Dots and labels¶

A dotted box with a label in its corner has a problem: some dots fall in the label's ink. On screen the text covers them; on a printed page a dot behind a letter reads as a smudge. JournalKit leaves those dots out.

Drop, never shift¶

The obvious fix is to start the dot grid below the label. That moves the whole grid inside the module, and now this box's dots are out of phase with the box beside it. The lattice is anchored to the page precisely so that never happens (see the two grids).

So dots are dropped, never shifted. The module computes the rectangle the label occupies — its band — and omits every lattice point that falls inside it. Every surviving dot is exactly where it would have been. The grid looks like it continues under the label and simply is not printed there.

Three modes¶

theme.dots.reserve_label chooses how wide the band is:

band is the calmer look and the safe default. text suits a page where labels are short and the writing area is wanted right up to the top edge; it depends on measuring the label from the font file, which is why fonts matter here too. If the font cannot be read, the width is estimated and the band may be a little too narrow for wide letters or too wide for narrow ones.

The band is only as tall as it must be¶

The band runs from label_pad above the cap height to label_pad below the baseline, or a little further to allow for descenders. A label that already clears the first dot row costs no dots at all.

Multi-cell modules¶

fields has one label per cell and reserves a band per cell. checklist with labels: reserves per row. A module you write gets the same behaviour by passing reserve=[...] or label= to Module.draw_dots.