface, size and black

    FormattedText t = new FormattedText(strText, ci, fd, tf, nSize,    

        System.Windows.Media.Brushes.Black);

    // Build a Geometry out of this
Geometry g = t.BuildGeometry(new Point(0, 0));

    // Get the Path info from the geometry
PathGeometry p = g.GetFlattenedPathGeometry();

    // Return the path info
return p.ToString();

}

Here's an example of calling this Web service using some Korean Text:

 

This Web Service returns a String containing the Path Mini Language:

 

 

In Silverlight you use the <Path> tag to define a path. It takes a 'Data' attribute which takes a string in the path mini language format, so all you ahve to do is set it to the contents of the value returned from the Web service.

Here's the Korean text from earlier, being rendered in Silverlight using this path.

 

In the next installment of this blog I'll go into adding a text box to the page, overlaying it on the Silverlight content using windowless mode. It will support text input using an IME, and then use ASP.NET AJAX to call this service, get the response and load it into the path.

Comments

• Anonymous
  May 22, 2007
  PingBack from http://blogs.msdn.com/webnext/archive/2007/05/22/silverlight-convert-text-to-path.aspx

• Anonymous
  May 24, 2007
  Silverlight news - May 24, 2007

• Anonymous
  May 25, 2007
  原文地址 http://blogs.msdn.com/webnext/archive/2007/05/22/silverlight-convert-text-to-path.aspx Silverlight:

• Anonymous
  June 07, 2007
  During the weekend I spent some minutes to collect some of the greatest Silverlight examples. Most of

• Anonymous
  July 19, 2007
  分享几个国外的silverlight例子和blog GreatVisualStudioQuickStarts

• Anonymous
  December 17, 2007
  Silverlight 1.0 で日本語を表示する 現在、Silverlight 1.0 自身では、日本語の入力も出力もサポートされていません。以前、ご紹介した自前翻訳版の クイックスタート では左側に日本語のメニュー項目を表示していますが、ここは

• Anonymous
  December 01, 2008
  GreatVisualStudioQuickStartsforSilverlight1.0/1.1New!SilverlightInkExperimentsNew!Conve...

• Anonymous
  June 09, 2009
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