Read control nodes, generate HTML text with background

This example explains how to read control nodes and use the text widget’s HTML feature to style text with auto-sizing background.

Functions covered

Load this example composition to follow along in a real composition

Composition structure

The composition has one sub-composition called Lower, as you can see in the composition tree.

To see this sub-composition's widgets:

Open the composition script editor within the same example composition as above and select the Lower composition script.
In the composition navigator, select the Widget Explorer tab.

This composition contains three widgets, but for this quick start, you'll look at the text widget, which in the composition is called lowerText.

Composition script

Now that you have located the composition's text widget, learn how to use the text widget’s HTML feature to style text and set a background color in the Lower composition script.

You can also copy and paste the composition script below into your own compositions.

Lower script

(function() {

  const HTML_TEMPLATE = '<html><span style="background:{{background-color}}; padding: 0px {{padding-right}}px 0px {{padding-left}}px">{{firstname}} <b>{{secondname}}</b></span></html>';

  // convert color JSON to CSS rgba()
  const parseColor = function(color) {
    const colorRgba = `rgba(${color.r}, ${color.g}, ${color.b}, ${color.a})`;
    // console.log("colorRgba =", colorRgba);
    return colorRgba;
  }

  return {

    init: function(comp, context) {

      // get reference to the fullname widget
      const wiLowerText = comp.findWidget("lowerText")[0];

      /**********************************************************************/

      // we define a function to update the composition
      function updateComposition() {
        // get control node payload as JSON object
        const p = comp.getPayload2();
        console.log(p);

        const colorRgba = parseColor(p["Background Color"]);

        // build HTML text.
        let htmlText = HTML_TEMPLATE.replace(/{{background-color}}/gi, colorRgba);
        htmlText = htmlText.replace(/{{padding-right}}/gi, p["Padding Right"]);
        htmlText = htmlText.replace(/{{padding-left}}/gi, p["Padding Left"]);
        htmlText = htmlText.replace(/{{firstname}}/gi, p["Firstname"]);
        htmlText = htmlText.replace(/{{secondname}}/gi, p["Lastname"]);

        // update fullname text
        wiLowerText.setPayload({
          "text": htmlText
        });

      }

      /**********************************************************************/

      // we listen to payload_changed events
      comp.addListener('payload_changed', (event, msg, e) => {
        updateComposition();
        e.stopPropagation();
      });

      /**********************************************************************/

      // update the composition when loading the output URL
      updateComposition();

    },

    close: function(comp, context) {}
  };
})();