Develop Reference

Pygame - add text to class instance of a rect - python

I am attempting to add text to class instances of a rect.
I have been able to do this by setting the "font" variable outside of the class and putting the desired text in "font.render_to" within the draw funtion but this means the text will be the same for all buttons as it is set within the class.
I'd like to set different text for each button specified in the class instance (button1, button2, button3) as shown in the below code but im getting the following error:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "path_to_file/test.py", line 30, in <module>
button1 = Button(10, 10, 100, 50, 'One')
File "path_to_file/test.py", line 23, in __init__
self.font = font.pygame.freetype.SysFont('Arial', 25)
AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute 'pygame'.
Code:
import pygame
import sys
import pygame.freetype
pygame.display.init()
pygame.freetype.init()
width = 300
height = 350
bg = (255, 255, 255)
# Sets the window size
screen = pygame.display.set_mode((width, height))
# Sets the background colour to white
screen.fill(bg)
# Button class - All buttons are created using the below parameters
class Button:
def __init__(self, rect_x, rect_y, rect_width, rect_height, font):
self.rect_x = rect_x
self.rect_y = rect_y
self.rect_width = rect_width
self.rect_height = rect_height
self.font = font.pygame.freetype.SysFont('Arial', 25)
# Draw function - Creates the rectangle and adds text
def draw(self):
pygame.draw.rect(screen, (200, 200, 200), (self.rect_x, self.rect_y, self.rect_width, self.rect_height))
self.font.render_to(screen, (42, 25), self.font, bg)
# Class instances - Defines button size and location in the PyGame window
button1 = Button(10, 10, 100, 50, 'One')
button2 = Button(10, 70, 100, 50, 'Two')
button3 = Button(10, 130, 100, 50, 'Three')
# game loop
while True:
for event in pygame.event.get():
if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
pygame.quit()
sys.exit()
button1.draw()
button2.draw()
button3.draw()
pygame.display.update()

The 5th argument of the constructor is the text. You have to store the text in an attribute and render the text.
font.pygame.freetype.SysFont('Arial', 25) doesn't make any sense. The font object is constructed by pygame.freetype.SysFont('Arial', 25).
The target position of render_to depends on the position of the button:
class Button:
def __init__(self, rect_x, rect_y, rect_width, rect_height, text):
self.rect_x = rect_x
self.rect_y = rect_y
self.rect_width = rect_width
self.rect_height = rect_height
self.text = text
self.font = pygame.freetype.SysFont('Arial', 25)
def draw(self):
pygame.draw.rect(screen, (200, 200, 200),
(self.rect_x, self.rect_y, self.rect_width, self.rect_height))
self.font.render_to(screen, (self.rect_x + 42, self.rect_y + 25), self.text, bg)

Related

Is there a way I can display text on a pygame window using python?
I need to display a bunch of live information that updates and would rather not make an image for each character I need.
Can I blit text to the screen?

Yes. It is possible to draw text in pygame:
# initialize font; must be called after 'pygame.init()' to avoid 'Font not Initialized' error
myfont = pygame.font.SysFont("monospace", 15)
# render text
label = myfont.render("Some text!", 1, (255,255,0))
screen.blit(label, (100, 100))

You can use your own custom fonts by setting the font path using pygame.font.Font
pygame.font.Font(filename, size): return Font
example:
pygame.font.init()
font_path = "./fonts/newfont.ttf"
font_size = 32
fontObj = pygame.font.Font(font_path, font_size)
Then render the font using fontObj.render and blit to a surface as in veiset's answer above. :)

I have some code in my game that displays live score. It is in a function for quick access.
def texts(score):
font=pygame.font.Font(None,30)
scoretext=font.render("Score:"+str(score), 1,(255,255,255))
screen.blit(scoretext, (500, 457))
and I call it using this in my while loop:
texts(score)

There are 2 possibilities. In either case PyGame has to be initialized by pygame.init.
import pygame
pygame.init()
Use either the pygame.font module and create a pygame.font.SysFont or pygame.font.Font object. render() a pygame.Surface with the text and blit the Surface to the screen:
my_font = pygame.font.SysFont(None, 50)
text_surface = myfont.render("Hello world!", True, (255, 0, 0))
screen.blit(text_surface, (10, 10))
Or use the pygame.freetype module. Create a pygame.freetype.SysFont() or pygame.freetype.Font object. render() a pygame.Surface with the text or directly render_to() the text to the screen:
my_ft_font = pygame.freetype.SysFont('Times New Roman', 50)
my_ft_font.render_to(screen, (10, 10), "Hello world!", (255, 0, 0))
See also Text and font
Minimal pygame.font example: repl.it/#Rabbid76/PyGame-Text
import pygame
pygame.init()
window = pygame.display.set_mode((500, 150))
clock = pygame.time.Clock()
font = pygame.font.SysFont(None, 100)
text = font.render('Hello World', True, (255, 0, 0))
background = pygame.Surface(window.get_size())
ts, w, h, c1, c2 = 50, *window.get_size(), (128, 128, 128), (64, 64, 64)
tiles = [((x*ts, y*ts, ts, ts), c1 if (x+y) % 2 == 0 else c2) for x in range((w+ts-1)//ts) for y in range((h+ts-1)//ts)]
for rect, color in tiles:
pygame.draw.rect(background, color, rect)
run = True
while run:
clock.tick(60)
for event in pygame.event.get():
if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
run = False
window.blit(background, (0, 0))
window.blit(text, text.get_rect(center = window.get_rect().center))
pygame.display.flip()
pygame.quit()
exit()
Minimal pygame.freetype example: repl.it/#Rabbid76/PyGame-FreeTypeText
import pygame
import pygame.freetype
pygame.init()
window = pygame.display.set_mode((500, 150))
clock = pygame.time.Clock()
ft_font = pygame.freetype.SysFont('Times New Roman', 80)
background = pygame.Surface(window.get_size())
ts, w, h, c1, c2 = 50, *window.get_size(), (128, 128, 128), (64, 64, 64)
tiles = [((x*ts, y*ts, ts, ts), c1 if (x+y) % 2 == 0 else c2) for x in range((w+ts-1)//ts) for y in range((h+ts-1)//ts)]
for rect, color in tiles:
pygame.draw.rect(background, color, rect)
run = True
while run:
clock.tick(60)
for event in pygame.event.get():
if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
run = False
window.blit(background, (0, 0))
text_rect = ft_font.get_rect('Hello World')
text_rect.center = window.get_rect().center
ft_font.render_to(window, text_rect.topleft, 'Hello World', (255, 0, 0))
pygame.display.flip()
pygame.quit()
exit()

I wrote a wrapper, that will cache text surfaces, only re-render when dirty. googlecode/ninmonkey/nin.text/demo/

I wrote a TextBox class. It can use many custom fonts relatively easily and specify colors.
I wanted to have text in several places on the screen, some of which would update such as lives, scores (of all players) high score, time passed and so on.
Firstly, I created a fonts folder in the project and loaded in the fonts I wanted to use. As an example, I had 'arcade.ttf' in my fots folder. When making an instance of the TextBox, I could specify that font using the fontlocation (optional) arg.
e.g.
self.game_over_text = TextBox("GAME OVER", 100, 80, 420, RED, 'fonts/arcade.ttf')
I found making the text and updating it each time "clunky" so my solution was an update_text method.
For example, updating the Player score:
self.score1_text.update_text(f'{self.p1.score}')
It could be refactored to accept a list of str, but it suited my needs for coding a version of "S
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
'''
#author: srattigan
#date: 22-Mar-2022
#project: TextBox class example
#description: A generic text box class
to simplify text objects in PyGame
Fonts can be downloaded from
https://www.dafont.com/
and other such sites.
'''
# imports
import pygame
# initialise and globals
WHITE = (255, 255, 255)
pygame.font.init() # you have to call this at the start
class TextBox:
'''
A text box class to simplify creating text in pygame
'''
def __init__(self, text, size, x=50, y=50, color=WHITE, fontlocation=None):
'''
Constuctor
text: str, the text to be displayed
size: int, the font size
x: int, x-position on the screen
y: int, y-position on the screen
color: tuple of int representing color, default is (255,255,255)
fontlocation: str, location of font file. If None, default system font is used.
'''
pygame.font.init()
self.text = text
self.size = size
self.color = color
self.x = x
self.y = y
if fontlocation == None:
self.font = pygame.font.SysFont('Arial', self.size)
else:
self.font = pygame.font.Font(fontlocation, self.size)
def draw(self, screen):
'''
Draws the text box to the screen passed.
screen: a pygame Surface object
'''
text_surface = self.font.render(f'{self.text}', False, self.color)
screen.blit(text_surface, [self.x, self.y])
def update_text(self, new_text):
'''
Modifier- Updates the text variable in the textbox instance
new_text: str, the updated str for the instance.
'''
if not isinstance(new_text, str):
raise TypeError("Invalid type for text object")
self.text = new_text
def set_position(self, x, y):
'''
Modifier- change or set the position of the txt box
x: int, x-position on the screen
y: int, y-position on the screen
'''
self.x = x
self.y = y
def __repr__(self):
rep = f'TextBox instance, \n\ttext: {self.text} \n\tFontFamly:{self.font} \n\tColor: {self.color} \n\tSize: {self.size} \n\tPos: {self.x, self.y}'
return rep
if __name__ == "__main__":
test = TextBox("Hello World", 30, 30, 30)
print(test)
To use this in my Game class
from textbox import TextBox
and in the initialisation part of the game, something like this:
self.time_text = TextBox("Time Left: 100", 20, 20, 40)
self.cred_text = TextBox("created by Sean R.", 15, 600, 870)
self.score1_text = TextBox("0", 100, 40, 650)
self.score2_text = TextBox("0", 100, 660, 650)
self.lives1_text = TextBox("[P1] Lives: 3", 20, 40, 750)
self.lives2_text = TextBox("[P2] Lives: 3", 20, 660, 750)
self.game_over_text = TextBox("GAME OVER", 100, 80, 420, RED)
self.textbox_list = []
self.textbox_list.append(self.time_text)
self.textbox_list.append(self.cred_text)
self.textbox_list.append(self.score1_text)
self.textbox_list.append(self.score2_text)
self.textbox_list.append(self.lives1_text)
self.textbox_list.append(self.lives2_text)
so that when I want to draw all on the screen:
for txt in self.textbox_list:
txt.draw(screen)
In the update section of the game, I only update directly the boxes that have updated text using the update_text method- if there is nothing to be updated, the text stays the same.

I wrote a TextElement class to handle text placement. It's still has room for improvement. One thing to improve is to add fallback fonts using SysFont in case the font asset isn't available.
import os
from typing import Tuple, Union
from pygame.font import Font
from utils.color import Color
class TextElement:
TEXT_SIZE = 50
def __init__(self, surface, size=TEXT_SIZE, color=Color('white'), font_name='Kanit-Medium') -> None:
self.surface = surface
self._font_name = font_name
self._size = size
self.color = color
self.font = self.__initialize_font()
#property
def font_name(self):
return self._font_name
#font_name.setter
def font_name(self, font_name):
self._font_name = font_name
self.font = self.__initialize_font()
#font_name.deleter
def font_name(self):
del self._font_name
#property
def size(self):
return self._size
#size.setter
def size(self, size):
self._size = size
self.font = self.__initialize_font()
#size.deleter
def size(self):
del self._size
def write(self, text: str, coordinates: Union[str, Tuple[int, int]] = 'center'):
rendered_text = self.font.render(text, True, self.color)
if isinstance(coordinates, str):
coordinates = self.__calculate_alignment(rendered_text, coordinates)
self.surface.blit(rendered_text, coordinates)
return self
def __calculate_alignment(self, rendered_text, alignment):
# https://www.pygame.org/docs/ref/surface.html#pygame.Surface.get_rect
# Aligns rendered_text to the surface at the given alignment position
# e.g: rendered_text.get_rect(center=self.surface.get_rect().center)
alignment_coordinates = getattr(self.surface.get_rect(), alignment)
return getattr(rendered_text, 'get_rect')(**{alignment: alignment_coordinates}).topleft
def __initialize_font(self):
return Font(os.path.join(
'assets', 'fonts', f'{self._font_name}.ttf'), self._size)
Here is how you can use it:
TextElement(self.screen, 80).write('Hello World!', 'midtop')
TextElement(self.screen).write('Hello World 2!', (250, 100))
# OR
text = TextElement(self.screen, 80)
text.size = 100
text.write('Bigger text!', (25, 50))
text.write('Bigger text!', 'midbottom')
I hope this can help someone! Cheers!

Is there a way I can display text on a pygame window using python?
I need to display a bunch of live information that updates and would rather not make an image for each character I need.
Can I blit text to the screen?

Yes. It is possible to draw text in pygame:
# initialize font; must be called after 'pygame.init()' to avoid 'Font not Initialized' error
myfont = pygame.font.SysFont("monospace", 15)
# render text
label = myfont.render("Some text!", 1, (255,255,0))
screen.blit(label, (100, 100))

You can use your own custom fonts by setting the font path using pygame.font.Font
pygame.font.Font(filename, size): return Font
example:
pygame.font.init()
font_path = "./fonts/newfont.ttf"
font_size = 32
fontObj = pygame.font.Font(font_path, font_size)
Then render the font using fontObj.render and blit to a surface as in veiset's answer above. :)

I have some code in my game that displays live score. It is in a function for quick access.
def texts(score):
font=pygame.font.Font(None,30)
scoretext=font.render("Score:"+str(score), 1,(255,255,255))
screen.blit(scoretext, (500, 457))
and I call it using this in my while loop:
texts(score)

There are 2 possibilities. In either case PyGame has to be initialized by pygame.init.
import pygame
pygame.init()
Use either the pygame.font module and create a pygame.font.SysFont or pygame.font.Font object. render() a pygame.Surface with the text and blit the Surface to the screen:
my_font = pygame.font.SysFont(None, 50)
text_surface = myfont.render("Hello world!", True, (255, 0, 0))
screen.blit(text_surface, (10, 10))
Or use the pygame.freetype module. Create a pygame.freetype.SysFont() or pygame.freetype.Font object. render() a pygame.Surface with the text or directly render_to() the text to the screen:
my_ft_font = pygame.freetype.SysFont('Times New Roman', 50)
my_ft_font.render_to(screen, (10, 10), "Hello world!", (255, 0, 0))
See also Text and font
Minimal pygame.font example: repl.it/#Rabbid76/PyGame-Text
import pygame
pygame.init()
window = pygame.display.set_mode((500, 150))
clock = pygame.time.Clock()
font = pygame.font.SysFont(None, 100)
text = font.render('Hello World', True, (255, 0, 0))
background = pygame.Surface(window.get_size())
ts, w, h, c1, c2 = 50, *window.get_size(), (128, 128, 128), (64, 64, 64)
tiles = [((x*ts, y*ts, ts, ts), c1 if (x+y) % 2 == 0 else c2) for x in range((w+ts-1)//ts) for y in range((h+ts-1)//ts)]
for rect, color in tiles:
pygame.draw.rect(background, color, rect)
run = True
while run:
clock.tick(60)
for event in pygame.event.get():
if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
run = False
window.blit(background, (0, 0))
window.blit(text, text.get_rect(center = window.get_rect().center))
pygame.display.flip()
pygame.quit()
exit()
Minimal pygame.freetype example: repl.it/#Rabbid76/PyGame-FreeTypeText
import pygame
import pygame.freetype
pygame.init()
window = pygame.display.set_mode((500, 150))
clock = pygame.time.Clock()
ft_font = pygame.freetype.SysFont('Times New Roman', 80)
background = pygame.Surface(window.get_size())
ts, w, h, c1, c2 = 50, *window.get_size(), (128, 128, 128), (64, 64, 64)
tiles = [((x*ts, y*ts, ts, ts), c1 if (x+y) % 2 == 0 else c2) for x in range((w+ts-1)//ts) for y in range((h+ts-1)//ts)]
for rect, color in tiles:
pygame.draw.rect(background, color, rect)
run = True
while run:
clock.tick(60)
for event in pygame.event.get():
if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
run = False
window.blit(background, (0, 0))
text_rect = ft_font.get_rect('Hello World')
text_rect.center = window.get_rect().center
ft_font.render_to(window, text_rect.topleft, 'Hello World', (255, 0, 0))
pygame.display.flip()
pygame.quit()
exit()

I wrote a wrapper, that will cache text surfaces, only re-render when dirty. googlecode/ninmonkey/nin.text/demo/

I wrote a TextBox class. It can use many custom fonts relatively easily and specify colors.
I wanted to have text in several places on the screen, some of which would update such as lives, scores (of all players) high score, time passed and so on.
Firstly, I created a fonts folder in the project and loaded in the fonts I wanted to use. As an example, I had 'arcade.ttf' in my fots folder. When making an instance of the TextBox, I could specify that font using the fontlocation (optional) arg.
e.g.
self.game_over_text = TextBox("GAME OVER", 100, 80, 420, RED, 'fonts/arcade.ttf')
I found making the text and updating it each time "clunky" so my solution was an update_text method.
For example, updating the Player score:
self.score1_text.update_text(f'{self.p1.score}')
It could be refactored to accept a list of str, but it suited my needs for coding a version of "S
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
'''
#author: srattigan
#date: 22-Mar-2022
#project: TextBox class example
#description: A generic text box class
to simplify text objects in PyGame
Fonts can be downloaded from
https://www.dafont.com/
and other such sites.
'''
# imports
import pygame
# initialise and globals
WHITE = (255, 255, 255)
pygame.font.init() # you have to call this at the start
class TextBox:
'''
A text box class to simplify creating text in pygame
'''
def __init__(self, text, size, x=50, y=50, color=WHITE, fontlocation=None):
'''
Constuctor
text: str, the text to be displayed
size: int, the font size
x: int, x-position on the screen
y: int, y-position on the screen
color: tuple of int representing color, default is (255,255,255)
fontlocation: str, location of font file. If None, default system font is used.
'''
pygame.font.init()
self.text = text
self.size = size
self.color = color
self.x = x
self.y = y
if fontlocation == None:
self.font = pygame.font.SysFont('Arial', self.size)
else:
self.font = pygame.font.Font(fontlocation, self.size)
def draw(self, screen):
'''
Draws the text box to the screen passed.
screen: a pygame Surface object
'''
text_surface = self.font.render(f'{self.text}', False, self.color)
screen.blit(text_surface, [self.x, self.y])
def update_text(self, new_text):
'''
Modifier- Updates the text variable in the textbox instance
new_text: str, the updated str for the instance.
'''
if not isinstance(new_text, str):
raise TypeError("Invalid type for text object")
self.text = new_text
def set_position(self, x, y):
'''
Modifier- change or set the position of the txt box
x: int, x-position on the screen
y: int, y-position on the screen
'''
self.x = x
self.y = y
def __repr__(self):
rep = f'TextBox instance, \n\ttext: {self.text} \n\tFontFamly:{self.font} \n\tColor: {self.color} \n\tSize: {self.size} \n\tPos: {self.x, self.y}'
return rep
if __name__ == "__main__":
test = TextBox("Hello World", 30, 30, 30)
print(test)
To use this in my Game class
from textbox import TextBox
and in the initialisation part of the game, something like this:
self.time_text = TextBox("Time Left: 100", 20, 20, 40)
self.cred_text = TextBox("created by Sean R.", 15, 600, 870)
self.score1_text = TextBox("0", 100, 40, 650)
self.score2_text = TextBox("0", 100, 660, 650)
self.lives1_text = TextBox("[P1] Lives: 3", 20, 40, 750)
self.lives2_text = TextBox("[P2] Lives: 3", 20, 660, 750)
self.game_over_text = TextBox("GAME OVER", 100, 80, 420, RED)
self.textbox_list = []
self.textbox_list.append(self.time_text)
self.textbox_list.append(self.cred_text)
self.textbox_list.append(self.score1_text)
self.textbox_list.append(self.score2_text)
self.textbox_list.append(self.lives1_text)
self.textbox_list.append(self.lives2_text)
so that when I want to draw all on the screen:
for txt in self.textbox_list:
txt.draw(screen)
In the update section of the game, I only update directly the boxes that have updated text using the update_text method- if there is nothing to be updated, the text stays the same.

I wrote a TextElement class to handle text placement. It's still has room for improvement. One thing to improve is to add fallback fonts using SysFont in case the font asset isn't available.
import os
from typing import Tuple, Union
from pygame.font import Font
from utils.color import Color
class TextElement:
TEXT_SIZE = 50
def __init__(self, surface, size=TEXT_SIZE, color=Color('white'), font_name='Kanit-Medium') -> None:
self.surface = surface
self._font_name = font_name
self._size = size
self.color = color
self.font = self.__initialize_font()
#property
def font_name(self):
return self._font_name
#font_name.setter
def font_name(self, font_name):
self._font_name = font_name
self.font = self.__initialize_font()
#font_name.deleter
def font_name(self):
del self._font_name
#property
def size(self):
return self._size
#size.setter
def size(self, size):
self._size = size
self.font = self.__initialize_font()
#size.deleter
def size(self):
del self._size
def write(self, text: str, coordinates: Union[str, Tuple[int, int]] = 'center'):
rendered_text = self.font.render(text, True, self.color)
if isinstance(coordinates, str):
coordinates = self.__calculate_alignment(rendered_text, coordinates)
self.surface.blit(rendered_text, coordinates)
return self
def __calculate_alignment(self, rendered_text, alignment):
# https://www.pygame.org/docs/ref/surface.html#pygame.Surface.get_rect
# Aligns rendered_text to the surface at the given alignment position
# e.g: rendered_text.get_rect(center=self.surface.get_rect().center)
alignment_coordinates = getattr(self.surface.get_rect(), alignment)
return getattr(rendered_text, 'get_rect')(**{alignment: alignment_coordinates}).topleft
def __initialize_font(self):
return Font(os.path.join(
'assets', 'fonts', f'{self._font_name}.ttf'), self._size)
Here is how you can use it:
TextElement(self.screen, 80).write('Hello World!', 'midtop')
TextElement(self.screen).write('Hello World 2!', (250, 100))
# OR
text = TextElement(self.screen, 80)
text.size = 100
text.write('Bigger text!', (25, 50))
text.write('Bigger text!', 'midbottom')
I hope this can help someone! Cheers!

Is there a way I can display text on a pygame window using python?
I need to display a bunch of live information that updates and would rather not make an image for each character I need.
Can I blit text to the screen?

Yes. It is possible to draw text in pygame:
# initialize font; must be called after 'pygame.init()' to avoid 'Font not Initialized' error
myfont = pygame.font.SysFont("monospace", 15)
# render text
label = myfont.render("Some text!", 1, (255,255,0))
screen.blit(label, (100, 100))

You can use your own custom fonts by setting the font path using pygame.font.Font
pygame.font.Font(filename, size): return Font
example:
pygame.font.init()
font_path = "./fonts/newfont.ttf"
font_size = 32
fontObj = pygame.font.Font(font_path, font_size)
Then render the font using fontObj.render and blit to a surface as in veiset's answer above. :)

I have some code in my game that displays live score. It is in a function for quick access.
def texts(score):
font=pygame.font.Font(None,30)
scoretext=font.render("Score:"+str(score), 1,(255,255,255))
screen.blit(scoretext, (500, 457))
and I call it using this in my while loop:
texts(score)

There are 2 possibilities. In either case PyGame has to be initialized by pygame.init.
import pygame
pygame.init()
Use either the pygame.font module and create a pygame.font.SysFont or pygame.font.Font object. render() a pygame.Surface with the text and blit the Surface to the screen:
my_font = pygame.font.SysFont(None, 50)
text_surface = myfont.render("Hello world!", True, (255, 0, 0))
screen.blit(text_surface, (10, 10))
Or use the pygame.freetype module. Create a pygame.freetype.SysFont() or pygame.freetype.Font object. render() a pygame.Surface with the text or directly render_to() the text to the screen:
my_ft_font = pygame.freetype.SysFont('Times New Roman', 50)
my_ft_font.render_to(screen, (10, 10), "Hello world!", (255, 0, 0))
See also Text and font
Minimal pygame.font example: repl.it/#Rabbid76/PyGame-Text
import pygame
pygame.init()
window = pygame.display.set_mode((500, 150))
clock = pygame.time.Clock()
font = pygame.font.SysFont(None, 100)
text = font.render('Hello World', True, (255, 0, 0))
background = pygame.Surface(window.get_size())
ts, w, h, c1, c2 = 50, *window.get_size(), (128, 128, 128), (64, 64, 64)
tiles = [((x*ts, y*ts, ts, ts), c1 if (x+y) % 2 == 0 else c2) for x in range((w+ts-1)//ts) for y in range((h+ts-1)//ts)]
for rect, color in tiles:
pygame.draw.rect(background, color, rect)
run = True
while run:
clock.tick(60)
for event in pygame.event.get():
if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
run = False
window.blit(background, (0, 0))
window.blit(text, text.get_rect(center = window.get_rect().center))
pygame.display.flip()
pygame.quit()
exit()
Minimal pygame.freetype example: repl.it/#Rabbid76/PyGame-FreeTypeText
import pygame
import pygame.freetype
pygame.init()
window = pygame.display.set_mode((500, 150))
clock = pygame.time.Clock()
ft_font = pygame.freetype.SysFont('Times New Roman', 80)
background = pygame.Surface(window.get_size())
ts, w, h, c1, c2 = 50, *window.get_size(), (128, 128, 128), (64, 64, 64)
tiles = [((x*ts, y*ts, ts, ts), c1 if (x+y) % 2 == 0 else c2) for x in range((w+ts-1)//ts) for y in range((h+ts-1)//ts)]
for rect, color in tiles:
pygame.draw.rect(background, color, rect)
run = True
while run:
clock.tick(60)
for event in pygame.event.get():
if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
run = False
window.blit(background, (0, 0))
text_rect = ft_font.get_rect('Hello World')
text_rect.center = window.get_rect().center
ft_font.render_to(window, text_rect.topleft, 'Hello World', (255, 0, 0))
pygame.display.flip()
pygame.quit()
exit()

I wrote a wrapper, that will cache text surfaces, only re-render when dirty. googlecode/ninmonkey/nin.text/demo/

I wrote a TextBox class. It can use many custom fonts relatively easily and specify colors.
I wanted to have text in several places on the screen, some of which would update such as lives, scores (of all players) high score, time passed and so on.
Firstly, I created a fonts folder in the project and loaded in the fonts I wanted to use. As an example, I had 'arcade.ttf' in my fots folder. When making an instance of the TextBox, I could specify that font using the fontlocation (optional) arg.
e.g.
self.game_over_text = TextBox("GAME OVER", 100, 80, 420, RED, 'fonts/arcade.ttf')
I found making the text and updating it each time "clunky" so my solution was an update_text method.
For example, updating the Player score:
self.score1_text.update_text(f'{self.p1.score}')
It could be refactored to accept a list of str, but it suited my needs for coding a version of "S
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
'''
#author: srattigan
#date: 22-Mar-2022
#project: TextBox class example
#description: A generic text box class
to simplify text objects in PyGame
Fonts can be downloaded from
https://www.dafont.com/
and other such sites.
'''
# imports
import pygame
# initialise and globals
WHITE = (255, 255, 255)
pygame.font.init() # you have to call this at the start
class TextBox:
'''
A text box class to simplify creating text in pygame
'''
def __init__(self, text, size, x=50, y=50, color=WHITE, fontlocation=None):
'''
Constuctor
text: str, the text to be displayed
size: int, the font size
x: int, x-position on the screen
y: int, y-position on the screen
color: tuple of int representing color, default is (255,255,255)
fontlocation: str, location of font file. If None, default system font is used.
'''
pygame.font.init()
self.text = text
self.size = size
self.color = color
self.x = x
self.y = y
if fontlocation == None:
self.font = pygame.font.SysFont('Arial', self.size)
else:
self.font = pygame.font.Font(fontlocation, self.size)
def draw(self, screen):
'''
Draws the text box to the screen passed.
screen: a pygame Surface object
'''
text_surface = self.font.render(f'{self.text}', False, self.color)
screen.blit(text_surface, [self.x, self.y])
def update_text(self, new_text):
'''
Modifier- Updates the text variable in the textbox instance
new_text: str, the updated str for the instance.
'''
if not isinstance(new_text, str):
raise TypeError("Invalid type for text object")
self.text = new_text
def set_position(self, x, y):
'''
Modifier- change or set the position of the txt box
x: int, x-position on the screen
y: int, y-position on the screen
'''
self.x = x
self.y = y
def __repr__(self):
rep = f'TextBox instance, \n\ttext: {self.text} \n\tFontFamly:{self.font} \n\tColor: {self.color} \n\tSize: {self.size} \n\tPos: {self.x, self.y}'
return rep
if __name__ == "__main__":
test = TextBox("Hello World", 30, 30, 30)
print(test)
To use this in my Game class
from textbox import TextBox
and in the initialisation part of the game, something like this:
self.time_text = TextBox("Time Left: 100", 20, 20, 40)
self.cred_text = TextBox("created by Sean R.", 15, 600, 870)
self.score1_text = TextBox("0", 100, 40, 650)
self.score2_text = TextBox("0", 100, 660, 650)
self.lives1_text = TextBox("[P1] Lives: 3", 20, 40, 750)
self.lives2_text = TextBox("[P2] Lives: 3", 20, 660, 750)
self.game_over_text = TextBox("GAME OVER", 100, 80, 420, RED)
self.textbox_list = []
self.textbox_list.append(self.time_text)
self.textbox_list.append(self.cred_text)
self.textbox_list.append(self.score1_text)
self.textbox_list.append(self.score2_text)
self.textbox_list.append(self.lives1_text)
self.textbox_list.append(self.lives2_text)
so that when I want to draw all on the screen:
for txt in self.textbox_list:
txt.draw(screen)
In the update section of the game, I only update directly the boxes that have updated text using the update_text method- if there is nothing to be updated, the text stays the same.

I wrote a TextElement class to handle text placement. It's still has room for improvement. One thing to improve is to add fallback fonts using SysFont in case the font asset isn't available.
import os
from typing import Tuple, Union
from pygame.font import Font
from utils.color import Color
class TextElement:
TEXT_SIZE = 50
def __init__(self, surface, size=TEXT_SIZE, color=Color('white'), font_name='Kanit-Medium') -> None:
self.surface = surface
self._font_name = font_name
self._size = size
self.color = color
self.font = self.__initialize_font()
#property
def font_name(self):
return self._font_name
#font_name.setter
def font_name(self, font_name):
self._font_name = font_name
self.font = self.__initialize_font()
#font_name.deleter
def font_name(self):
del self._font_name
#property
def size(self):
return self._size
#size.setter
def size(self, size):
self._size = size
self.font = self.__initialize_font()
#size.deleter
def size(self):
del self._size
def write(self, text: str, coordinates: Union[str, Tuple[int, int]] = 'center'):
rendered_text = self.font.render(text, True, self.color)
if isinstance(coordinates, str):
coordinates = self.__calculate_alignment(rendered_text, coordinates)
self.surface.blit(rendered_text, coordinates)
return self
def __calculate_alignment(self, rendered_text, alignment):
# https://www.pygame.org/docs/ref/surface.html#pygame.Surface.get_rect
# Aligns rendered_text to the surface at the given alignment position
# e.g: rendered_text.get_rect(center=self.surface.get_rect().center)
alignment_coordinates = getattr(self.surface.get_rect(), alignment)
return getattr(rendered_text, 'get_rect')(**{alignment: alignment_coordinates}).topleft
def __initialize_font(self):
return Font(os.path.join(
'assets', 'fonts', f'{self._font_name}.ttf'), self._size)
Here is how you can use it:
TextElement(self.screen, 80).write('Hello World!', 'midtop')
TextElement(self.screen).write('Hello World 2!', (250, 100))
# OR
text = TextElement(self.screen, 80)
text.size = 100
text.write('Bigger text!', (25, 50))
text.write('Bigger text!', 'midbottom')
I hope this can help someone! Cheers!

Is there a way I can display text on a pygame window using python?
I need to display a bunch of live information that updates and would rather not make an image for each character I need.
Can I blit text to the screen?

Yes. It is possible to draw text in pygame:
# initialize font; must be called after 'pygame.init()' to avoid 'Font not Initialized' error
myfont = pygame.font.SysFont("monospace", 15)
# render text
label = myfont.render("Some text!", 1, (255,255,0))
screen.blit(label, (100, 100))

You can use your own custom fonts by setting the font path using pygame.font.Font
pygame.font.Font(filename, size): return Font
example:
pygame.font.init()
font_path = "./fonts/newfont.ttf"
font_size = 32
fontObj = pygame.font.Font(font_path, font_size)
Then render the font using fontObj.render and blit to a surface as in veiset's answer above. :)

I have some code in my game that displays live score. It is in a function for quick access.
def texts(score):
font=pygame.font.Font(None,30)
scoretext=font.render("Score:"+str(score), 1,(255,255,255))
screen.blit(scoretext, (500, 457))
and I call it using this in my while loop:
texts(score)

There are 2 possibilities. In either case PyGame has to be initialized by pygame.init.
import pygame
pygame.init()
Use either the pygame.font module and create a pygame.font.SysFont or pygame.font.Font object. render() a pygame.Surface with the text and blit the Surface to the screen:
my_font = pygame.font.SysFont(None, 50)
text_surface = myfont.render("Hello world!", True, (255, 0, 0))
screen.blit(text_surface, (10, 10))
Or use the pygame.freetype module. Create a pygame.freetype.SysFont() or pygame.freetype.Font object. render() a pygame.Surface with the text or directly render_to() the text to the screen:
my_ft_font = pygame.freetype.SysFont('Times New Roman', 50)
my_ft_font.render_to(screen, (10, 10), "Hello world!", (255, 0, 0))
See also Text and font
Minimal pygame.font example: repl.it/#Rabbid76/PyGame-Text
import pygame
pygame.init()
window = pygame.display.set_mode((500, 150))
clock = pygame.time.Clock()
font = pygame.font.SysFont(None, 100)
text = font.render('Hello World', True, (255, 0, 0))
background = pygame.Surface(window.get_size())
ts, w, h, c1, c2 = 50, *window.get_size(), (128, 128, 128), (64, 64, 64)
tiles = [((x*ts, y*ts, ts, ts), c1 if (x+y) % 2 == 0 else c2) for x in range((w+ts-1)//ts) for y in range((h+ts-1)//ts)]
for rect, color in tiles:
pygame.draw.rect(background, color, rect)
run = True
while run:
clock.tick(60)
for event in pygame.event.get():
if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
run = False
window.blit(background, (0, 0))
window.blit(text, text.get_rect(center = window.get_rect().center))
pygame.display.flip()
pygame.quit()
exit()
Minimal pygame.freetype example: repl.it/#Rabbid76/PyGame-FreeTypeText
import pygame
import pygame.freetype
pygame.init()
window = pygame.display.set_mode((500, 150))
clock = pygame.time.Clock()
ft_font = pygame.freetype.SysFont('Times New Roman', 80)
background = pygame.Surface(window.get_size())
ts, w, h, c1, c2 = 50, *window.get_size(), (128, 128, 128), (64, 64, 64)
tiles = [((x*ts, y*ts, ts, ts), c1 if (x+y) % 2 == 0 else c2) for x in range((w+ts-1)//ts) for y in range((h+ts-1)//ts)]
for rect, color in tiles:
pygame.draw.rect(background, color, rect)
run = True
while run:
clock.tick(60)
for event in pygame.event.get():
if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
run = False
window.blit(background, (0, 0))
text_rect = ft_font.get_rect('Hello World')
text_rect.center = window.get_rect().center
ft_font.render_to(window, text_rect.topleft, 'Hello World', (255, 0, 0))
pygame.display.flip()
pygame.quit()
exit()

I wrote a wrapper, that will cache text surfaces, only re-render when dirty. googlecode/ninmonkey/nin.text/demo/

I wrote a TextBox class. It can use many custom fonts relatively easily and specify colors.
I wanted to have text in several places on the screen, some of which would update such as lives, scores (of all players) high score, time passed and so on.
Firstly, I created a fonts folder in the project and loaded in the fonts I wanted to use. As an example, I had 'arcade.ttf' in my fots folder. When making an instance of the TextBox, I could specify that font using the fontlocation (optional) arg.
e.g.
self.game_over_text = TextBox("GAME OVER", 100, 80, 420, RED, 'fonts/arcade.ttf')
I found making the text and updating it each time "clunky" so my solution was an update_text method.
For example, updating the Player score:
self.score1_text.update_text(f'{self.p1.score}')
It could be refactored to accept a list of str, but it suited my needs for coding a version of "S
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
'''
#author: srattigan
#date: 22-Mar-2022
#project: TextBox class example
#description: A generic text box class
to simplify text objects in PyGame
Fonts can be downloaded from
https://www.dafont.com/
and other such sites.
'''
# imports
import pygame
# initialise and globals
WHITE = (255, 255, 255)
pygame.font.init() # you have to call this at the start
class TextBox:
'''
A text box class to simplify creating text in pygame
'''
def __init__(self, text, size, x=50, y=50, color=WHITE, fontlocation=None):
'''
Constuctor
text: str, the text to be displayed
size: int, the font size
x: int, x-position on the screen
y: int, y-position on the screen
color: tuple of int representing color, default is (255,255,255)
fontlocation: str, location of font file. If None, default system font is used.
'''
pygame.font.init()
self.text = text
self.size = size
self.color = color
self.x = x
self.y = y
if fontlocation == None:
self.font = pygame.font.SysFont('Arial', self.size)
else:
self.font = pygame.font.Font(fontlocation, self.size)
def draw(self, screen):
'''
Draws the text box to the screen passed.
screen: a pygame Surface object
'''
text_surface = self.font.render(f'{self.text}', False, self.color)
screen.blit(text_surface, [self.x, self.y])
def update_text(self, new_text):
'''
Modifier- Updates the text variable in the textbox instance
new_text: str, the updated str for the instance.
'''
if not isinstance(new_text, str):
raise TypeError("Invalid type for text object")
self.text = new_text
def set_position(self, x, y):
'''
Modifier- change or set the position of the txt box
x: int, x-position on the screen
y: int, y-position on the screen
'''
self.x = x
self.y = y
def __repr__(self):
rep = f'TextBox instance, \n\ttext: {self.text} \n\tFontFamly:{self.font} \n\tColor: {self.color} \n\tSize: {self.size} \n\tPos: {self.x, self.y}'
return rep
if __name__ == "__main__":
test = TextBox("Hello World", 30, 30, 30)
print(test)
To use this in my Game class
from textbox import TextBox
and in the initialisation part of the game, something like this:
self.time_text = TextBox("Time Left: 100", 20, 20, 40)
self.cred_text = TextBox("created by Sean R.", 15, 600, 870)
self.score1_text = TextBox("0", 100, 40, 650)
self.score2_text = TextBox("0", 100, 660, 650)
self.lives1_text = TextBox("[P1] Lives: 3", 20, 40, 750)
self.lives2_text = TextBox("[P2] Lives: 3", 20, 660, 750)
self.game_over_text = TextBox("GAME OVER", 100, 80, 420, RED)
self.textbox_list = []
self.textbox_list.append(self.time_text)
self.textbox_list.append(self.cred_text)
self.textbox_list.append(self.score1_text)
self.textbox_list.append(self.score2_text)
self.textbox_list.append(self.lives1_text)
self.textbox_list.append(self.lives2_text)
so that when I want to draw all on the screen:
for txt in self.textbox_list:
txt.draw(screen)
In the update section of the game, I only update directly the boxes that have updated text using the update_text method- if there is nothing to be updated, the text stays the same.

I wrote a TextElement class to handle text placement. It's still has room for improvement. One thing to improve is to add fallback fonts using SysFont in case the font asset isn't available.
import os
from typing import Tuple, Union
from pygame.font import Font
from utils.color import Color
class TextElement:
TEXT_SIZE = 50
def __init__(self, surface, size=TEXT_SIZE, color=Color('white'), font_name='Kanit-Medium') -> None:
self.surface = surface
self._font_name = font_name
self._size = size
self.color = color
self.font = self.__initialize_font()
#property
def font_name(self):
return self._font_name
#font_name.setter
def font_name(self, font_name):
self._font_name = font_name
self.font = self.__initialize_font()
#font_name.deleter
def font_name(self):
del self._font_name
#property
def size(self):
return self._size
#size.setter
def size(self, size):
self._size = size
self.font = self.__initialize_font()
#size.deleter
def size(self):
del self._size
def write(self, text: str, coordinates: Union[str, Tuple[int, int]] = 'center'):
rendered_text = self.font.render(text, True, self.color)
if isinstance(coordinates, str):
coordinates = self.__calculate_alignment(rendered_text, coordinates)
self.surface.blit(rendered_text, coordinates)
return self
def __calculate_alignment(self, rendered_text, alignment):
# https://www.pygame.org/docs/ref/surface.html#pygame.Surface.get_rect
# Aligns rendered_text to the surface at the given alignment position
# e.g: rendered_text.get_rect(center=self.surface.get_rect().center)
alignment_coordinates = getattr(self.surface.get_rect(), alignment)
return getattr(rendered_text, 'get_rect')(**{alignment: alignment_coordinates}).topleft
def __initialize_font(self):
return Font(os.path.join(
'assets', 'fonts', f'{self._font_name}.ttf'), self._size)
Here is how you can use it:
TextElement(self.screen, 80).write('Hello World!', 'midtop')
TextElement(self.screen).write('Hello World 2!', (250, 100))
# OR
text = TextElement(self.screen, 80)
text.size = 100
text.write('Bigger text!', (25, 50))
text.write('Bigger text!', 'midbottom')
I hope this can help someone! Cheers!

Is there a way I can display text on a pygame window using python?
I need to display a bunch of live information that updates and would rather not make an image for each character I need.
Can I blit text to the screen?

Yes. It is possible to draw text in pygame:
# initialize font; must be called after 'pygame.init()' to avoid 'Font not Initialized' error
myfont = pygame.font.SysFont("monospace", 15)
# render text
label = myfont.render("Some text!", 1, (255,255,0))
screen.blit(label, (100, 100))

You can use your own custom fonts by setting the font path using pygame.font.Font
pygame.font.Font(filename, size): return Font
example:
pygame.font.init()
font_path = "./fonts/newfont.ttf"
font_size = 32
fontObj = pygame.font.Font(font_path, font_size)
Then render the font using fontObj.render and blit to a surface as in veiset's answer above. :)

I have some code in my game that displays live score. It is in a function for quick access.
def texts(score):
font=pygame.font.Font(None,30)
scoretext=font.render("Score:"+str(score), 1,(255,255,255))
screen.blit(scoretext, (500, 457))
and I call it using this in my while loop:
texts(score)

There are 2 possibilities. In either case PyGame has to be initialized by pygame.init.
import pygame
pygame.init()
Use either the pygame.font module and create a pygame.font.SysFont or pygame.font.Font object. render() a pygame.Surface with the text and blit the Surface to the screen:
my_font = pygame.font.SysFont(None, 50)
text_surface = myfont.render("Hello world!", True, (255, 0, 0))
screen.blit(text_surface, (10, 10))
Or use the pygame.freetype module. Create a pygame.freetype.SysFont() or pygame.freetype.Font object. render() a pygame.Surface with the text or directly render_to() the text to the screen:
my_ft_font = pygame.freetype.SysFont('Times New Roman', 50)
my_ft_font.render_to(screen, (10, 10), "Hello world!", (255, 0, 0))
See also Text and font
Minimal pygame.font example: repl.it/#Rabbid76/PyGame-Text
import pygame
pygame.init()
window = pygame.display.set_mode((500, 150))
clock = pygame.time.Clock()
font = pygame.font.SysFont(None, 100)
text = font.render('Hello World', True, (255, 0, 0))
background = pygame.Surface(window.get_size())
ts, w, h, c1, c2 = 50, *window.get_size(), (128, 128, 128), (64, 64, 64)
tiles = [((x*ts, y*ts, ts, ts), c1 if (x+y) % 2 == 0 else c2) for x in range((w+ts-1)//ts) for y in range((h+ts-1)//ts)]
for rect, color in tiles:
pygame.draw.rect(background, color, rect)
run = True
while run:
clock.tick(60)
for event in pygame.event.get():
if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
run = False
window.blit(background, (0, 0))
window.blit(text, text.get_rect(center = window.get_rect().center))
pygame.display.flip()
pygame.quit()
exit()
Minimal pygame.freetype example: repl.it/#Rabbid76/PyGame-FreeTypeText
import pygame
import pygame.freetype
pygame.init()
window = pygame.display.set_mode((500, 150))
clock = pygame.time.Clock()
ft_font = pygame.freetype.SysFont('Times New Roman', 80)
background = pygame.Surface(window.get_size())
ts, w, h, c1, c2 = 50, *window.get_size(), (128, 128, 128), (64, 64, 64)
tiles = [((x*ts, y*ts, ts, ts), c1 if (x+y) % 2 == 0 else c2) for x in range((w+ts-1)//ts) for y in range((h+ts-1)//ts)]
for rect, color in tiles:
pygame.draw.rect(background, color, rect)
run = True
while run:
clock.tick(60)
for event in pygame.event.get():
if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
run = False
window.blit(background, (0, 0))
text_rect = ft_font.get_rect('Hello World')
text_rect.center = window.get_rect().center
ft_font.render_to(window, text_rect.topleft, 'Hello World', (255, 0, 0))
pygame.display.flip()
pygame.quit()
exit()

I wrote a wrapper, that will cache text surfaces, only re-render when dirty. googlecode/ninmonkey/nin.text/demo/

I wrote a TextBox class. It can use many custom fonts relatively easily and specify colors.
I wanted to have text in several places on the screen, some of which would update such as lives, scores (of all players) high score, time passed and so on.
Firstly, I created a fonts folder in the project and loaded in the fonts I wanted to use. As an example, I had 'arcade.ttf' in my fots folder. When making an instance of the TextBox, I could specify that font using the fontlocation (optional) arg.
e.g.
self.game_over_text = TextBox("GAME OVER", 100, 80, 420, RED, 'fonts/arcade.ttf')
I found making the text and updating it each time "clunky" so my solution was an update_text method.
For example, updating the Player score:
self.score1_text.update_text(f'{self.p1.score}')
It could be refactored to accept a list of str, but it suited my needs for coding a version of "S
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
'''
#author: srattigan
#date: 22-Mar-2022
#project: TextBox class example
#description: A generic text box class
to simplify text objects in PyGame
Fonts can be downloaded from
https://www.dafont.com/
and other such sites.
'''
# imports
import pygame
# initialise and globals
WHITE = (255, 255, 255)
pygame.font.init() # you have to call this at the start
class TextBox:
'''
A text box class to simplify creating text in pygame
'''
def __init__(self, text, size, x=50, y=50, color=WHITE, fontlocation=None):
'''
Constuctor
text: str, the text to be displayed
size: int, the font size
x: int, x-position on the screen
y: int, y-position on the screen
color: tuple of int representing color, default is (255,255,255)
fontlocation: str, location of font file. If None, default system font is used.
'''
pygame.font.init()
self.text = text
self.size = size
self.color = color
self.x = x
self.y = y
if fontlocation == None:
self.font = pygame.font.SysFont('Arial', self.size)
else:
self.font = pygame.font.Font(fontlocation, self.size)
def draw(self, screen):
'''
Draws the text box to the screen passed.
screen: a pygame Surface object
'''
text_surface = self.font.render(f'{self.text}', False, self.color)
screen.blit(text_surface, [self.x, self.y])
def update_text(self, new_text):
'''
Modifier- Updates the text variable in the textbox instance
new_text: str, the updated str for the instance.
'''
if not isinstance(new_text, str):
raise TypeError("Invalid type for text object")
self.text = new_text
def set_position(self, x, y):
'''
Modifier- change or set the position of the txt box
x: int, x-position on the screen
y: int, y-position on the screen
'''
self.x = x
self.y = y
def __repr__(self):
rep = f'TextBox instance, \n\ttext: {self.text} \n\tFontFamly:{self.font} \n\tColor: {self.color} \n\tSize: {self.size} \n\tPos: {self.x, self.y}'
return rep
if __name__ == "__main__":
test = TextBox("Hello World", 30, 30, 30)
print(test)
To use this in my Game class
from textbox import TextBox
and in the initialisation part of the game, something like this:
self.time_text = TextBox("Time Left: 100", 20, 20, 40)
self.cred_text = TextBox("created by Sean R.", 15, 600, 870)
self.score1_text = TextBox("0", 100, 40, 650)
self.score2_text = TextBox("0", 100, 660, 650)
self.lives1_text = TextBox("[P1] Lives: 3", 20, 40, 750)
self.lives2_text = TextBox("[P2] Lives: 3", 20, 660, 750)
self.game_over_text = TextBox("GAME OVER", 100, 80, 420, RED)
self.textbox_list = []
self.textbox_list.append(self.time_text)
self.textbox_list.append(self.cred_text)
self.textbox_list.append(self.score1_text)
self.textbox_list.append(self.score2_text)
self.textbox_list.append(self.lives1_text)
self.textbox_list.append(self.lives2_text)
so that when I want to draw all on the screen:
for txt in self.textbox_list:
txt.draw(screen)
In the update section of the game, I only update directly the boxes that have updated text using the update_text method- if there is nothing to be updated, the text stays the same.

I wrote a TextElement class to handle text placement. It's still has room for improvement. One thing to improve is to add fallback fonts using SysFont in case the font asset isn't available.
import os
from typing import Tuple, Union
from pygame.font import Font
from utils.color import Color
class TextElement:
TEXT_SIZE = 50
def __init__(self, surface, size=TEXT_SIZE, color=Color('white'), font_name='Kanit-Medium') -> None:
self.surface = surface
self._font_name = font_name
self._size = size
self.color = color
self.font = self.__initialize_font()
#property
def font_name(self):
return self._font_name
#font_name.setter
def font_name(self, font_name):
self._font_name = font_name
self.font = self.__initialize_font()
#font_name.deleter
def font_name(self):
del self._font_name
#property
def size(self):
return self._size
#size.setter
def size(self, size):
self._size = size
self.font = self.__initialize_font()
#size.deleter
def size(self):
del self._size
def write(self, text: str, coordinates: Union[str, Tuple[int, int]] = 'center'):
rendered_text = self.font.render(text, True, self.color)
if isinstance(coordinates, str):
coordinates = self.__calculate_alignment(rendered_text, coordinates)
self.surface.blit(rendered_text, coordinates)
return self
def __calculate_alignment(self, rendered_text, alignment):
# https://www.pygame.org/docs/ref/surface.html#pygame.Surface.get_rect
# Aligns rendered_text to the surface at the given alignment position
# e.g: rendered_text.get_rect(center=self.surface.get_rect().center)
alignment_coordinates = getattr(self.surface.get_rect(), alignment)
return getattr(rendered_text, 'get_rect')(**{alignment: alignment_coordinates}).topleft
def __initialize_font(self):
return Font(os.path.join(
'assets', 'fonts', f'{self._font_name}.ttf'), self._size)
Here is how you can use it:
TextElement(self.screen, 80).write('Hello World!', 'midtop')
TextElement(self.screen).write('Hello World 2!', (250, 100))
# OR
text = TextElement(self.screen, 80)
text.size = 100
text.write('Bigger text!', (25, 50))
text.write('Bigger text!', 'midbottom')
I hope this can help someone! Cheers!