MACROMEDIA FLASH MX 2004 - ACTIONSCRIPT, Reference Manual

Page: 720 / 816

720 Chapter 12: ActionScript Dictionary
Parameters
text
A string.
width
An optional number that represents the width, in pixels, at which the specified text
should wrap.
Returns
An object with the properties
width
,
height
,
ascent
,
descent
,
textFieldHeight
,
textFieldWidth
.
Description
Method; returns text measurement information for the text string
text
in the format specified by
my_fmt
. The text string is treated as plain text (not HTML).
The method returns an object with six properties:
ascent
,
descent
,
width
,
height
,
textFieldHeight
, and
textFieldWidth
. All measurements are in pixels.
If a
width
parameter is specified, word wrapping is applied to the specified text. This lets you
determine the height at which a text box shows all of the specified text.
The
ascent
and
descent
measurements provide, respectively, the distance above and below the
baseline for a line of text. The baseline for the first line of text is positioned at the text field’s
origin plus its
ascent
measurement.
The
width
and
height
measurements provide the width and height of the text string. The
textFieldHeight
and
textFieldWidth
measurements provide the height and width required
for a text field object to display the entire text string. Text fields have a 2-pixel-wide “gutter”
around them, so the value of
textFieldHeight
is equal the value of
height
+ 4; likewise, the
value of
textFieldWidth
is always equal to the value of
width
+ 4.
If you are creating a text field based on the text metrics, use
textFieldHeight
rather than
height
and
textFieldWidth
rather than
width
.
The following figure illustrates these measurements.