Learn to Program with Small Basic

DrawText() takes three arguments. The first two arguments set the x- and
y-coordinates of the upper-left corner of the text, and the third argument
takes a string of the text (or numbers) you want to draw. Remember to put
the string in quotes.
If you want to change how the text appears, use the GraphicsWindow
object properties in Table 3-1.
Table 3-1: GraphicsWindow Properties for the Font Name, Size, Style, and Color
Property Default Description
FontName "Tahoma" The name of the font
FontSize 12 The size of the font
FontBold "True" Whether or not the font’s bold
FontItalic "False" Whether or not the font’s italic
BrushColor "SlateBlue" The color of the brush that draws the text
If you don’t change any of these properties, Small Basic uses the default
values listed in Table 3-1. The program in Listing 3-6 changes these properties
to draw some fancy text.
1 ' Fonts.sb
2 GraphicsWindow.Title = "Fonts"
3 GraphicsWindow.BackgroundColor = "LightYellow"
4 GraphicsWindow.FontName = "Times New Roman"
5 GraphicsWindow.FontSize = 120
6 GraphicsWindow.FontItalic = "True"
7
8 GraphicsWindow.BrushColor = "Silver" ' Text shadow color
9 GraphicsWindow.DrawText(5, 5, "Hello!") ' Shadow position/text
10
11 GraphicsWindow.BrushColor = "RosyBrown" ' Text color
12 GraphicsWindow.DrawText(0, 0, "Hello!") ' Position and text
Listing 3-6: Trying out some fonts
In line 3, the BackgroundColor property changes the background color
of the graphics window. Lines 4–6 set the name, size, and italics properties
of the font you use in any calls to DrawText(). Line 8 sets the color of the font
using the BrushColor property, and line 9 draws the string "Hello!" starting
at point (5, 5). This line draws
the background shadow you see
in Figure 3-13. In line 11, the program
changes the BrushColor property,
and then line 12 draws the
same string in a slightly different
position. This creates the appearance
of text with a background
shadow, as shown in Figure 3-13.
Figure 3-13: The output of Fonts.sb
36 Chapter 3