# Zend_Text_Figlet

`Zend_Text_Figlet` is a component which enables developers to create a so called FIGlet text. A FIGlet text is a string, which is represented as ASCII art. FIGlets use a special font format, called FLT (FigLet Font). By default, one standard font is shipped with `Zend_Text_Figlet`, but you can download additional fonts at http://www.figlet.org.

## Compressed fonts

`Zend_Text_Figlet` supports gzipped fonts. This means that you can take an `.flf` file and gzip it. To allow `Zend_Text_Figlet` to recognize this, the gzipped font must have the extension `.gz`. Further, to be able to use gzipped fonts, you have to have enabled the GZIP extension of PHP.

## Encoding

`Zend_Text_Figlet` expects your strings to be UTF-8 encoded by default. If this is not the case, you can supply the character encoding as second parameter to the `render()` method.

You can define multiple options for a FIGlet. When instantiating `Zend_Text_Figlet`, you can supply an array or an instance of `Zend_Config`.

- `font` - Defines the font which should be used for rendering. If not defines, the built-in font will be used.

- `outputWidth` - Defines the maximum width of the output string. This is used for word-wrap as well as justification. Beware of too small values, they may result in an undefined behaviour. The default value is 80.

- `handleParagraphs` - A boolean which indicates, how new lines are handled. When set to true, single new lines are ignored and instead treated as single spaces. Only multiple new lines will be handled as such. The default value is `FALSE`.

- `justification` - May be one of the values of `Zend_Text_Figlet::JUSTIFICATION_*`. There is `JUSTIFICATION_LEFT`, `JUSTIFICATION_CENTER` and `JUSTIFICATION_RIGHT` The default justification is defined by the `rightToLeft` value.

- `rightToLeft` - Defines in which direction the text is written. May be either `Zend_Text_Figlet::DIRECTION_LEFT_TO_RIGHT` or `Zend_Text_Figlet::DIRECTION_RIGHT_TO_LEFT`. By default the setting of the font file is used. When justification is not defined, a text written from right-to-left is automatically right-aligned.

- `smushMode` - An integer bitfield which defines, how the single characters are smushed together. Can be the sum of multiple values from `Zend_Text_Figlet::SM_*`. There are the following smush modes: SM_EQUAL, SM_LOWLINE, SM_HIERARCHY, SM_PAIR, SM_BIGX, SM_HARDBLANK, SM_KERN and SM_SMUSH. A value of 0 doesn't disable the entire smushing, but forces SM_KERN to be applied, while a value of -1 disables it. An explanation of the different smush modes can be found here. By default the setting of the font file is used. The smush mode option is normally used only by font designers testing the various layoutmodes with a new font.

## Using Zend_Text_Figlet

This example illustrates the basic use of `Zend_Text_Figlet` to create a simple FIGlet text:

    $figlet = new Zend_Text_Figlet();
    echo $figlet->render('Zend');

Assuming you are using a monospace font, this would look as follows:

      ______    ______    _  __   ______
     |__  //   |  ___||  | \| || |  __ \\
       / //    | ||__    |  ' || | |  \ ||
      / //__   | ||___   | .  || | |__/ ||
     /_____||  |_____||  |_|\_|| |_____//
     `-----`'  `-----`   `-` -`'  -----`