04 The class TextStyles

See example 5

You can find the list of the predefined text styles earlier in this document. These text styles are in a static class called TextStyles. You can use them at any point in the code where you need them. The text styles are instantiated by the first access to a text style. In the next section you will find details about text styles.

To use a text style, you can get a reference to one of them using the static function getTextStyle in the class TextStyles. The function needs the name of the text style as a parameter. You should use the constants in the TextStyles class for the names of the predefined text styles.

// Get the default text style
$tsNormal = ReportLib\TextStyles::getTextStyle(ReportLib\TextStyles::NORMAL);

The text styles have a hierarchical structure i.e., a text style can have a base text style and in the new text style some attributes can be changed (e.g., the font family or the bold flag). The text style remembers which attributes you have changed and uses them. For the other attributes it uses the values from the base text style. When there is no base text style it will use the NORMAL text style as a fallback.

You can create new text styles and give them a name to use it at any point in the program like the predefined text styles. You define a new text style by calling the static function addTextStyle in the TextStyles class. The function only expects a name for the new text style and a base text style.

If you try to add a text style with a name that already exists no new text style is added but you get back a reference to the existing text style with the given name as if you would have called getTextStyle. Otherwise, the call of this function returns a reference to the new text style. You can use this return value to change the attributes you want.

The following example shows how to create a new text style based on the NORMAL text style. The new text style gets the name BigRed and changes the attribute for the size to a value of 36 points and the text color to red. The library uses for all the other attributes like the font family the values from the NORMAL text style.

// Get the default text style
$tsNormal = ReportLib\TextStyles::getTextStyle(ReportLib\TextStyles::NORMAL);

// Create a text style with the name "BigRed", 36 points tall and red
$ts = ReportLib\TextStyles::addTextStyle("MyTextStyle1", $tsNormal);
$ts->setSize(36.0);
$ts->setTextColor("#FF0000");

I describe the attributes of a text style in the next section.