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Drawing Text in a GPU Drawing Plugin

Let's draw some text in a Paint.NET plugin


I have not written this tutorial yet, but here's some code to get you started:

protected override unsafe void OnDraw(IDeviceContext deviceContext)
{
	// maintain background
    deviceContext.DrawImage(Environment.SourceImage);
	
	// get the size of our canvas
    RectFloat sourceBounds = new RectFloat(Point2Float.Zero, Environment.Document.Size);
	
	// create a red brush in order to render red text
    ISolidColorBrush solidFillBrush = deviceContext.CreateSolidColorBrush(LinearColors.Red);
	
	// set the antialiasing modes
    deviceContext.AntialiasMode = AntialiasMode.PerPrimitive;
    deviceContext.TextAntialiasMode = TextAntialiasMode.Grayscale;
	
	// set the text rendering mode
    deviceContext.UseTextRenderingMode(TextRenderingMode.Outline);
	
	// prepare for rendering text
    IDirectWriteFactory textFactory = this.Services.GetService<IDirectWriteFactory>();
    IGdiFontMap fm = textFactory.GetGdiFontMap();
	
	// select your font to look at the font properties
    FontProperties fp = fm.TryGetFontProperties("Arial");
	
	// use your font properties to create a font
    ITextFormat textFormat = textFactory.CreateTextFormat(
        fp.FontFamilyName, // font family name
        null,
        FontWeight.Bold, // font weight
        FontStyle.Normal, // font style
        fp.Stretch, // how to stretch the font
        72); // size in points
		
	// render the text
    deviceContext.DrawText(
		"Paint.NET Rocks!", // the actual text to render
		textFormat, // format of text defined above
		sourceBounds, // text location
		solidFillBrush, // our red brush, from above
		DrawTextOptions.None); // Options
}

Go ahead and press Ctrl+P to preview your effect.


Finishing Up

Once you've got that working, remember to save your script! I wouldn't want you to lose any of your hard work.

"File > Save" your text.cs file.

If you'd like to make that plugin a permanent part of your Paint.NET installation, read:

How to Build a DLL from a CodeLab script
How to install a DLL into Paint.NET


What's Next?

Now that you know a bit about rendering text, let's dig a little deeper and design and implement a more complicated effect that adds a UI to our effect.


What's Next?

Head back to the Tutorial Index to learn something else



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