Slick2D Trying to display text in UnicodeFont

Newbie & Debugging Questions
#1

Im trying to display Strings of text in Slick2D using the UnicodeFont (because TrueTypeFont is deprecated).

The class I am working on is shown below. Im guessing that lines 106 and 117 are where the problem lies, but I don’t know how to fix it (Ive never displayed text in Slick2D before). Also, everything else works fine.


public class VisualNovelState extends BasicGameState{
    //CONSTANTS================================================================
    //Note: Most if not all of these constants are temporary for testing purposes.
    public static final String BACKGROUND = [FILEPATH];
    public static final String PORTRAIT = [FILEPATH];
    public static final String NAMEBOX = [FILEPATH];
    public static final String DIALOGUEBOX = [FILEPATH];
    public static final String TESTSTRING = "Text display test. ";
    public static final String FONT = "Arial";
    public static final int STYLE = java.awt.Font.PLAIN;
    public static final int SIZE = 60;

    //ATTRIBUTES===============================================================
    /** The id of this GameState. */
    private int stateId;
    /** The background Image. */
    private Image background;
    /** The character portrait Image. */
    private Image portrait;
    /** The Image which contains the nameText on the screen. */
    private Image nameBox;
    /** The Image which contains the dialogueText on the screen. */
    private Image dialogueBox;
    /** The name of the current speaker. */
    private String nameText;
    /** The current line of dialogue. */
    private String dialogueText;
    /** */
    private UnicodeFont font;

    //ATTRIBUTE SETTER AND GETTER METHODS======================================
    public void setID(int stateId){
        this.stateId = stateId;
    }

    @Override
    public int getID() {
        return stateId;
    }

    public void setBackground(Image background){
        this.background = background;
    }

    public Image getBackground(){
        return background;
    }

    public void setPortrait(Image portrait){
        this.portrait = portrait;
    }

    public Image getPortrait(){
        return portrait;
    }

    public void setNameBox(Image nameBox){
        this.nameBox = nameBox;
    }

    public Image getNameBox(){
        return nameBox;
    }

    public void setDialogueBox(Image dialogueBox){
        this.dialogueBox = dialogueBox;
    }

    public Image getDialogueBox(){
        return dialogueBox;
    }
    
    public void setNameText(String nameText){
        this.nameText = nameText;
    }

    public String getNameText(){
        return nameText;
    }

    public void setDialogueText(String dialogueText){
        this.dialogueText = dialogueText;
    }

    public String getDialogueText(){
        return dialogueText;
    }

    public void setFont(UnicodeFont font){
        this.font = font;
    }

    public UnicodeFont getFont(){
        return font;
    }

    //PRIMARY METHODS==========================================================
    @Override
    public void init(GameContainer container, StateBasedGame game) throws
            SlickException {
        this.setBackground(new Image(BACKGROUND));
        this.setPortrait(new Image(PORTRAIT));
        this.setNameBox(new Image(NAMEBOX));
        this.setDialogueBox(new Image(DIALOGUEBOX));
        this.setFont(new UnicodeFont(new java.awt.Font(FONT, STYLE, SIZE)));
        this.setDialogueText(TESTSTRING);
    }
    
    @Override
    public void render(GameContainer container, StateBasedGame game, Graphics g)
            throws SlickException {
        this.getBackground().draw(0,0);
        this.getPortrait().draw(0,0);
        this.getNameBox().draw(0,0);
        this.getDialogueBox().draw(0,0);
        this.getFont().drawString(1, 450, this.getDialogueText());
    }

    @Override
    public void update(GameContainer container, StateBasedGame game, int delta)
            throws SlickException {
        Input input = container.getInput();

        if(input.isMouseButtonDown(Input.MOUSE_LEFT_BUTTON)){
        }
    }

    //CONSTRUCTORS=============================================================
    public VisualNovelState(int stateId) throws SlickException{
        this.setID(stateId);
    }
}
#2

UnicodeFont has an odd property in that you need to call something like

yourUnicodeFont.loadGlyphs();

in your update method every frame.

#3

ok i added that and now I get an exception:
java.lang.IllegalStateException: The UnicodeFont must have at least one effect before any glyphs can be loaded.

#4

add maybe a simple color effect:


myFont.getEffects().add(new ColorEffect(java.awt.Color.white));
#5

Thanks to kappa and PaidGEEK. Its working now.

#6

btw UnicodeFont is kinda bad, and on top of that has crazy memory leaks
just use AngelCodeFont with uses images
which is also the standard for most games, to make a “spritesheet” with characters on them
on the slick website there are also angelcodefont creators. I use and enjoy “BMFont - Bitmap Font Tool”
there are also other upsides to this like outlining which is easy; and its faster.