In Degrafa Beta 3 we introduced a new text object called RasterText. This object allows you to add text to your graphics compositions just like any other geometry. You can also have multiple text objects inside something that normally allows for one. For example, you could use RasterText to create 2 text items in a Button skin, rather than relying on the default single label of a Button, kinda like the example below. Click here to view the source.

RasterText is like other Degrafa geometry objects in the way it can be composed using fills, transforms, etc. RasterText renders as bitmap data, so things like Decorators and strokes around letters won’t work because there is not path defined. That’s what VectorText will take care of in the future.

Below is an example of several Degrafa fill types being applied to RasterText objects. As you can see, you’ll no longer be limited to solid-colored text. Click here to view the source

The ability to add these kinds of fills will be coming soon in Degrafa Beta 3.1 along with some other really great updates. Now that the core feature set is defined we’ll be looking to push out smaller updates more regularly. In the meantime you can still do some neat stuff just composing RasterText object together, like the CS4 Icon Previewer below. Click here to view the source