Thread: Scaling text question

What I am creating is a clock. That goes round n round using "getcalendar".
It's realtime, but the clock has a constant resolution of 800x800.
I have carefully placed numbers from 1-12 on the clock using that resolution placing them pixel by pixel.
Now if I resize the window, the clock resizes but the text, it fades away out of the screen because the resolution is too small.

This is how I draw them.

g2.drawString(six, 380, 750);
g2.drawString(twelve, 375, 70);
g2.drawString(nine, 30, 415);
g2.drawString(three, 725, 415);
g2.drawString(one, 570, 120);
g2.drawString(two, 690, 250);
g2.drawString(four, 685, 575);
g2.drawString(five, 570, 700);
g2.drawString(seven, 200, 710);
g2.drawString(eight, 80, 585);
g2.drawString(ten, 80, 235);
g2.drawString(eleven, 205, 115);

I understand why this is happening, obviously because the strings are in a certain place just can't understand how do I make them scaleable?
How were I to solve the problem? Is there an universal formula? Or do I have to draw every string relevant to some mathematical equation regarding to the screen size. For example : g2.drawString(twelve, diameter / 2, screenheight / 3);
It might be hard to understand without pictures, what you guys are afraid to click on for some reason.

I may not understand what you're asking, but I'll take a stab at it: The drawString() method prints the specified String using the currently set font at the currently set font size. If you are changing the size of the Frame, you may have to proportionally adjust the font size. I don't know of a formula or rule of thumb for this adjustment, but I'm sure you can come up with something acceptable with a little experimentation.

If I've completely misunderstood, please explain what you mean by "fades away."

Fades away being just that the drawstring() character moves out of it's position.
Which is logical. I mean when I set the string to be at 550 x 540.
But then change window size to 200x200 ofcourse it is gone. But my goal would be to make so the text remains in the same position and the font size resizes when making the window smaller or bigger.

Thanks for your reply.

Setting the x/y location for the start of the string's location in the frame is simple enough. If you've chosen locations you like for a 550 x 540 frame, then scale those as the frame size changes. For a change from 550 x 540 to 200 x 200, the x/y starting string position would scale to

xNew = xOld * 200 / 550 (new width / old width ),

yNew = yOld * 200 / 540 (new height / old height )

As mentioned before, you should experiment with scaling the font size using corresponding factors. Since font size affects both height and width, you might scale the font based on an average of the x/y changes or choose the most significant scaling factor of the two. You should strive to obtain a scaling algorithm that results in the same x/y and font size for a specific frame size. E.g., if x/y and font size are scaled from 500 x 1000 to 150 x 200 and then back to 500 x 1000, the x/y and font sizes for 500 x 1000 should be the same at the start and at the end.

Let us know what you come up with.

Threads merged.

Please don't post duplicate threads on the same topic. You may think the previous threads were failed attempts, but they contain the efforts of others to help based on their understanding of the problem at that time. If your understanding and explanation of the problem evolves, then that evolution is important to those trying to help and those following along who may try to help. The history allows us to move forward rather than starting from ground zero each time you decide to start a new thread.

this is hard to explain by writing

A way to explain to programmers is to post some code with the instructions needed to run and demonstrate the problem. You were also given advice in earlier posts on how to attack this problem, so provide some feedback on your efforts to incorporate that advice or provide additional info to explain why those suggestions misunderstood the question and are invalid or not helpful.

Okay I have figured out on how to make the numbers scale.

   Rectangle r = ClockStart.window.getBounds();
        int h = r.height;
        int w = r.width;

 g2.drawString(six,(w / 100) * 47 , (h / 100) * 94);
        g2.drawString(twelve, (w / 100) * 46, (h / 100) * 10);
        g2.drawString(nine, (w / 100) * 4, (h / 100) * 51);
        g2.drawString(three, (w / 100) * 90, (h / 100) * 52);
        g2.drawString(one, (w / 100) * 71, (h / 100) * 15);
        g2.drawString(two, (w / 100) * 86, (h / 100) * 31);
        g2.drawString(four, (w / 100) * 85, (h / 100) * 72);
        g2.drawString(five, (w / 100) * 71, (h / 100) * 87);
        g2.drawString(seven, (w / 100) * 25, (h / 100) * 89);
        g2.drawString(eight, (w / 100) * 10, (h / 100) * 73);
        g2.drawString(ten, (w / 100) * 10, (h / 100) * 29);
        g2.drawString(eleven, (w / 100) * 25, (h / 100) * 14);

Some pretty calculations, it's a bit sloppy tho still but it's a moderate success.
So what I did was I calculated the precentage of their position under normal circumstances.
If the starting coordinates were 375 and 700 in an 800 by 800 window.
375 / 800 * 100 = almost 47%
Making the x coordinate at (w(idth) / 100) * 47 making the x coordinate relative to the screen at all times.

It's a bit unaccurate because I am unable to add doubles to a drawString.

I am still facing a problem as the font remains unchanged. If anyone would know how to make a custom font relative to the window size could you please give me some leads?

If the default font size is 50 it would go down if the window gets smaller and go up if the window gets bigger.
Any help is appreciated.

Best Regards,

Trolltrain