Text

Learn how to draw text and use fonts

Text can be rendered in the window using TrueType fonts. The simplest way:

Text.new('Hello, Ruby 2D!')

Here are all the parameters:

Parameter Default Description
content (required) The string to display (positional argument)
x 0 X position, or :left / :center / :right to align to the window
y 0 Y position, or :top / :center / :bottom to align to the window
padding 0 Gap from the window edge for aligned axes; override per-edge with padding_top, padding_right, padding_bottom, padding_left
z 0 Depth
size 20 Font size in points
style nil Font style
font Font.default Path to a .ttf font file
rotate 0 Rotation in degrees
rx, ry Center Rotation center
color 'white' Text color
opacity nil Alpha override
add true Whether to add to the window immediately

Example:

text = Text.new('Score: 0', x: 10, y: 10, size: 24, color: 'yellow',
                font: '/path/to/font.ttf')
text.content = 'Score: 100'
text.size = 32
text.width   # => calculated width of the rendered text
text.height  # => calculated height of the rendered text

Drawing text in render blocks

Just like images, you can draw text per-frame inside a render block:

label = Text.new('FPS', add: false)

render do
  label.render(x: 10, y: 10, color: 'white')
end

Bitmap text

If you don’t want to deal with font files, BitmapText renders text using a built-in bitmap font, no TTF dependency needed:

bt = BitmapText.new('Hello!')
Parameter Default Description
content (required) The string to display (positional argument)
x 0 X position
y 0 Y position
z 0 Depth
scale 3 Size multiplier (a positive number; a float is truncated to a whole number)
rotate 0 Rotation in degrees
rx, ry Center Rotation center
color 'white' Text color
opacity nil Alpha override
add true Whether to add to the window immediately

Example:

bt = BitmapText.new('Loading...', x: 10, y: 10, scale: 5, color: 'green')
bt.content = 'Ready!'
bt.scale = 4
bt.rotate = 15   # spins about the text's center; override with rx/ry

Bitmap text is great for quick prototyping or retro-style games where a pixel font fits the vibe.

Fonts

The Font class provides utilities for discovering and loading system fonts.

Example:

Font.all               # => ['arial', 'courier', ...] list of available font names
Font.path('arial')     # => '/Library/Fonts/Arial.ttf'
Font.default           # => path to the default font

Fonts are cached internally. You don’t instantiate Font objects directly. They’re managed behind the scenes by Text.

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