9.12 Text

Text cells require the following parameters, which have to be formatted as follows:

Text<nl>

where Text is a text string containing the text to be displayed and <nl> is the newline sequence.

Text, which is delimited by the previous line's newline sequence and the newline sequence at the end of this text line (i.e. each text field must be on a line by itself), can contain spaces, but no other whitespace or control characters. Furthermore only 7-bit ASCII characters are processed; 8-bit characters have their 8th bit stripped during a read operation.

Note that the VR Graphics versions of ACE do not appear to support empty text fields.

There are a number of different types of text, as follows:

Type	Meaning
World	Text is drawn on the local X-Y plane using a 3D font; the cell's origin defines the bottom-left-hand-corner of the first character cell with the text itself displayed to the right of this point, along the local X-axis. By default, each line of text is 1 model distance unit in height. Character width varies according to the specific character and the selected font, making it difficult to exert control over the exact appearance of such text. Text height and width can be adjusted by the scaling parameters.
Screen Fast	Text is drawn relative to the dimensions of the window in which the image is displayed, using a screen font. The screen is mapped to absolute co-ordinates of -100 to 100 in both the X and Y dimensions, such that the absolute co-ordinate (-50, 50) identifies a point in the middle of the top-left-hand quadrant of the screen. The absolute X-Y co-ordinates of the cell therefore map to a point on the screen marking the bottom-left-hand-corner of the first character cell with the text itself displayed to the right of this point, along the screen's X-axis. The height and width of the the text is fixed and is not expressed as a percentage of the screen's physical height and width; text height and width is also unaffected by the scaling parameters. Because of the better control over formatting, Screen Normal text should be used in preference to Screen Fast.
Screen Normal	This is essentially the same as Screen Fast text, except that the text is displayed using a 3D font, providing better control over text appearance. Unit text height is approximately 1.25% of the screen height, with unit text width scaled according to the specific character, the selected font and the screen width. Text height and width can be adjusted by the scaling parameters.
Unrotate Fast	Text is drawn on the screen's X-Y plane using a screen font. The absolute X-Y co-ordinates of the cell defines the bottom-left-hand-corner of the first character cell with the text itself to the right of this point, along the screen's X-axis; consequently, the text appears not to rotate when the image is rotated and always faces the user. The height and width of the the text is fixed and is not expressed as a percentage of the screen's physical height and width; text height and width is also unaffected by the scaling parameters. Because of better overall appearance, Unrotate Fast text should be used in preference to Unrotate Normal.
Unrotate Normal	This is essentially the same as Unrotate Fast text, except that the text is displayed using a 3D font. By default, each line of text is 1 model distance unit in height. Character width varies according to the specific character and the selected font, making it difficult to exert control over the exact appearance of such text. Text height and width can be adjusted by the scaling parameters.