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UIText

A UIControl which displays a basic text label. Inherits from UIControl.

Properties

Property Name Return Type Description Tags
text string The actual text string to show. Read-Write
fontSize integer The font size of the UIText control. Read-Write
outlineSize integer The thickness of the outline around text in this control. A value of 0 means no outline. Read-Write
justification TextJustify Determines the alignment of text. Possible values are: TextJustify.LEFT, TextJustify.RIGHT, and TextJustify.CENTER. Read-Write
verticalJustification TextVerticalJustify Determines the vertical alignment of text. Possible values are: TextVerticalJustify.TOP, TextVerticalJustify.BOTTOM, TextVerticalJustify.CENTER and TextVerticalJustify.BASELINE. Read-Write
shouldWrapText boolean Whether or not text should be wrapped within the bounds of this control. Read-Write
shouldClipText boolean Whether or not text should be clipped when exceeding the bounds of this control. Read-Write
shouldScaleToFit boolean Whether or not text should scale down to fit within the bounds of this control. Read-Write
isHittable boolean When set to true, this control can receive input from the cursor and blocks input to controls behind it. When set to false, the cursor ignores this control and can interact with controls behind it. Read-Write

Functions

Function Name Return Type Description Tags
GetColor() Color Returns the color of the Text. None
SetColor(Color) None Sets the color of the Text. None
GetOutlineColor() Color Returns the color of the text's outline. None
SetOutlineColor(Color) None Sets the color of the text's outline. None
GetShadowColor() Color Returns the color of the text's drop shadow. None
SetShadowColor(Color) None Sets the color of the text's drop shadow. None
GetShadowOffset() Vector2 Returns the offset of the text's drop shadow in UI space. None
SetShadowOffset(Vector2) None Sets the offset of the text's drop shadow in UI space. None
ComputeApproximateSize() Vector2 Attempts to determine the size of the rendered block of text. This may return nil if the size cannot be determined, for example because the underlying widget has not been fully initialized yet. None
SetFont(string fontId) None Sets the text to use the specified font asset. None
GetCurrentTouchIndex() integer Returns the touch index currently interacting with this control. Returns nil if the control is not currently being interacted with. Client-Only

Events

Event Name Return Type Description Tags
touchStartedEvent Event<UIText, Vector2 location, integer touchIndex> Fired when the player starts touching the control on a touch input device. Parameters are the screen location of the touch and a touch index used to distinguish between separate touches on a multitouch device. Client-Only
touchStoppedEvent Event<UIText, Vector2 location, integer touchIndex> Fired when the player stops touching the control on a touch input device. Parameters are the screen location from which the touch was released and a touch index used to distinguish between separate touches on a multitouch device. Client-Only
tappedEvent Event<UIText, Vector2 location, integer touchIndex> Fired when the player taps the control on a touch input device. Parameters are the screen location of the tap and the touch index with which the tap was performed. Client-Only
flickedEvent Event<UIText, number angle> Fired when the player performs a quick flicking gesture on the control on a touch input device. The angle parameter indicates the direction of the flick. 0 indicates a flick to the right. Values increase in degrees counter-clockwise, so 90 indicates a flick straight up, 180 indicates a flick to the left, etc. Client-Only
pinchStartedEvent Event<UIText> Fired when the player begins a pinching gesture on the control on a touch input device. Input.GetPinchValue() may be polled during the pinch gesture to determine how far the player has pinched. Client-Only
pinchStoppedEvent Event<UIText> Fired when the player ends a pinching gesture on a touch input device. Client-Only
rotateStartedEvent Event<UIText> Fired when the player begins a rotating gesture on the control on a touch input device. Input.GetRotateValue() may be polled during the rotate gesture to determine how far the player has rotated. Client-Only
rotateStoppedEvent Event<UIText> Fired when the player ends a rotating gesture on a touch input device. Client-Only

Examples

Example using:

GetTouchPosition

GetPinchValue

GetRotateValue

pinchStartedEvent

pinchStoppedEvent

rotateStartedEvent

rotateStoppedEvent

In this example we manipulate a UI Text object with a multi-touch pinching gesture. The pinch gesture is used to move, scale and rotate a the UI Text on screen.

-- Client Script as a child of the UI Text.
local UI_OBJECT = script.parent

-- Make the UI Control hittable
UI_OBJECT.isHittable = true

local isPinching = false
local isRotating = false
local startingSize
local startingAngle

function Tick()
    -- Position
    local touch1 = Input.GetTouchPosition(1)
    local touch2 = Input.GetTouchPosition(2)

    if touch1 ~= nil and touch2 ~= nil then
        local position = (touch1 + touch2) / 2

        UI_OBJECT:SetAbsolutePosition(position)
    end

    -- Scale
    if isPinching then
        local pinchPercent = Input.GetPinchValue()

        UI_OBJECT.fontSize = CoreMath.Round(startingSize * pinchPercent)
    end

    -- Rotate
    if isRotating then
        local angle = Input.GetRotateValue()

        UI_OBJECT.rotationAngle = startingAngle + angle
    end
end

local function OnPinchStarted()
    isPinching = true
    startingSize = UI_OBJECT.fontSize
end

local function OnPinchStopped()
    isPinching = false
end

-- Detect pinch gesture start/end
UI_OBJECT.pinchStartedEvent:Connect(OnPinchStarted)
UI_OBJECT.pinchStoppedEvent:Connect(OnPinchStopped)

local function OnRotateStarted()
    isRotating = true
    startingAngle = UI_OBJECT.rotationAngle
end

local function OnRotateStopped()
    isRotating = false
end

-- Detect rotation gesture start/end
UI_OBJECT.rotateStartedEvent:Connect(OnRotateStarted)
UI_OBJECT.rotateStoppedEvent:Connect(OnRotateStopped)

See also: UIControl.SetAbsolutePosition | UIText.isHittable | CoreObject.parent | CoreMath.Round


Example using:

tappedEvent

flickedEvent

In this example we listen for the tapped and flicked touch gestures on the UI object. When one of those events is triggered, the pertinent information is printed to the screen.

-- Client Script as a child of the UI Text.
local UI_OBJECT = script.parent

-- Make the UI Control hittable
UI_OBJECT.isHittable = true

function OnTappedEvent(control, location, touchIndex)
    UI.PrintToScreen("Tap ".. touchIndex ..": ".. tostring(location))
end

function OnFlickedEvent(control, angle)
    UI.PrintToScreen("Flick: " .. angle)
end

UI_OBJECT.tappedEvent:Connect(OnTappedEvent)
UI_OBJECT.flickedEvent:Connect(OnFlickedEvent)

See also: UI.PrintToScreen | Event.Connect | UIText.isHittable


Example using:

touchStartedEvent

touchStoppedEvent

In this example, the touch inputs on the UI object are tracked in two different ways, with a counter and with a table. Each time the amount of touches change a summary of the touch information is printed to screen.

-- Client Script as a child of the UI Text.
local UI_OBJECT = script.parent

-- Make the UI Control hittable
UI_OBJECT.isHittable = true

local touchCount = 0
local activeTouches = {}

function PrintTouchInfo()
    local str = touchCount .. ": ["
    local addComma = false

    for id,_ in pairs(activeTouches) do
        if addComma then
            str = str .. ", "
        end

        addComma = true
        str = str .. id
    end

    str = str .. "]"

    UI.PrintToScreen(str)
end

local function OnTouchStarted(control, location, touchId)
    touchCount = touchCount + 1
    activeTouches[touchId] = true

    PrintTouchInfo()
end

local function OnTouchStopped(control, location, touchId)
    touchCount = touchCount - 1
    activeTouches[touchId] = nil

    PrintTouchInfo()
end

UI_OBJECT.touchStartedEvent:Connect(OnTouchStarted)
UI_OBJECT.touchStoppedEvent:Connect(OnTouchStopped)

See also: UI.PrintToScreen | Event.Connect | UIText.isHittable


Example using:

ComputeApproximateSize

In this example a random message will be displayed. Each message is a different length. Using ComputeApproximateSize, you can get the rendered text size and increase the parent width so the text does not overflow. This is useful when you do not know the size of the text, for example, player names.

-- Client script.
-- The image is a fixed size.
local UI_IMAGE = script:GetCustomProperty("Image"):WaitForObject()

-- The text is set to not wrap, a child of the image, centered,
-- and inherit parent width.
local UI_TEXT = script:GetCustomProperty("Text"):WaitForObject()

-- Amount of space on the left and right of the text.
local padding = 100

-- Cache the starting width that will be used later.
local minWidth = UI_IMAGE.width

-- Array of messages to pick from at random.
local messages = {

    "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.",
    "Lorem ipsum.",
    "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.",
    "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur."

}

-- Get the approx text size of the UI_TEXT.
function GetTextSize()
    local size = UI_TEXT:ComputeApproximateSize()

    -- The size could be nil for a couple of frames,
    -- so you will need to wait for the component to
    -- be initialized.
    while size == nil do
        Task.Wait()
        size = UI_TEXT:ComputeApproximateSize()
    end

    return size
end

-- Spawn a task to repeat every 3 seconds and display
-- a random message.
local randomMsgTask = Task.Spawn(function()

    -- The UI_TEXT object needs the text property set
    -- first before getting the size.
    UI_TEXT.text = messages[math.random(#messages)]

    -- The width of the image is set based on the size
    -- of the text. The minimum width of the image will
    -- not go below minWidth value.
    UI_IMAGE.width = math.max(minWidth, GetTextSize().x + padding)
end)

randomMsgTask.repeatCount = -1
randomMsgTask.repeatInterval = 3

See also: UIText.text | UIControl.width | Task.Spawn


Example using:

SetShadowOffset

SetShadowColor

Adding shadows to UI components is a great way to draw a player's attention to that UI component. This example will show you how to position UI Text shadows and change the color of UI Text shadows. This script will cause the shadow of a UI Text object to blink on and off.

-- Grab the text object
local propUIText = script:GetCustomProperty("UIText"):WaitForObject()

-- Slightly offset the text's shadow so that you can see the shadow
propUIText:SetShadowOffset(Vector2.New(20, 20))

-- This variable will store the number of seconds that have passed
local secondCounter = 0

-- Give the shadow a black color
local shadowBlackColor = Color.BLACK

-- This color will not be visible because the alpha value is 0
local shadowInvisibleColor = Color.New(0, 1, 0, 0)

function Tick(deltaTime)
    -- Update the "secondCounter" to keep track of the number of seconds that have passed
    secondCounter = secondCounter + deltaTime

    -- Once 1 second has passed, toggle the visibility of the shadow
    Task.Wait(1)

    -- If the current color of the text shadow is black, make the shadow invisible using "shadowInvisibleColor"
    if(propUIText:GetShadowColor() == shadowBlackColor) then
        -- Set the color of the text shadow to black
        propUIText:SetShadowColor(shadowInvisibleColor)
    -- If the current color of the text shadow is invisible, make the shadow visible using "shadowBlackColor"
    elseif (propUIText:GetShadowColor() == shadowInvisibleColor) then
        -- Set the color of the text shadow to an invisible color
        propUIText:SetShadowColor(shadowBlackColor)
    end
end

See also: CoreObject.GetCustomProperty | Vector2.New | Color.New


Example using:

outlineSize

SetOutlineColor

Text outlines are often used to draw a player's attention towards a specific word or phrase. This example will demonstrate how you can change the color and size of UI Text outlines. This script will cause the outline of the UI Text object to repeatedly increase and decrease in size.

-- Grab the text object
local propUIText = script:GetCustomProperty("UIText"):WaitForObject()

-- Change the outline color of the text to green
propUIText:SetOutlineColor(Color.GREEN)

-- This variable will store the number of seconds that have passed since the start of the game
local timePassed = 0

-- This variable will store the current size of the text outline
local textOutlineSize = 0

-- This variable determines how large the text outline will be
local outlineScale = 5

-- Determines how often the text outline changes size
-- The current value will change the size 2 times per second
local frequency = 2 * (2 * math.pi)

function Tick(deltaTime)
    -- Update the "timePassed" to keep track of the number of seconds that have passed
    timePassed = timePassed + deltaTime

    -- The "timePassed" variable will be passed into a sine wave function to smoothly change the text outline size
    -- This sine wave function will have a frequency of 2 hertz, and an amplitude of 5 units
    textOutlineSize = (math.sin(timePassed * frequency) * outlineScale) + outlineScale

    -- the "floor" function is used to convert "textOutlineSize" from a number with decimals (known as a "floating point number")
    -- to a number without a decimal point (known as an "integer")
    textOutlineSize = math.floor(textOutlineSize)

    -- Update the outline size of the text
    propUIText.outlineSize = textOutlineSize
end

See also: CoreObject.GetCustomProperty


Example using:

text

Being able to modify text is extremely valuable. This example will show you how to use the text property of a UI Text object to modify text displayed during runtime.

-- Grab the text object
local propUIText = script:GetCustomProperty("UIText"):WaitForObject()

-- This variable will store the number of seconds that have passed since the start of this script
local timePassed = 0

function Tick(deltaTime)
    -- Update the "timePassed" to keep track of the number of seconds that have passed
    timePassed = timePassed + deltaTime

    -- Convert the "timePassed" variable into a string format
    -- the "floor" function was used to remove the extra decimal points from the "timePassed" number
    local timePassedString = tostring(math.floor(timePassed))

    -- Update the UI text object to display the number of seconds that have passed
    propUIText.text = timePassedString
end

See also: CoreObject.GetCustomProperty


Tutorials

UI in Core


Last update: February 10, 2023