Pretext Layout

Overview

Use Pretext to measure multiline text in browser environments without paying repeated DOM reflow costs in the hot path. Prefer it when text width changes often and you need stable height or per-line geometry from cached measurements.

Workflow

1. Confirm the runtime first.
   • Treat Pretext as browser-first.
   • If the task is pure Node or CLI with no OffscreenCanvas and no document, do not promise direct runtime support.
2. Match the API to the job.
   • Use prepare() plus layout() for height and line-count measurement.
   • Use prepareWithSegments() plus layoutWithLines(), walkLineRanges(), or layoutNextLine() for custom rendering.
3. Sync layout inputs with real styles.
   • Read font and line-height from the target element or design token source.
   • Wait for document.fonts.ready before trusting measurements when web fonts are involved.
4. Cache aggressively.
   • Prepare once per (text, font, whiteSpace, locale) input.
   • Reuse the prepared handle across width changes.
5. Verify against the real UI when accuracy matters.
   • Compare a few representative strings against live DOM heights.
   • Include multilingual, emoji, and narrow-width cases if the feature depends on them.

Decision Guide

• Reach for prepare() plus layout() when the user needs block height, resize performance, virtualization, scroll anchoring, or pre-measuring text before render.
• Reach for prepareWithSegments() plus rich line APIs when the user needs custom line drawing, canvas text, SVG text, shrink-wrap width discovery, or variable line widths.
• Reach for ordinary DOM measurement instead when the task depends on CSS behaviors Pretext does not aim to cover fully.

Core Rules

• Do not claim server-side support unless the target environment actually provides a compatible canvas context.
• Keep font and lineHeight aligned with the real UI; measurement errors usually come from mismatched inputs, not from the layout call itself.
• Avoid system-ui for accuracy-sensitive flows on macOS; prefer named fonts.
• Treat prepare() as the expensive step and layout() as the hot path.
• When working with textarea-like content, pass { whiteSpace: 'pre-wrap' } explicitly.

Implementation Checklist

• Identify the exact text source, target width source, font source, and line-height source.
• Decide whether the feature only needs height or also needs per-line data.
• Cache prepared handles instead of calling prepare() on every resize.
• Add a small verification path that compares Pretext output with live DOM for representative samples.
• Document any unsupported CSS or runtime assumptions close to the integration point.

Scripts

• Run scripts/scaffold_browser_demo.py --out <dir> when you need a minimal browser starter wired to @chenglou/pretext.
• Use the scaffold as a disposable starting point; adapt font, line-height, white-space mode, and UI markup to the real project after generation.

References

• Read references/browser-integration.md for the common browser setup pattern and a reusable measurement loop.
• Read references/usage-patterns.md when choosing between the simple and rich APIs.
• Read references/caveats.md before answering questions about accuracy, fonts, white-space, emoji, bidi behavior, or non-browser runtimes.
• Read references/project-examples.md for portable integration patterns you can adapt to any browser-based app or AI CLI workspace.