formatlos

Martin Rädlinger

// highlight container
var highlight : Sprite = new Sprite();
addChild(highlight);
 
// create textfield
var textField : TextField = new TextField();
addChild(textField);
 
// apply text style and add text
...
 
// highlight style
var style : IHighlightStyle = new SimpleHighlightStyle(0x00ff00, 0.5);
 
// highlighter
var textHighlighter : TextHighlighter = new TextHighlighter(textField, highlight, style);
textHighlighter.highlight(/far/gi);
textHighlighter.highlight("Duden", false);

16 Responses (Add Your Comment)

1. Mitch June 23, 2009

   at 12:46 am

   Nice. Thanks for sharing this :)

2. Mark Holgerson October 11, 2009

   at 6:53 am

   This is great. Thank you for writing this class.

   I am running into problems however with special html characters. Is there a way to highlight special characters such ampersands or dollar signs?

3. Martin October 11, 2009

   at 4:58 pm

   ahh thanks for the hint Mark. The class always uses regular expressions internally, so chars like ^ $ \ . * + ? ( ) [ ] { } |, so called metacharacters won’t work in the String notation of the highlight method, I didn’t think about that. But you can always use a RegExp with the escape char \ for highlighting special chars. In case of the dollar sign it would be

   textHighlighter.highlight(/\$/gi);

4. Martin October 11, 2009

   at 5:00 pm

   btw. ampersands should work fine with the string notation

5. ariisom November 11, 2009

   at 3:07 pm

   is there a way to highlight dynamically? It’s like when you highlight a text for copy pasting…can be any words from the text. So the textHighlighter.highlight(…); would receive the text from mouse coordonates.

6. Martin November 12, 2009

   at 9:51 am

   hey ariisom,
   I guess you could use the TextHighlighter for your problem, but I wouldn’t do it, you can use the built in methods as well. In either way you have to determine the word you are hovering. Having the word or the positions of the word the highlighting is very easy.

7. Greg January 9, 2010

   at 1:03 pm

   Hi,
   It’s great and all but can I highlight so that lets say after the word “layer” is highlighted and before the word “layer1″ is highlighted?

8. Martin January 9, 2010

   at 1:38 pm

   as it is based on Regular Expression you could almost do everything you like.

   You can use Grants RegExp Tool to test the regular expressions on your text http://gskinner.com/RegExr/

9. Greg January 9, 2010

   at 5:13 pm

   Thx that helps a lot! :D
   next question: how can I create a multi line highlight so how can I highlight something like:

   hello bla bla bla
   lol XD
   hehe no das verstehe ich nicht

   ?

10. Martin January 9, 2010

    at 6:21 pm

    that depends on your RegExp … you have to use the multiline option e.g. “/far/gm”

11. Greg January 9, 2010

    at 6:22 pm

    THX :D

12. boeenet August 30, 2010

    at 11:03 am

    A feature packed version of this kind of text highlighter tool is available here: http://activeden.net/item/text-highlighter-basic-tool/121574?ref=boee

13. Jon December 23, 2010

    at 6:30 pm

    Thanks, Martin! This is exactly what I was looking for.

Trackbacks:

• A Small Class For Flash TextFields – AS3 TextHighlighter | FlexMan — January 20, 2010 at 4:50 pm
• Flash-TextHighlighter | DFdou's Blog — January 22, 2010 at 7:30 am
• All Flash OpenSource Projects- original posted on osflash | benbens Blog — October 21, 2010 at 5:09 pm

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