I am trying to make a sketch that switches between two modes: Clearly displaying sentences and displaying sentences in a big mess. I have therefore tried to make a class that let's me manipulate the placement of words in their original sentence. I pasted the code, and you can look at it, but I think my most important question is this:

Can I rely on textWidth() to make accurate placements of text?

In the Story class, I try to use it in setting up a sentence "from scratch", but the words are being placed overlapping each other when they should be placed with neat spaces between them. I even tried a mono font.

(And yes, I know the code is messy and uncommented. I think the interesting area is the .display() function of the Story class.)

2. /***
3. Used for putting text in a big pile
4. ***/
5. 
   
6. Story[] stories;
7. String[] strings;
8. 
   
9. void setup() {
10.   size(750, 750);
11.   background(255);
12.   stroke(0);
13.   fill(0);
14.   rectMode(CORNER);
15.   
16.   strings = loadStrings("kartoffeltxt01.txt");
17.   stories = new Story[strings.length];
18.   textFont(createFont("AndaleMono", 11));
19.   textAlign(CENTER, CENTER);
20.   for (int i = 0; i < strings.length; i++) {
21.     stories[i] =
22.     new Story(strings[i],
23.     new PVector(random(width-40),
24.     random(height)));
25.   }
26. }
27. 
    
28. void draw() {
29.   background(255);
30.   rectMode(CORNER);
31.   float a = map(mouseX, 0, width, 0, 15);
32.   for (int j = 0; j < stories.length; j++) {
33.     stories[j].display();
34.     //text(stories[j].fullText, stories[j].presentLoc.x, stories[j].presentLoc.y+30);
35.     stories[j].update();
36.   }
37. }
38. 
    
40. class Story {
41.   String fullText;
42.   String[] words;
43.   
44.   PVector orgLoc;
45.   PVector presentLoc;
46.   
47.   Story(String tempText, PVector tempLoc) {
48.     fullText = tempText;
49.     words = split(fullText, 'X');
50.     
51.     orgLoc = tempLoc;
52.     presentLoc = orgLoc;
53.   }
54.   
55.   void update() {
56.     float inc = map(mouseX, 0, width, 0, 1);
57.     PVector m = new PVector(width/2, height/2);
58.     PVector p = PVector.sub(m, orgLoc);
59.     p.mult(inc);
60.     presentLoc = PVector.add(m, p);
61.   }
62.   
63.   void display() {
64.     float space = textWidth(' ');
65.     rectMode(CORNER);
66.     for (int i = 0; i < words.length; i++) {
67.       if (i == 0) {
68.         text(words[i], presentLoc.x, presentLoc.y);
69.       } else {
70.         float combinedWidth = 0;
71.         for (int j = 0; j < i; j++) {
72.           combinedWidth += textWidth(words[j])+space;
73.         }
74.         text(words[i], presentLoc.x + combinedWidth, presentLoc.y);
75.         /*
76.         fill(0, 30);
77.         noStroke();
78.         rect(presentLoc.x, presentLoc.y + 20, combinedWidth, 10);
79.         fill(0);
80.         stroke(0);
81.         */
82.       }
83.     }
84.   }
85. }