Measure text size in JavaScript - javascript

I want to measure the size of a text in JavaScript. So far this isn't so difficult because I can simply put a temporary invisible div into the DOM tree and check the offsetWidth and offsetHeight. The problem is, I want to do this BEFORE the DOM is ready. Here is a stub:
<html>
<head>
<script type="text/javascript">
var text = "Hello world";
var fontFamily = "Arial";
var fontSize = 12;
var size = measureText(text, fontSize, fontFamily);
function measureText(text, fontSize, fontFamily)
{
// TODO Implement me!
}
</script>
</head>
<body>
</body>
</html>
Again: I KNOW how to do it asynchronously when DOM (or body) signals that it is ready. But I want to do it synchronously right in the header as shown in the stub above. Any ideas how I can accomplish this? My current opinion is that this is impossible but maybe someone has a crazy idea.

You don't have to wait until the entire DOM is ready, just the bits of it you need.
Move the script to just inside <body>. Now document.body exists, so you can document.body.insertBefore(myspan, document.body.firstChild). (But don't appendChild, or you'll be putting an element on top of where the parser is, which will typically break IE.)
There may be more complicated workarounds (maybe using a canvas and measureText() for there?) but this is going to be by far the easiest.

I'm sorry, but there is no crazy idea. When the DOM is not ready it is impossible to append a node to it, so it is impossible to do what you want at the moment you want.
The sooner event that exists and tell you that the dom is ready is the DOMContentLoaded event, it has other names in different browsers implementations.

Related

Why doesn't it format the javascript code? [duplicate]

In tutorials I've learnt to use document.write. Now I understand that by many this is frowned upon. I've tried print(), but then it literally sends it to the printer.
So what are alternatives I should use, and why shouldn't I use document.write? Both w3schools and MDN use document.write.
The reason that your HTML is replaced is because of an evil JavaScript function: document.write().
It is most definitely "bad form." It only works with webpages if you use it on the page load; and if you use it during runtime, it will replace your entire document with the input. And if you're applying it as strict XHTML structure it's not even valid code.
the problem:
document.write writes to the document stream. Calling document.write on a closed (or loaded) document automatically calls document.open which will clear the document.
-- quote from the MDN
document.write() has two henchmen, document.open(), and document.close(). When the HTML document is loading, the document is "open". When the document has finished loading, the document has "closed". Using document.write() at this point will erase your entire (closed) HTML document and replace it with a new (open) document. This means your webpage has erased itself and started writing a new page - from scratch.
I believe document.write() causes the browser to have a performance decrease as well (correct me if I am wrong).
an example:
This example writes output to the HTML document after the page has loaded. Watch document.write()'s evil powers clear the entire document when you press the "exterminate" button:
I am an ordinary HTML page. I am innocent, and purely for informational purposes. Please do not <input type="button" onclick="document.write('This HTML page has been succesfully exterminated.')" value="exterminate"/>
me!
the alternatives:
.innerHTML This is a wonderful alternative, but this attribute has to be attached to the element where you want to put the text.
Example: document.getElementById('output1').innerHTML = 'Some text!';
.createTextNode() is the alternative recommended by the W3C.
Example: var para = document.createElement('p');
para.appendChild(document.createTextNode('Hello, '));
NOTE: This is known to have some performance decreases (slower than .innerHTML). I recommend using .innerHTML instead.
the example with the .innerHTML alternative:
I am an ordinary HTML page.
I am innocent, and purely for informational purposes.
Please do not
<input type="button" onclick="document.getElementById('output1').innerHTML = 'There was an error exterminating this page. Please replace <code>.innerHTML</code> with <code>document.write()</code> to complete extermination.';" value="exterminate"/>
me!
<p id="output1"></p>
Here is code that should replace document.write in-place:
document.write=function(s){
var scripts = document.getElementsByTagName('script');
var lastScript = scripts[scripts.length-1];
lastScript.insertAdjacentHTML("beforebegin", s);
}
You can combine insertAdjacentHTML method and document.currentScript property.
The insertAdjacentHTML() method of the Element interface parses the specified text as HTML or XML and inserts the resulting nodes into the DOM tree at a specified position:
'beforebegin': Before the element itself.
'afterbegin': Just inside the element, before its first child.
'beforeend': Just inside the element, after its last child.
'afterend': After the element itself.
The document.currentScript property returns the <script> element whose script is currently being processed. Best position will be beforebegin — new HTML will be inserted before <script> itself. To match document.write's native behavior, one would position the text afterend, but then the nodes from consecutive calls to the function aren't placed in the same order as you called them (like document.write does), but in reverse. The order in which your HTML appears is probably more important than where they're place relative to the <script> tag, hence the use of beforebegin.
document.currentScript.insertAdjacentHTML(
'beforebegin',
'This is a document.write alternative'
)
As a recommended alternative to document.write you could use DOM manipulation to directly query and add node elements to the DOM.
Just dropping a note here to say that, although using document.write is highly frowned upon due to performance concerns (synchronous DOM injection and evaluation), there is also no actual 1:1 alternative if you are using document.write to inject script tags on demand.
There are a lot of great ways to avoid having to do this (e.g. script loaders like RequireJS that manage your dependency chains) but they are more invasive and so are best used throughout the site/application.
I fail to see the problem with document.write. If you are using it before the onload event fires, as you presumably are, to build elements from structured data for instance, it is the appropriate tool to use. There is no performance advantage to using insertAdjacentHTML or explicitly adding nodes to the DOM after it has been built. I just tested it three different ways with an old script I once used to schedule incoming modem calls for a 24/7 service on a bank of 4 modems.
By the time it is finished this script creates over 3000 DOM nodes, mostly table cells. On a 7 year old PC running Firefox on Vista, this little exercise takes less than 2 seconds using document.write from a local 12kb source file and three 1px GIFs which are re-used about 2000 times. The page just pops into existence fully formed, ready to handle events.
Using insertAdjacentHTML is not a direct substitute as the browser closes tags which the script requires remain open, and takes twice as long to ultimately create a mangled page. Writing all the pieces to a string and then passing it to insertAdjacentHTML takes even longer, but at least you get the page as designed. Other options (like manually re-building the DOM one node at a time) are so ridiculous that I'm not even going there.
Sometimes document.write is the thing to use. The fact that it is one of the oldest methods in JavaScript is not a point against it, but a point in its favor - it is highly optimized code which does exactly what it was intended to do and has been doing since its inception.
It's nice to know that there are alternative post-load methods available, but it must be understood that these are intended for a different purpose entirely; namely modifying the DOM after it has been created and memory allocated to it. It is inherently more resource-intensive to use these methods if your script is intended to write the HTML from which the browser creates the DOM in the first place.
Just write it and let the browser and interpreter do the work. That's what they are there for.
PS: I just tested using an onload param in the body tag and even at this point the document is still open and document.write() functions as intended. Also, there is no perceivable performance difference between the various methods in the latest version of Firefox. Of course there is a ton of caching probably going on somewhere in the hardware/software stack, but that's the point really - let the machine do the work. It may make a difference on a cheap smartphone though. Cheers!
The question depends on what you are actually trying to do.
Usually, instead of doing document.write you can use someElement.innerHTML or better, document.createElement with an someElement.appendChild.
You can also consider using a library like jQuery and using the modification functions in there: http://api.jquery.com/category/manipulation/
This is probably the most correct, direct replacement: insertAdjacentHTML.
Try to use getElementById() or getElementsByName() to access a specific element and then to use innerHTML property:
<html>
<body>
<div id="myDiv1"></div>
<div id="myDiv2"></div>
</body>
<script type="text/javascript">
var myDiv1 = document.getElementById("myDiv1");
var myDiv2 = document.getElementById("myDiv2");
myDiv1.innerHTML = "<b>Content of 1st DIV</b>";
myDiv2.innerHTML = "<i>Content of second DIV element</i>";
</script>
</html>
Use
var documentwrite =(value, method="", display="")=>{
switch(display) {
case "block":
var x = document.createElement("p");
break;
case "inline":
var x = document.createElement("span");
break;
default:
var x = document.createElement("p");
}
var t = document.createTextNode(value);
x.appendChild(t);
if(method==""){
document.body.appendChild(x);
}
else{
document.querySelector(method).appendChild(x);
}
}
and call the function based on your requirement as below
documentwrite("My sample text"); //print value inside body
documentwrite("My sample text inside id", "#demoid", "block"); // print value inside id and display block
documentwrite("My sample text inside class", ".democlass","inline"); // print value inside class and and display inline
I'm not sure if this will work exactly, but I thought of
var docwrite = function(doc) {
document.write(doc);
};
This solved the problem with the error messages for me.

JavaScript - dynamic SVG - onload attribute - event not triggered

Inserting dynamic SVG content into the DOM does not work as expected, having the SVG element onload attribute (containing JavaScript) regarding: "setInterval()".
As noted in the search tags of this question; this is plain (valilla) JavaScript (not jQuery); here's a breakdown of the issue:
I have some SVG code (plain text) that gets inserted into a <div> as innerHTML
the SVG element has an onload attribute with some JavaScript inside it
the JavaScript contains setInterval(...) - (which does not work at all)
I grab the SVG element from the temporary div and return it as the result of a function.
this result is appended into some element in the live DOM (body)
the strange issue:
any other code inside that onload attribute works fine,
only setInterval & setTimeout is completely ignored
More info:
During runtime (start-up), the SVG code is grabbed from an existing embed element .getSVGDocument() (after it has loaded) and prepared as plain HTML which can just be used as a template to create many others from the same source-code. I'm not using cloneNode(true) -because: the interval is for animation (continuous slow & smooth rotation) - which could have a heavy impact on client-side resources, hence, I thought it best to grab the code and keep it as template - then remove the original from the DOM.
With all the above in mind, everything works fine:
The (new) SVG shows up on screen, all nice and dandy-like
When I console.log the (inline) SVG code that is used, all looks perfect
I get no errors, and there is no error handler that mutes errors (window.onerror == null)
The JavaScript (text) inside the SVG node's onload attribute works for things like: console.log(this) - (which produces the SVG element in the log) - however, as mentioned: setInterval() & setTimeout() is just simply ignored - without any error and no warning.
The following code is a very short example, and (regrettably) it works; however, in my production app it doesn't.
The code:
var html = '<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" version="1.1" onload="setInterval(function(){ console.log(\'testing\'); },500);">';
var temp = document.createElement('div'); temp.innerHTML = html;
var node = temp.getElementsByTagName('svg')[0];
document.body.appendChild(node);
If you test the above code in a new js file, it works; however, for the life of me I can't find the reason why it breaks in my app; as explained, it's quite simple really.
The question:
Does anyone know if there is some "gotcha" I'm not aware of regarding this? Maybe name-spacing?
If the source-code is required, I can load it up on JSFiddle, or CodePen -if required, but, it's a lot of code, and many files, which may not be necessary for publication.
I'm sure it's just something small; like, how timers register according to scope, and maybe how it's affected in .bind() ?
I'm really stuck with this, and I kinda need it working for a good impression for a job-interview; so if you know anything that could help, I would appreciate your input very much.
Thank you.
embedded content, onload attributes & the DOM
The following may help in related scenarios:
when targeting an asynchronous source, make sure the contentDocument or getSVGDocument() contains the resources you need to access. The window.onload, or the DOMContentLoaded event is relative to the current DOM, so it may help constructing your own listener->trigger for a cross-browser solution, because the contents you need may not be ready in a synchronous fashion.
the onload attribute/event is not triggered when inserting dynamic content that is not asynchronously loaded, but may fire under certain circumstances, so, again, a custom:
listen->trigger will solve that.
question specific
The question is directly related to the 2nd point above, and the answer is quite simple really:
in the "onload" attribute of said SVG, set a simple value as property of this like:
<svg onload="this.ready = true; setTinterval(...)"
in the constructor function, after the element was dynamically created, simply check if the svg-node's onload event was fired like so:
if (!svgNode.ready){ svgNode.onload(); }
If there is an error in your code, but no error is shown, make sure window.onerror is either null -or if it's a function, make sure it does NOT return true - else it may suppress errors and you'll have a hard time tracking down what's wrong.
Please feel free to either improve this answer, or comment and I'll improve it accordingly; however, better answers will be appreciated.
6 years later...
With vanilla JavaScript Web Components you can do:
<load-svg></load-svg>
<script>
customElements.define("load-svg", class extends HTMLElement {
connectedCallback() {
this.innerHTML = `<svg></svg>`;
setInterval(() => {
console.log("testing");
}, 500);
}
});
</script>

What's wrong with document.write? What's a viable alternative? [duplicate]

In tutorials I've learnt to use document.write. Now I understand that by many this is frowned upon. I've tried print(), but then it literally sends it to the printer.
So what are alternatives I should use, and why shouldn't I use document.write? Both w3schools and MDN use document.write.
The reason that your HTML is replaced is because of an evil JavaScript function: document.write().
It is most definitely "bad form." It only works with webpages if you use it on the page load; and if you use it during runtime, it will replace your entire document with the input. And if you're applying it as strict XHTML structure it's not even valid code.
the problem:
document.write writes to the document stream. Calling document.write on a closed (or loaded) document automatically calls document.open which will clear the document.
-- quote from the MDN
document.write() has two henchmen, document.open(), and document.close(). When the HTML document is loading, the document is "open". When the document has finished loading, the document has "closed". Using document.write() at this point will erase your entire (closed) HTML document and replace it with a new (open) document. This means your webpage has erased itself and started writing a new page - from scratch.
I believe document.write() causes the browser to have a performance decrease as well (correct me if I am wrong).
an example:
This example writes output to the HTML document after the page has loaded. Watch document.write()'s evil powers clear the entire document when you press the "exterminate" button:
I am an ordinary HTML page. I am innocent, and purely for informational purposes. Please do not <input type="button" onclick="document.write('This HTML page has been succesfully exterminated.')" value="exterminate"/>
me!
the alternatives:
.innerHTML This is a wonderful alternative, but this attribute has to be attached to the element where you want to put the text.
Example: document.getElementById('output1').innerHTML = 'Some text!';
.createTextNode() is the alternative recommended by the W3C.
Example: var para = document.createElement('p');
para.appendChild(document.createTextNode('Hello, '));
NOTE: This is known to have some performance decreases (slower than .innerHTML). I recommend using .innerHTML instead.
the example with the .innerHTML alternative:
I am an ordinary HTML page.
I am innocent, and purely for informational purposes.
Please do not
<input type="button" onclick="document.getElementById('output1').innerHTML = 'There was an error exterminating this page. Please replace <code>.innerHTML</code> with <code>document.write()</code> to complete extermination.';" value="exterminate"/>
me!
<p id="output1"></p>
Here is code that should replace document.write in-place:
document.write=function(s){
var scripts = document.getElementsByTagName('script');
var lastScript = scripts[scripts.length-1];
lastScript.insertAdjacentHTML("beforebegin", s);
}
You can combine insertAdjacentHTML method and document.currentScript property.
The insertAdjacentHTML() method of the Element interface parses the specified text as HTML or XML and inserts the resulting nodes into the DOM tree at a specified position:
'beforebegin': Before the element itself.
'afterbegin': Just inside the element, before its first child.
'beforeend': Just inside the element, after its last child.
'afterend': After the element itself.
The document.currentScript property returns the <script> element whose script is currently being processed. Best position will be beforebegin — new HTML will be inserted before <script> itself. To match document.write's native behavior, one would position the text afterend, but then the nodes from consecutive calls to the function aren't placed in the same order as you called them (like document.write does), but in reverse. The order in which your HTML appears is probably more important than where they're place relative to the <script> tag, hence the use of beforebegin.
document.currentScript.insertAdjacentHTML(
'beforebegin',
'This is a document.write alternative'
)
As a recommended alternative to document.write you could use DOM manipulation to directly query and add node elements to the DOM.
Just dropping a note here to say that, although using document.write is highly frowned upon due to performance concerns (synchronous DOM injection and evaluation), there is also no actual 1:1 alternative if you are using document.write to inject script tags on demand.
There are a lot of great ways to avoid having to do this (e.g. script loaders like RequireJS that manage your dependency chains) but they are more invasive and so are best used throughout the site/application.
I fail to see the problem with document.write. If you are using it before the onload event fires, as you presumably are, to build elements from structured data for instance, it is the appropriate tool to use. There is no performance advantage to using insertAdjacentHTML or explicitly adding nodes to the DOM after it has been built. I just tested it three different ways with an old script I once used to schedule incoming modem calls for a 24/7 service on a bank of 4 modems.
By the time it is finished this script creates over 3000 DOM nodes, mostly table cells. On a 7 year old PC running Firefox on Vista, this little exercise takes less than 2 seconds using document.write from a local 12kb source file and three 1px GIFs which are re-used about 2000 times. The page just pops into existence fully formed, ready to handle events.
Using insertAdjacentHTML is not a direct substitute as the browser closes tags which the script requires remain open, and takes twice as long to ultimately create a mangled page. Writing all the pieces to a string and then passing it to insertAdjacentHTML takes even longer, but at least you get the page as designed. Other options (like manually re-building the DOM one node at a time) are so ridiculous that I'm not even going there.
Sometimes document.write is the thing to use. The fact that it is one of the oldest methods in JavaScript is not a point against it, but a point in its favor - it is highly optimized code which does exactly what it was intended to do and has been doing since its inception.
It's nice to know that there are alternative post-load methods available, but it must be understood that these are intended for a different purpose entirely; namely modifying the DOM after it has been created and memory allocated to it. It is inherently more resource-intensive to use these methods if your script is intended to write the HTML from which the browser creates the DOM in the first place.
Just write it and let the browser and interpreter do the work. That's what they are there for.
PS: I just tested using an onload param in the body tag and even at this point the document is still open and document.write() functions as intended. Also, there is no perceivable performance difference between the various methods in the latest version of Firefox. Of course there is a ton of caching probably going on somewhere in the hardware/software stack, but that's the point really - let the machine do the work. It may make a difference on a cheap smartphone though. Cheers!
The question depends on what you are actually trying to do.
Usually, instead of doing document.write you can use someElement.innerHTML or better, document.createElement with an someElement.appendChild.
You can also consider using a library like jQuery and using the modification functions in there: http://api.jquery.com/category/manipulation/
This is probably the most correct, direct replacement: insertAdjacentHTML.
Try to use getElementById() or getElementsByName() to access a specific element and then to use innerHTML property:
<html>
<body>
<div id="myDiv1"></div>
<div id="myDiv2"></div>
</body>
<script type="text/javascript">
var myDiv1 = document.getElementById("myDiv1");
var myDiv2 = document.getElementById("myDiv2");
myDiv1.innerHTML = "<b>Content of 1st DIV</b>";
myDiv2.innerHTML = "<i>Content of second DIV element</i>";
</script>
</html>
Use
var documentwrite =(value, method="", display="")=>{
switch(display) {
case "block":
var x = document.createElement("p");
break;
case "inline":
var x = document.createElement("span");
break;
default:
var x = document.createElement("p");
}
var t = document.createTextNode(value);
x.appendChild(t);
if(method==""){
document.body.appendChild(x);
}
else{
document.querySelector(method).appendChild(x);
}
}
and call the function based on your requirement as below
documentwrite("My sample text"); //print value inside body
documentwrite("My sample text inside id", "#demoid", "block"); // print value inside id and display block
documentwrite("My sample text inside class", ".democlass","inline"); // print value inside class and and display inline
I'm not sure if this will work exactly, but I thought of
var docwrite = function(doc) {
document.write(doc);
};
This solved the problem with the error messages for me.

Javascript - Set a DIV size without having to wait the page end of load

I have a DIV I want to adjust its size regarding the window size. So I have a javascript method that returns the newsize to apply. But I don't see how I can define that size to the div without having to wait the end of page load.
I mean, I have some long loading objects on the page, so if I use the window.onload way to set the size, I have a div with a bad size at the start, then when the page is loaded, the div is resized. Baaad looking.
I'd like to set that size as soon as the page is displayed, with something like :
<div id="myid" style="width:myjavascript_Getcorrectsize();">
How would I do such a thing ?
You don't have to wait for the window load event, or even for the "ready" events that some libraries provide. Just put your script block after the div in question, and you will be able to access that div via the DOM to set its size. E.g.:
<body>
<div id="target">This is the target, JavaScript makes it 100px wide</div>
<script>
(function() {
var elm = document.getElementById("target");
elm.style.width = "100px";
})();
</script>
</body>
Live demo
References:
Google Closure library engineers on when elements are available
YUI Best Practices to Speed Up Your Website
That said, if you can possibly set the size via CSS, you'd be better off. But I expect you've already found that for some reason you can't do that.
The easiest method is to insert a <script> block at the end of your document, and execute the desired code:
...
<script>
(function(){ //<-- This part is optional, but recommended if you don't want
// to leak variables to the global scope
document.getElementById("myid").style.width = myjavascript_Getcorrectsize();
})();
</script>
</body>
If you want the element to have a specific relative width, you can also use relative units instead of JavaScript:
<div id="myid" style="width:50%">

Measuring the string width in Javascript

I'm trying to precisely fit a string into a certain width. This means the font-size changes depending on the string. I now use the following function, using jQuery:
function fontResize ( )
{
for (var i = $("#date").css("font-size").slice(0, -2); $("#date").width() < $("#clock").width(); i++)
$("#date").css("font-size", i.toString() + "px");
}
The idea is that I set the font-size in the CSS to the lowest possible value. I initialize the loop with this value and increment the font-size with 1 until the string is wider than the width of the containing element. The string in this case is "date" and the containing element is "clock".
Although this works, I think the main disadvantage is that the string has to be first drawn before the width can be determined. This means I cannot call this function before loading the body.
If anyone knows a better way to do this please let me know! Thanks.
To make sure you're getting all the styles and such applied to it that will be applied when the page is fully rendered, yes, you do want to put the element in the DOM (and in the right place in the DOM) before you do your measurement stuff. But you don't have to wait until everything else is there (unless you think it will affect the styling of the string you're measuring). You can put your code in a script block immediately after the element in question — no waiting for ready. The date element will be there and accessible, according to Google's Closure library engineers. E.g., if date is a span:
<body>
...
<span id="date">December 13th</span>
<script>fontResize();</script>
...
...
</body>
It's unfortunate to intermix code and markup like that (particularly if you have separate teams doing the markup and the code), but if your requirement is to size the text absolutely as soon as possible, that's how.
The above also assumes your fontResize function is already loaded (e.g., in a script block higher on the page). This is another reason it's unfortunate to mix markup and code like this, because normally of course you want to put your scripts at the bottom, just before closing the body tag.
However: It may be worth experimenting to see if you can do your resizing in the script you put just before the closing body tag instead. There'd be a small window of opportunity for the page not to look right, but quite small and of course pages tend to look a little funny as they load anyway. Then you wouldn't have the intermixing problem and wouldn't have to load your scripts early. You may find that the just-before-the-closing-body-tag is soon enough.
How about using the canvas, and the measureText method?
$(function () {
var canvas = $("canvas")[0];
var context = canvas.getContext("2d");
var text = "hello world";
context.font = "40pt Calibri";
var metrics = context.measureText(text);
alert(metrics.width);
});

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