Advanced Text Generator

Advanced Text Generator is a text rendering module that employs Harfbuzz, ICU, and FreeType to deliver comprehensive Unicode support and text shaping capabilities.

With Advanced Text Generator, you can use a wide array of languages and scriptsA piece of code that allows you to create your own Components, trigger game events, modify Component properties over time and respond to user input in any way you like. More info
See in Glossary, such as right-to-left (RTL) languages like Arabic and Hebrew.

Enable Advanced Text Generator

1. From the menu, select Edit > Project Settings > UI Toolkit.
2. Select the Enable Advanced Text Generator checkbox.

Use Advanced Text Generator

To use Advanced Text Generator, you must use a font asset that supports the language you want to use. For example, if you want to use Arabic, you must use a font asset that supports Arabic. Advanced Text Generator only supports dynamic font assets. Before using Advanced Text Generator in your project, you must import the font into your project and create a dynamic font asset from it.

In UI Builder

To use Advanced Text Generator in UI Builder, do the following:

1. Select the visual elementA node of a visual tree that instantiates or derives from the C# VisualElement class. You can style the look, define the behaviour, and display it on screen as part of the UI. More info
   See in Glossary that you want to apply to.
2. In the Inspector panel, select Inlined Styles > Text.
3. From the Text Generator Type dropdown, select Advanced.

In USS

To use Advanced Text Generator in USS, set -unity-text-generator to advanced. For example:

.labelText {
    -unity-text-generator: advanced;
}

In C# scripts

To use Advanced Text Generator in C# scripts, set TextGeneratorType to Advanced. For example:

textElement.style.unityTextGenerator = new StyleEnum<TextGeneratorType>(TextGeneratorType.Advanced);

Cursor movement

This section explains how cursor movement behaves in the input fields when handling bidirectional (BIDI) text.

Logical Cursor Movement

Unity currently follows a Logical Cursor Movement approach. This means the cursor moves through BIDI text based on the direction of the segment of text. For example, using the left arrow key in a sentence with Arabic and English text, it moves right-to-left through Arabic, then jumps at the leftmost character in the English segment and continues left-to-right until it reaches the end of the segment.

Visual Cursor Movement

Some applications follow a Visual Cursor Movement approach. This means the cursor moves to the next visual character regardless of the direction of the text, which can sometimes feel more intuitive for users. We plan to make the cursor movement mode an option in future releases.

Auto sizing text elements

You can enable auto sizing for text with Best Fit. The Best Fit feature allows you to set a minimum and maximum font size for the text element. The text element adjust its font size dynamically based on the content and available space within the range.

Best Fit also supports the following features:

• Word wrapping: Automatically wraps text to fit within the specified width.
• Ellipsis truncation: Automatically truncates text with an ellipsis (…) if it exceeds the available space.
• Multiple alignments: Supports left, center, and right alignment.
• Newline: Automatically inserts line breaks when necessary.

You can enable auto sizing in UI Builder, USS, or C# scripts.

In UI Builder

1. Select the text element you want to modify.
2. In the Inspector panel, select Text > Auto Size.
3. Enter the minimum and maximum font sizes. The text element automatically adjusts its font size within this range to fit the text content.

In USS

In USS, set the -unity-text-auto-size property to best fit with a minimum and maximum font size. For example:

.labelText {
    -unity-text-generator: advanced; 
    -unity-text-auto-size: best-fit 5px 100px;
}

In C# scripts

To enable auto sizing in C# scripts, use the TextAutoSizeMode property. For example:

textElement.style.unityTextAutoSize = new StyleTextAutoSize(new TextAutoSize(TextAutoSizeMode.BestFit, minSize: 10, maxSize: 100));

Limitations

Advanced Text Generator has the following limitations:

• Supports only dynamic font assets.
• Customization of glyph metrics is not available. The recommended best practice is using font editing tools to adjust metrics or trim the font as needed.

When you use Advanced Text Generator, your project includes an icudt73l file that has a significant memory footprint of 4.8MB. This will be improved in future releases.

Additional resources

• Language direction
• Get started with text
• Font assets
• Style text with rich text tags