P5.js: Is there a way to use .textToPoints() without loading an external font file?

[mutawa]

Nature of issue?

• [ ] New feature request
• [ ] Existing feature enhancement

Most appropriate sub-area of p5.js?

• [ ] IO
• [ ] Typography
• [ ] Other (specify if possible)

New feature details:

currently, the only way to obtain point coordinates from text string is to call .textToPoints() from a new p5.Font() object.

var font;
function preload() {
  font = loadFont('./assets/Avenir.otf');   // this file must exists
}
function setup() {
  var points1 = font.textToPoints('Hello, world!', 200,200,20);   // this works

  var points2 = p5.Font.textToPoints('Hi again' , 200,200,20); //doesn't work

  textFont("Tahoma");   
  var points3 = p5.Font.textToPoints('Good bye!', 200,200,20);  //doesn't work
}

.textToPoints() only work if you provide a font file along with the project. But what if you just want to use a system font like 'Tahoma` or 'Arial', or you just don't care what font is the default, just as long as you don't need to provide a font file?

If someone doesn't want the default font, he/she could simply call textFont("my_special_font_name_here") right before calling textToPoints().

It would be excellent if textToPoints() work from the global scope just like text() and textSize() and textFont() because it behaves almost like them.

[dhowe]

This is by design, as browser fonts don't expose path data (correct me on this if I'm mistaken) -- so textToPoints() can _only_ work on a specific opentype-compatible font instance