>Here's the follow up to my previous enquiry
>I want to define the width of my temp window to match the longest sentence in this sample 3 line message
>In this case for example I need the code query to produce the number 31
>
>mes = 'I need the greatest line length'+chr(13)+chr(10)+'Of this 3 line message'+chr(13)+chr(10)+'any suggestions??'
>
>then I can use that length to define the width of the window that will open.
>(I hope i'm not regressing your coding experiences too far back.)
>
>tnx for your help
>
>k

As others suggested

It's not up to date to put a message in a temp window. At least not with ?.
One would use a form with editboxes etc. Calc the dimensions of the Edittbox, add some buttons and fit the form around.

If you realy need to let it look like a window, play around with the color* and border* properties.

But even for the editbox you would need to calculate the height - there is no autosize property. :)

You need to calculate width and high.
This depends on the len of the lines and the number of lines. Your friend is TXTWIDTH

For the height it's the height of a line + extra gap

So it needs to run the string line by line, get maximum lenght, number of lines * lineheight + gap

The gap is bit tricky

WIDTH see:

HELP TXTWIDTH

the height of a line is

  lnLineHeight = ;
   FONTMETRIC(1,.FONTNAME,.FONTSIZE,lcFontStyle)+;
   FONTMETRIC(5,.FONTNAME,.FONTSIZE,lcFontStyle)

n Lines => n * lnLineHeight

the gap is (for a given lnLineHeight)

WITH THIS
*CALCULATE the top-bottom-gap
 lnOldHeight         = .HEIGHT
 llOldIntegralHeight = .INTEGRALHEIGHT

 .HEIGHT = 2

*next three lines Start .INTEGRALHEIGHT
 .FONTSIZE       = .FONTSIZE-1
 .INTEGRALHEIGHT = .T.
 .FONTSIZE       = .FONTSIZE+1
 .INTEGRALHEIGHT = llOldIntegralHeight
*now we display exact one complete line in HEIGHT.

*one line  is    FONTMETRIC(1,...)+FONTMETRIC(5,...)  + gap (figured out this rule manually)
*n   lines is n*(FONTMETRIC(1,...)+FONTMETRIC(5,...)) + gap (   "                          )

*gap is .HEIGHT - (FONTMETRIC(1,...)+FONTMETRIC(5,...))
 lnGap = .HEIGHT-lnLineHeight

 .HEIGHT = lnOldHeight
ENDWITH &&THIS


HTH

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