Text Y axis location in 4.2.18

[dkuntz]

Y axis location for the text effect seems to have changed with the latest version. I can still adjust my text full top to bottom but locations for specific values of y have changed enough that I will need to fix things as text in some cases is completely off my matrix now. It is still centered at value 0, just the + and - values have changed location behavior. Before I "fix" all my sequences for the new behavior can someone confirm if the current behavior will remain in future versions?

[Gilrock]

Can you document the details of how it changed a little better?  It wasn't changed on purpose that I know of.

[dkulp]

Not on purpose, but doesn't really surprise me.   Adding the "vector" stuff for the text did change a bit of the math in there and I hoped it imported the old stuff fairly close, but I didn't have anything using the text effects to test with. 

[Gilrock]

Yeah I could tell it was "touched" but I didn't think you planned for any positioning to change.  I figured if someone could document what was happening it would make it easier for us to track down.

[dkuntz]

I have a 74 row x 75 pixel matrix. I have a sequence where I use all 4 lines of text in the text effect to display 4, roughly evenly spaced (vertically), lines of horizontal text. Prior to the .18 version the position settings were (for line1 - line4) 88,65,41,18). When I open this sequence in 4.2.18 the text for line 1 and line 4 is completely off the top of the matrix and off the bottom of the matrix respectively. Line 2 has moved up such that is basically centered in the top half and line 4 has moved down so that it is basically centered in the bottom half of the matrix. Line one now shows a value of 74 instead of 88 since it is now a "Y" value instead of "postion". The rest of the lines show the original Position values of 65,41,18. In this case I have to change the values for line1-4 to 40,59,46,33 to achieve roughly the same results as before. Again I don't necessarily consider this a bug as long as it is going to remain consistent going forward and I love the vector option for text. Hope this helps.

[dkulp]

I understand what happened, I'm just not if there is an easy way to adjust it back.

The new code just adjusts the center point of the text on the matrix based solely on the size of the matrix. When you move the positions sliders, you are moving it that far based on the matrix size.   If the matrix is 50 pixels tall and you set the position at 50 (which is 50%), you move the center of the text up by 25 pixels.   Any attributes of the text itself is irrelevant.   

The old code used the "height of the matrix plus the height of the text" to calculate the offset.   So if the text was 12 pixels tall, the offset percentages were based on 62 pixels.   If you rotated the text up/down so the height was 100 pixels, the old math would base on 150 pixels.   Thus, depending on the attributes of the text, positioning could be different.   

I need to think a bit to figure out what is "right" in this case.   I certainly prefer to keep movements and such soley based on the model sizes, but this was obviously different for the old text stuff. 

[Gilrock]

I like the idea of changing it so that the Text effect only does one line of text but not sure how to handle fixing up folks older sequences.  Maybe we can make that change in January.  Like Dan said before there is no reason to have 4 lines of text in the effect anymore because you can just use 4 text effects on different layers.  It way overcomplicated the design of that effect panel and create an unnecessary amount of setting strings for the effect.

[JonB256]

As a Multi Line text user, I would support changing to Single instead of 4 lines. Using Layers is a better and more future compatible method.