Creating and displaying text

You can assign a GraphicElement object to a TextBlock object to display an image or a graphic element. Simply create an instance of the GraphicElement class from a graphic or an image and assign the instance to the TextBlock.content property. Create the text line by calling TextBlock.createTextline() as you normally would. The following example creates two text lines, one with a GraphicElement object and one with a TextElement object.

package 
{ 
    import flash.text.engine.*; 
    import flash.display.Sprite; 
    import flash.display.Shape; 
    import flash.display.Graphics; 
 
    public class GraphicElementExample extends Sprite 
    { 
        public function GraphicElementExample() 
        { 
            var str:String = "Beware of Dog!"; 
     
            var triangle:Shape = new Shape(); 
            triangle.graphics.beginFill(0xFF0000, 1); 
            triangle.graphics.lineStyle(3); 
            triangle.graphics.moveTo(30, 0); 
            triangle.graphics.lineTo(60, 50); 
            triangle.graphics.lineTo(0, 50); 
            triangle.graphics.lineTo(30, 0); 
            triangle.graphics.endFill(); 
     
            var format:ElementFormat = new ElementFormat(); 
            format.fontSize = 20; 
             
            var graphicElement:GraphicElement = new GraphicElement(triangle, triangle.width, triangle.height, format); 
            var textBlock:TextBlock = new TextBlock(); 
            textBlock.content = graphicElement; 
            var textLine1:TextLine = textBlock.createTextLine(null, triangle.width); 
            textLine1.x = 50; 
            textLine1.y = 110; 
            addChild(textLine1); 
     
            var textElement:TextElement = new TextElement(str, format); 
            textBlock.content = textElement; 
            var textLine2 = textBlock.createTextLine(null, 300); 
            addChild(textLine2); 
            textLine2.x = textLine1.x - 30; 
            textLine2.y = textLine1.y + 15; 
        } 
    } 
}

You can create a GroupElement object to create a group of TextElement, GraphicElement, and other GroupElement objects. A GroupElement can be assigned to the content property of a TextBlock object. The parameter to the GroupElement() constructor is a Vector, which points to the text, graphic, and group elements that make up the group. The following example groups two graphic elements and a text element and assigns them as a unit to a text block.

package 
{ 
    import flash.text.engine.*; 
    import flash.display.Sprite; 
    import flash.display.Shape; 
    import flash.display.Graphics; 
     
    public class GroupElementExample extends Sprite 
    { 
        public function GroupElementExample() 
        { 
            var str:String = "Beware of Alligators!"; 
 
            var triangle1:Shape = new Shape(); 
            triangle1.graphics.beginFill(0xFF0000, 1); 
            triangle1.graphics.lineStyle(3); 
            triangle1.graphics.moveTo(30, 0); 
            triangle1.graphics.lineTo(60, 50); 
            triangle1.graphics.lineTo(0, 50); 
            triangle1.graphics.lineTo(30, 0); 
            triangle1.graphics.endFill(); 
             
            var triangle2:Shape = new Shape(); 
            triangle2.graphics.beginFill(0xFF0000, 1); 
            triangle2.graphics.lineStyle(3); 
            triangle2.graphics.moveTo(30, 0); 
            triangle2.graphics.lineTo(60, 50); 
            triangle2.graphics.lineTo(0, 50); 
            triangle2.graphics.lineTo(30, 0); 
            triangle2.graphics.endFill(); 
             
            var format:ElementFormat = new ElementFormat(); 
            format.fontSize = 20; 
            var graphicElement1:GraphicElement = new GraphicElement(triangle1, triangle1.width, triangle1.height, format); 
            var textElement:TextElement = new TextElement(str, format); 
            var graphicElement2:GraphicElement = new GraphicElement(triangle2, triangle2.width, triangle2.height, format); 
            var groupVector:Vector.<ContentElement> = new Vector.<ContentElement>(); 
            groupVector.push(graphicElement1, textElement, graphicElement2); 
            var groupElement = new GroupElement(groupVector); 
            var textBlock:TextBlock = new TextBlock(); 
            textBlock.content = groupElement; 
            var textLine:TextLine = textBlock.createTextLine(null, 800); 
            addChild(textLine); 
            textLine.x = 100; 
            textLine.y = 200; 
        } 
    } 
}

The following example uses replaceText() to first, insert text at the beginning of the line, then, to append text to the end of the line, and, finally, to replace text in the middle of the line.

package 
{ 
    import flash.text.engine.*; 
    import flash.display.Sprite; 
 
    public class ReplaceTextExample extends Sprite 
    { 
        public function ReplaceTextExample() 
        { 
     
            var str:String = "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet"; 
            var fontDescription:FontDescription = new FontDescription("Arial"); 
            var format:ElementFormat = new ElementFormat(fontDescription); 
            format.fontSize = 14; 
            var textElement:TextElement = new TextElement(str, format); 
            var textBlock:TextBlock = new TextBlock(); 
            textBlock.content = textElement; 
            createLine(textBlock, 10); 
            textElement.replaceText(0, 0, "A text fragment: ");  
            createLine(textBlock, 30);  
            textElement.replaceText(43, 43, "...");   
            createLine(textBlock, 50);     
            textElement.replaceText(23, 28, "(ipsum)"); 
            createLine(textBlock, 70); 
        } 
             
        function createLine(textBlock:TextBlock, y:Number):void { 
            var textLine:TextLine = textBlock.createTextLine(null, 300); 
            textLine.x = 10; 
            textLine.y = y; 
            addChild(textLine); 
        } 
    } 
}