Label with multiple lines with Orientation ≠ 0

[CM630]

TLabel does not support multiple lines when Label1.Font.Orientation ≠ 0.
I need a control that supports multiple lines with the following orientations (0; 900; 1800 and 2700). It will not hurt if it supports other angles, too.
It shall also support transparency (preferably adjustable degree of transparency).
There is TChartAxisTitle which is a part of Lazarus, but it does not work standalone.
What else could I use? I prefer something internal in Lazarus.

EDIT1: I tried ZCLabel. Multiline with .Orientation = 900 works even worse than in TLabel.

[wp]

I remember when I implemented the rotation of TLabel I had enormous trouble to rotate the individual lines, and therefore I disabled linebreaks for non-horizontal text. Both DrawText and TCanvas.TextRect rotate the multiline text such that the lines alignment relative to each other gets lost. To solve this it would be required to calculate the text start points of each line and handle the lines one by one. But for this purpose, one should have access to the individual wrapped strings. In the grid of fpSpreadsheet, this was solved by calculating the line-breaks manually, and this was justified due to the "rich-text" formatting of cell text. But in TLabel, this seems to me some kind of overkill. Any idea?

A hack would be to put the label's caption into a hidden TMemo having the same size as the label, let the memo do the work-breaks and then access the wrapped lines from its Lines property. But this appear too ugly to me...

[CM630]

I decided to try to use some AI (I have not tried to draw graphics on anything else but Applesoft basic when I was a child) to create a label.
The first issue that I cannot overcome is the transparency.
TGraphicControl is transparent, but stays under other controls.
TCustomControl stays above the other controls but it is not transparent.

CopyRect and BitBlt took me nowhere.
And I am seeking for a multi-platform solution.

[jamie]

create a bitmap write on it blit it to the screen using transparent draw

[CM630]

This handles the transparency issue, but:
1. I does not look like multi-platform to me.
2. It does not look properly in design mode.

Code: Pascal  [Select][+][-]

1. unit CustomControl1;
2.  
3. {$mode ObjFPC}{$H+}
4.  
5. interface
6.  
7. uses
8.   Classes, SysUtils, LResources, Forms, Controls, Graphics, Dialogs,
9.   LCLIntf, LCLType, LMessages, Types;
10.  
11. type
12.   TCustomControl1 = class(TCustomControl)
13.   private
14.     procedure CMTextChanged(var Message: TLMessage); message CM_TEXTCHANGED;
15.     procedure CMFontChanged(var Message: TLMessage); message CM_FONTCHANGED;
16.     procedure WMMove(var Message: TLMessage); message LM_MOVE;
17.     function GetTextSize: TSize;
18.   protected
19.     procedure Paint; override;
20.     procedure Resize; override;
21.   public
22.     constructor Create(AOwner: TComponent); override;
23.   published
24.     property Text;
25.     property Font;
26.     property Align;
27.     property Anchors;
28.     property Visible;
29.     property OnClick;
30.     property OnDblClick;
31.   end;
32.  
33. procedure Register;
34.  
35. implementation
36.  
37. constructor TCustomControl1.Create(AOwner: TComponent);
38. begin
39.   inherited Create(AOwner);
40.   ControlStyle := ControlStyle - [csOpaque];
41.   Width := 100;
42.   Height := 50;
43.   DoubleBuffered := False;
44. end;
45.  
46. procedure TCustomControl1.CMTextChanged(var Message: TLMessage);
47. begin
48.   Invalidate;
49. end;
50.  
51. procedure TCustomControl1.CMFontChanged(var Message: TLMessage);
52. begin
53.   Invalidate;
54. end;
55.  
56. procedure TCustomControl1.WMMove(var Message: TLMessage);
57. begin
58.   inherited;
59.   Invalidate;
60. end;
61.  
62. procedure TCustomControl1.Resize;
63. begin
64.   inherited Resize;
65.   Invalidate;
66. end;
67.  
68. procedure TCustomControl1.Paint;
69. var
70.   i: Integer;
71.   R: TRect;
72. begin
73.   if Parent = nil then Exit;
74.  
75.   Parent.Perform(LM_ERASEBKGND, Canvas.Handle, 0);
76.  
77.   for i := 0 to Parent.ControlCount - 1 do
78.   begin
79.     if (Parent.Controls[i] = Self) then Break;
80.  
81.     if Parent.Controls[i].Visible then
82.     begin
83.       R := Parent.Controls[i].BoundsRect;
84.       SaveDC(Canvas.Handle);
85.       try
86.         // shift coordinate system
87.         SetWindowOrgEx(Canvas.Handle, Left-Parent.Controls[i].left , Top-Parent.Controls[i].top, nil);
88.  
89.         Parent.Controls[i].Perform(LM_PAINT, Canvas.Handle, 0);
90.       finally
91.         RestoreDC(Canvas.Handle, -1);
92.       end;
93.     end;
94.   end;
95.  
96.   Brush.Style := bsClear;
97.   Canvas.TextOut(10, 10, Text);
98. end;
99.  
100. procedure Register;
101. begin
102.   RegisterComponents('Additional', [TCustomControl1]);
103. end;
104.  
105. end.

create a bitmap write on it blit it to the screen using transparent draw

Thanks for the advice, but as I said I have never drawn a graphic on a non 8-bit computer, at least not until 2 or 3 weeks ago, when I uses AI to draw a zig-zag.
This does not mean that I will not draw another line until I die, but graphics are completely out of my scope.

EDIT: The sample does not work in Linux.
If I get it right I shall copy what is under the Label into the canvas of the label.

ControlStyle - [csOpaque] + [csParentBackground]; does not help.

[jamie]

Load the BRGABitmap package and the BGRA-CONTROLS package.

there sits a control "BCLeaEngrave" control that you can print an any angle and it allows you to do shadowing, fuzzy text etc.

Jamie

[wp]

Here is code to wrap some text into multiple lines and to draw it as rotated lines on a canvas. Now the alignment of the individual lines is correct. Maybe this should be added to TCustomLabel. Since only the text is drawn the output is transparent (in the sense that the background shines through).

[CM630]

Thanks for the assistance.
Meanwhile I found a better way to handle the issue (without and external label).

...Maybe this should be added to TCustomLabel...)

+1, the current situation is not very nice.
The transparency issue is not solved, but labels will be more complete than now.