al_draw_multiline_text(3alleg5)

✨ NAME ✨

okay so bestie, welcome to the <pink>al_draw_multiline_text</pink> manual page, from the <purple>Allegro 5 API</purple> — the one and only <cyan>al_draw_multiline_text(3alleg5)</cyan>. she draws text. multiple lines of it. she's iconic for that 💅

---

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

#include <allegro5/allegro_font.h>

void al_draw_multiline_text(const ALLEGRO_FONT *font,
     ALLEGRO_COLOR color, float x, float y, float max_width, float line_height,
     int flags, const char *text)

---

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so like, it's giving <hotpink>al_draw_text(3alleg5)</hotpink> energy, but make it <rainbow>multiline</rainbow> ✨ it draws several lines of text at once, no cap. it decides where to break the lines based on what's actually in the text plus the max_width parameter. then it stacks those lines vertically according to line_height, and draws each one as if you'd called al_draw_text(3alleg5) on it individually. lowkey elegant fr fr.

if you drop a newline \n in the text, that causes a <yellow>"hard"</yellow> line break right after it lands in the string. everything after that hard break gets placed on a new line, periodt. and listen — carriage return \r is <red>NOT supported</red> 😭 it will not cause a line break, and depending on the font it'll probably get drawn as a square or a space. so yeah. don't do that. 🙈

the max_width parameter controls the maximum desired width of the lines. the function will try to sneak in a <mint>"soft"</mint> line break after the longest possible series of words that'll fit in max_width when drawn with the given font. a soft break can happen on either a space or a tab (\t) character. cute, right? 🌸

BUT. plot twist 🫠 it's totally possible that max_width is too small, or the words in text are just too long to fit max_width when drawn with font. in that case, the word that's too wide gets drawn completely on a line by itself. she's too big for the box and she said what she said 💀 if you don't want that overflowing text visible, use al_set_clipping_rectangle(3alleg5) to clip it off and hide it. hide her. 👑

the lines that the text got split into will each be drawn using the font, x, color and flags parameters, vertically starting at y and with a distance of line_height between them. and if line_height is zero (0), then the value returned by calling al_get_font_line_height(3alleg5) on font gets used as the default instead. automatic glow-up, we love to see it 💖

these flags get honoured by this function, and yes she honours ALL of them:

• ALLEGRO_ALIGN_LEFT
• ALLEGRO_ALIGN_CENTRE
• ALLEGRO_ALIGN_RIGHT
• ALLEGRO_ALIGN_INTEGER

and if you wanna calculate the size of what this function would draw without actually drawing it (vibe check before committing, iykyk), or if you need a complex and/or custom layout, then go use al_do_multiline_text(3alleg5) instead. she's right there, she's got you 🫶

---

⭐ SINCE ⭐

5.1.9 — she's been serving since way back, a true veteran of the game 👑

---

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

• al_do_multiline_text(3alleg5)
• al_draw_multiline_ustr(3alleg5)
• al_draw_multiline_textf(3alleg5)

---

okay that's the whole page bestie, you ate it up, go draw some slayful multiline text 🎀✨ this was the <purple>Allegro reference manual</purple>'s <pink>al_draw_multiline_text(3alleg5)</pink> page, and honestly? she devoured. mwah 💅💖