XNA - Tool to help determine screen position

Question

I'm currently working on an RPG game using the XNA Framework.

Currently, when determining where text is displayed on the screen, I'm using trial and error method to find Y co-ordinates, i.e. loading up and then modifying the coordinate to alter the position.

The code sample below shows how I am processing the "Conversation" text

titleString = Fonts.SplitTextIntoLines(Conversation.CurrentNode.Text, Fonts.Font, new Vector2(maxWidth, 0));
titlePosition.X = (viewport.Width - Fonts.Font.MeasureString(titleString).X) / 2;
titlePosition.Y = backgroundPosition.Y + 200f;

Fonts.SplitTextIntoLines splits the input up into multiple lines depending on the Font used and the max width specified, this is irrelevant for my question

titlePosition.X: here I am centering the text on the screen

titlePosition.Y: This is the line I am bothered by

If there was some kind of tool which would allow me to have a blank window which I could position a piece of text, or image on and then see the coordinates, it would be a massive help.

If anyone knows of a tool like this, could you let me know? :)

Here is a screenshot to illustrate my question better http://img836.imageshack.us/img836/1929/i86g.png

How about you stop guessing and let the computer do the computing? For sure you can determine the rectangle within which your text can be displayed and then use `SpriteFont.MeasureString(string)` to find the length of your resulting text in pixels. Then it's just a couple of lines automating this for every line of text, pissibly even auto word wrapping and you don't ever need to do this manually again. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10263734/how-to-align-text-drawn-by-spritebatch-drawstring and http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15986473/how-do-i-implement-word-wrap — user1306322, Jul 09 '13 at 08:56
I'm not talking about x-width, I have used MeasureString to wrap my text; Also my question isn't solely limited to text, it's about general position of anything... — James Robert Pattison, Jul 10 '13 at 23:13

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 10 '13 at 01:37

The easy answer would be for you to implement a very basic tool to help to position your objects in your scene. Most game engine will have an editor for you to do so but since XNA is just a framework, you could implement a very simple system with your keyboard and arrow to move your text around and output on screen the X and Y position. It's not perfect but it should save you some time.

Also:

Vector2 mousePosition = new Vector2(Mouse.GetState().X,Mouse.GetState().Y);

Console.WriteLine("My Cursor is at: " + mousePosition);

Don't forget the IsMouseVisible member of Game to be able to actually see your mouse cursor.

Hope it helps!

Thanks chap, I didn't consider doing this :) – James Robert Pattison Jul 10 '13 at 23:13 — James Robert Pattison, Jul 10 '13 at 23:13

XNA - Tool to help determine screen position

1 Answers1