[LOGGED] Text Draw "font" Input Parameter Easier to Change

Notdoc

@jfg thanks for this. I have been using the Table Actor with Shuffle in a similar way. There's no escaping the task of typing all the individual fonts in before making the selection, though, is there? Not a terrible hardship, but very time-consuming.

I guess the Read Text from File Actor could also pump font names into the Text Draw Actor, if there was a way of generating a text file of all the fonts on the computer...

Woland

@notdoc said:

if there was a way of generating a text file of all the fonts on the computer

The beta Python actor would be my first port of call for attempting this

Notdoc

@woland

thanks but erm... *blushes* - i can't really code... :-[

jfg

@notdoc

I don't need to type all the names:

but not so easy with 1000 fonts

Best regards,

Jean-François

Notdoc

@jfg hehe that's a step better than the Table Actor task.

- so I've got as far as bulk copying all the file names from my fonts folder, but the Text Actor won't read the ".ttf" etc file types, so i have to delete them. There is no rest for the wicked, as they say. Unless anyone has a smart plan to bulk delete them from the text document..?

on reflection, @jfg - your version is better. But I was nearly there...

jfg

@notdoc

in the Textedit Software: Cmd+F, then activate replace, type the suffix with dot and nothing for replace. Do the same for the other suffix

Notdoc

@jfg boom. respect, sir

Woland

@notdoc said:

thanks but erm... *blushes* - i can't really code... :-[

Neither can I really, but between our very generous community, Google, Youtube, and ChatGPT, I tend to get by ;)

Notdoc

@jfg

apologies for pestering on this but i also don't understand how to populate the cells of the Selector Actor in the way you have here, using the Trigger Text input to move the drop-down options over from the Text Draw Actor. I can make this example work, but I can't get it to work with inputs on any other Actors.

Woland

@notdoc

Connect the output of a fresh Selector actor to the font input of a Text Draw actor and it'll mutate the inputs of the Selector to the oddball font data type used by the Text Draw's font input.

Gif: https://recordit.co/dZdRtFdtVr

File: mutated-font-selector.izz

Notdoc

@woland thanks, but i'm specifically curious the way that in @jfg 's example illustrated above the dropdown menu is available within the Selector Actor cell, rather than the Text Draw Actor. It looks like a smart way to make up a useful list from a source without typing in every cell, and I have made his example work, but I can't make it work with anything else. Like (eg) the different voices in the Speak Actor..?

...hard to describe what i mean, hope it makes sense...

Armando

@woland I can't believe that. Never even imagined possible... great

Armando

@armando So the only missing thing would be a wysiwyg font list....

Woland

@notdoc said:

i'm specifically curious the way that in @jfg 's example illustrated above the dropdown menu is available within the Selector Actor cell, rather than the Text Draw Actor

It's because of what I said in my previous comment. By connecting a fresh Selector actor to the Text Draw's 'font' input, you mutate the inputs and outputs of the Selector to use the unique font data type, allowing you to use that popup menu to select fonts from the Selector actor.

See my gif from above: https://recordit.co/dZdRtFdtVr

Anything with a green dot on its input or output is mutable and can be mutated to at least one other data type: https://recordit.co/4MCAQqfANS

Selectors, Routers, and Gates are generally the actors that you'll be mutating most commonly, but many actors have at least one mutable input or output (as shown by the little green dot instead of the gray dot on the input or output):

Notdoc

@woland

i'm really grateful for the time you have taken with the response, but I was already aware of the mutability of Actors, although your list is very useful to me.

However, my enquiry is about something slightly different. In @jfg 's example, the drop-down Mac OS menu of font options is actually accessible through the Selector Actor cell, so the menu here..:

... is now available here, which makes adding the different fonts clickable and easy..:

whereas in the example of the Speak Text Actor, which has a similar Mac OS drop down menu..:

this 'translation' of the drop-down menu does not occur, and the cell must be filled by hand..:

It's very small difference, but I am curious about it. Sorry to be a PiA about clarifying this. There are some instances where making a list from an input in this way could be very useful.

I

Woland

@notdoc

Ah I see. I didn’t remember that it didn’t work for the Speak Text actor, I thought it worked the same. I’ve no idea why that is unfortunately.

The List Selector and Popup Menu Controls can be auto-populated from a list input in the beta right now. I’ll experiment later today and see if this can be used to pull in and then push out the full list in a useful way.

Notdoc

@woland many thanks for staying with my fastidious enquiry... :-)

Armando

@notdoc said:

@woland many thanks for staying with my fastidious enquiry... :-)

I am not part of Troikatronix, so what I am going to say is not self-serving, but I join notdoc to a big thanks to @woland. And, in general, thanks to the Troikatronix team people! You guys are as copmpetent as you are creative and generous. Thank you guys !

Notdoc

@armando strong agreement here!

Woland

@notdoc said:

many thanks for staying with my fastidious enquiry... :-)

So the updated Popup Menu and List Selector Controls in the beta do in fact work for changing the voice selection on the Speak Text actor: https://recordit.co/4l08bcUmax

Unfortunately, this same method doesn't work for the 'font' input of the Text Draw actor, probably because the font menu has submenus in it ([FONT NAME] > Bold, Italic, etc) which the Controls have no way to handle.

Also, I'm not 100% sure, but I think the fact that you cannot get the popup menu of voice names from the Speak Text actor in a mutated actor input upstream is a bug. As you can see at the end of the gif above, the Property Inspector for the 'voice' input on the Speak Text actor says that it's being displayed as a "Popup Menu" (even though it can also be displayed as text), and the mutated input upstream on the Gate actor says the same, but on the Gate actor it's behaving as if it's set to "Text".