Skip to main content

​
Overview

The MessageBoard class creates a rectangular widget for displaying text messages on the screen. It uses a Box widget with text drawn inside. The text is a list of lines that can be retrieved and changed with the .text attribute.

​
Constructor

MessageBoard(surface, rect, text, padding, font=('arial', 20), 
             font_color=Color('white'), bgcolor=Color('gray25'), 
             border_width=0, border_color=Color('black'))

​
Parameters

​
surface
pygame.Surface
required
The pygame surface to which the message board will draw itself.
​
rect
pygame.Rect
required
The rectangle defining the location and size of the message board on the surface.
​
text
list[str]
required
The initial text of the message board as a list of strings (one per line).
​
padding
int
required
Padding in pixels around the text inside the message board.
​
font
tuple
default:"('arial', 20)"
The font as a (name, size) tuple.
​
font_color
pygame.Color
default:"Color('white')"
The color of the text.
​
bgcolor
pygame.Color
default:"Color('gray25')"
The background color of the message board.
​
border_width
int
default:"0"
Width of the border. Same meaning as in the Box widget.
​
border_color
pygame.Color
default:"Color('black')"
Color of the border. Same meaning as in the Box widget.

​
Methods

​
draw()

Draws the message board to the surface, including the surrounding box and all text lines. 
def draw(self)
The method:
  1. Draws the surrounding box
  2. Renders all lines of text one below the other
  3. Tests if text fits within the MessageBoard plus padding
  4. Raises LayoutError if any line cannot fit
Raises: LayoutError if a line is too large to fit in the widget with the specified padding.

​
Attributes

  • text - The list of text lines to display (can be modified dynamically)
  • box - The underlying Box widget used for drawing

​
Usage Example

From game.py: 
tboard_text = ['This is a test.']
tboard_x = 120
tboard_y = 120
tboard_width = 125
tboard_height = 30
tboard_rect = pygame.Rect(tboard_x, tboard_y, tboard_width, tboard_height)
tboard_bgcolor = pygame.Color(50, 20, 0)

tboard = MessageBoard(screen,
    rect=tboard_rect,
    bgcolor=tboard_bgcolor,
    border_width=4,
    border_color=pygame.Color('black'),
    text=tboard_text,
    padding=5,
    font=('comic sans', 18),
    font_color=pygame.Color('yellow'))

# In the game loop
tboard.draw()

​
Notes

  • Text is rendered using pygame.font.SysFont
  • Each string in the text list is rendered on a separate line
  • Lines are stacked vertically from top to bottom
  • The widget validates that text fits within the available space including padding
  • You can dynamically update text by modifying the text attribute

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

Get started for freeTalk to us