Working with static text

Static text is created only within Adobe Animate (formerly named Adobe Flash Professional). You cannot programmatically instantiate static text using Haxe code. Static text is useful if the text is short and is not intended to change (as dynamic text can). Think of static text as similar to a graphic element like a circle or square drawn on the Stage in Adobe Animate. While static text is more limited than dynamic text, OpenFL does allow you to read the property values of static text using the StaticText class.

Accessing static text fields with the StaticText class

Typically, you use the openfl.text.StaticText class to interact with a static text instance placed on the Stage. You can't instantiate a static text instance programmatically. Static text is created in Adobe Animate.

To create a reference to an existing static text field, iterate over the items in the display list and assign a variable. For example:

for (i in 0...this.numChildren; i++) {
    var displayitem:DisplayObject = this.getChildAt(i);
    if (Std.isOfType(displayitem, StaticText)) {
        trace("a static text field is item " + i + " on the display list");
        var myFieldLabel:StaticText = cast(displayitem, StaticText);
        trace("and contains the text: " + myFieldLabel.text);
    }
}

Once you have a reference to a static text field, you can use the properties of that text field in Haxe. The following code assumes that a variable named myFieldLabel is assigned to a static text reference. A dynamic text field named myField is positioned relative to the x and y values of myFieldLabel and displays the value of myFieldLabel again.

var myField:TextField = new TextField();
addChild(myField);
myField.x = myFieldLabel.x;
myField.y = myFieldLabel.y + 20;
myField.autoSize = TextFieldAutoSize.LEFT;
myField.text = "and " + myFieldLabel.text

<!-- TODO: uncomment if TextSnapshot is implemented

Using the TextSnapshot class

If you want to programmatically work with an existing static text instance, you can use the openfl.text.TextSnapshot class to work with the textSnapshot property of a openfl.display.DisplayObjectContainer. In other words, you create a TextSnapshot instance from the DisplayObjectContainer.textSnapshot property. You can then apply methods to that instance to retrieve values or select parts of the static text.

For example, place a static text field that contains the text "TextSnapshot Example" on the Stage. Add the following Haxe code:

var mySnap:TextSnapshot = this.textSnapshot;
var count:Number = mySnap.charCount;
mySnap.setSelected(0, 4, true);
mySnap.setSelected(1, 2, false);
var myText:String = mySnap.getSelectedText(false);
trace(myText);

The TextSnapshot class is useful for getting the text out of static text fields in a loaded SWF file, if you want to use the text as a value in another part of an application.