String Utilities

Overview

String utilities provide functions for manipulating and formatting text strings in your game. These utilities are particularly useful for displaying text, formatting messages, and handling user input.

String Operations

Capitalizing Text

Capitalize the first letter of a string:

import { capitalize } from 'dill-pixel';

// Capitalize first letter
const text = capitalize('hello'); // "Hello"
const name = capitalize('john'); // "John"

Capitalizing Words

Capitalize the first letter of each word in a string:

import { capitalizeWords } from 'dill-pixel';

// Capitalize each word
const title = capitalizeWords('game over'); // "Game Over"
const name = capitalizeWords('john doe'); // "John Doe"

Common Use Cases

UI Text Formatting

import { capitalize, capitalizeWords } from 'dill-pixel';

class TextFormatter {
  // Format menu items
  formatMenuItem(text: string) {
    return capitalize(text);
  }

  // Format dialog titles
  formatTitle(text: string) {
    return capitalizeWords(text);
  }
}

Message System

import { capitalize } from 'dill-pixel';

class MessageSystem {
  formatMessage(type: string, message: string) {
    return `${capitalize(type)}: ${message}`;
  }

  // Example usage:
  displayNotification() {
    return this.formatMessage('info', 'level complete'); // "Info: level complete"
  }

  displayError() {
    return this.formatMessage('error', 'connection lost'); // "Error: connection lost"
  }
}

Name Generation

import { capitalize, capitalizeWords } from 'dill-pixel';

class NameGenerator {
  generateCharacterName(prefix: string, title: string) {
    return `${capitalize(prefix)} ${capitalizeWords(title)}`;
  }

  // Example usage:
  generateName() {
    return this.generateCharacterName('sir', 'dragon slayer'); // "Sir Dragon Slayer"
  }
}

Best Practices

1. Use appropriate function for your needs:

   // Good: Using capitalize for single words
   const name = capitalize('hero'); // "Hero"
   
   // Good: Using capitalizeWords for titles
   const title = capitalizeWords('the final battle'); // "The Final Battle"

2. Create helper functions for common formats:

   function formatGameTitle(name: string) {
     return capitalizeWords(name.toLowerCase());
   }
   
   function formatPlayerName(name: string) {
     return capitalize(name.trim());
   }

Performance Considerations

Optimization

String utilities are lightweight but create new strings. For performance-critical code, consider caching formatted results rather than reformatting on every frame.

Efficient Usage

// Less efficient: Formatting on every frame
function update() {
  displayText(capitalizeWords(title)); // Don't do this
}

// More efficient: Cache formatted text
class TextDisplay {
  private formattedTitle: string;

  setTitle(title: string) {
    this.formattedTitle = capitalizeWords(title);
  }

  render() {
    displayText(this.formattedTitle);
  }
}

Tips and Tricks

1. Combine with other utilities:

   import { capitalize, getZeroPaddedNumber } from 'dill-pixel';
   
   function formatLevel(level: number) {
     return `${capitalize('level')} ${getZeroPaddedNumber(level, 2)}`;
   }

2. Create consistent text styles:

   const TextStyles = {
     TITLE: (text: string) => capitalizeWords(text),
     MENU_ITEM: (text: string) => capitalize(text),
     DIALOG: (text: string) => capitalize(text.toLowerCase()),
   };

3. Handle multi-line text:

   function formatParagraph(text: string) {
     return text
       .split('\n')
       .map((line) => capitalize(line))
       .join('\n');
   }