FeatureRequest: cross-platform .Substring() method for FormattedText about crossformattedtext

[Emasoft]

@MeilCli My suggestion is to simplify things:

1. Convert internally all characters of the string to a separate Span object (with all attributes cloned from the original Span). One character for each Span.
2. Use the array of characters ( List< Span > ) to do all string operations (like a char array, only having Spans instead of chars)
3. Convert back the List< Span > to a FormattedText string

To help rebuilding the original FormattedText string Span structure, you can create a subclass of Span:

public class OneCharSpan: Span{
public int span_number;
}

And then using it in place of the Span class to build your List:

List< OneCharSpan > my_text_chars = new List< OneCharSpan > ();

foreach (var spanItem in FormattedText.Spans){
foreach(var charItem in spanItem.ToCharArray()){
var one_char_span = new OneCharSpan(){ ...copy char and attributes here... };
my_text_chars.Add(one_char_span);
}
}

In that way when you rebuild the spans in step 3, you can merge all OneCharSpan objects with the same span_number in a single Span object, and use the span_number to order the resulting spans when recreating the FormattedText string.

With this method you will make all operations on List< OneCharSpan > , and the user will not have to worry about Spans. The user shall use the FormattedText exactly the same way as he uses a normal String.

In the future you can optimize this easily. Just replace the OneCharSpan class with a new lighter class referencing the original spans formatting instead of duplicating it in each character. This shall occupy less memory and will be faster. But start with the basic algorithm above first.

[MeilCli]

@Emasoft Thank you for your suggestion. Please give me time to try it in that direction.

[MeilCli]

Thanks nice feature request!!

First, I am not good at English.
I tried reading English as much as possible but it looks like the following:

I think add method to FormattedString class

• String like method:
  • Contains, call Contains of concatted all span text
  • EndsWith, call EndsWith of last span text
  • IndexOf, call IndexOf of concatted all span text
  • Insert, clone span data where inserted position ※Notes
  • LastIndexOf, call LastIndexOf of concatted all span text
  • Remove, span that become empty text will removed from FormattedString
  • Replace, call Replace of each span text ※Notes
  • Split, I do not know how to implement it ※Notes
  • StartsWith, call StartsWith of first span text
  • Substring, clone span data
  • ToLower and ToUpper, call its method of each span
  • Trim, call TrimStart of first span text and call TrimEnd of end span text
  • TrimStart and TrimEnd, call its method of first or last span
• String like method using span
  • Maybe the same as above
• Parse method
  • ToString(override), to html like string
  • Parse(static), from html like string

In the above method call, FormattedString must be immutable.
So I'd like to prepare the FormmatedStringBuilder class and probably do that.

※Notes
Behavior of the joint of the span is difficult.

example:

Span1	Span2	Span3
some loop	occurred 1	200 times

• Insert text in behind of 'p' in Span1. which insert Span1 last position or Span2 first position?
• Replace to 200 from 1200 in Span2-Span3, How to insert?

Please give me a good idea.
Thank you!

[MeilCli]

work finished.

This feature is available in version 2.0.0

[Emasoft]

Awesome news!! Thank you!