Fonts loading/deleting over and over again

[Rick]

I have a script where I load a new font in Start(). In PostRender() it saves off the original font, sets the font to the one loaded in Start(), draws text, then sets the font back to original. However in the output window I see non stop Deleting Font...Loading Font.. over and over again. Why would it be doing that when all I'm doing is switching between fonts?

 

 

local font = context:GetFont()

-- self.font is the font I load in Start()
context:SetFont(self.font)
context:SetBlendMode(Blend.Alpha)

context:DrawText(self.msg, pos.x, pos.y)

context:SetBlendMode(Blend.Solid)
context:SetFont(font)

[Josh]

Call font->AddRef() once to prevent the font from being deleted automatically.

[Rick]

That worked thanks! I have to remember that.

[YouGroove]

@Rick what is the problem , if it works ?

( I don't know if i'll remember to call the AddRef() )

Perhaps we should have 2 functions : loadFont() and loadRefFont() instead of going into obscure programmer code ?

[Rick]

My guess is, since I was setting the current font to my own font that I loaded, it was releasing the default font, which would cause it to get deleted, even though I pulled out the default font and stored it in a variable before I did this. The font system didn't know I did this. So by using AddRef() to the default font I stored in a local variable, it would keep it alive.

 

I changed it to the following and it worked. Notice the AddRef() and Release()

 

local font = context:GetFont()

 

-- self.font is the font I load in Start()

font:AddRef()

context:SetFont(self.font)

context:SetBlendMode(Blend.Alpha)

 

context:DrawText(self.msg, pos.x, pos.y)

 

context:SetBlendMode(Blend.Solid)

context:SetFont(font)

font:Release()

[Flexman]

Not being negative here...B U T first thing I did was was check the documentation after reading this. Please add to official documentation.

[YouGroove]

I really agree a lot.

For long term : usefull stuff should go to official docs.

 

WE SHOULD HAVE SOME OFFICIAL PUBLIC WIKI for all that code tips.

 

Why LE3 don't have that and only forums ?

[Rick]

I'm a little torn on this one because the whole AddRef()/Release() applies to every LE entity and it's not font specific. This is just me being new to the AddRef()/Release() usage.