How to prevent squares from going back in line in Typst

June 3, 2024

I want to make a progress bar for my resume, to show how competent I am in a skill, similar to how stars are displayed when grading a movie on a website. Ideally, I would also like them to be aligned on the right of the box container they are in, so that if I put multiple skills under each other, all the squares are alligned.

I tried creating a function to display this kind of skills as such :

#let skill(level: int, body) = {
  body
  for i in range(5){
    if i < level{
      square(width: 10pt, fill: black)
    } else {
      square(width: 10pt)
    }
  }
}

But there is a break with every new square, which makes it not look like a horizontal bar.

>Solution :

rect, square, ellipse, etc. are block-style by default (in their own paragraph). You are looking for box, which places elements directly adjacent to each other in the same paragraph block:

#let skill(level: int, body) = {
  let skill-box = box.with(stroke: black, width: 1em, height: 1em, baseline: 0.25em)
  body
  h(1em)
  for i in range(5){
    if i < level{
      skill-box(fill: black)
    } else {
      skill-box()
    }
  }
}

#skill(level: 3)[Coding]

If you prefer vertically-stacked boxes:

#let skill(level: int, body) = {
  let skill-box = box.with(stroke: black, width: 1em, height: 1em, baseline: 0.25em)
  body
  h(1em)
  let boxes = range(5).map(i => {
    if i < level{
      skill-box(fill: black)
    } else {
      skill-box()
    }
  })
  // btt = bottom-to-top. `ttb` will place the black blocks above white ones
  stack(dir: btt, spacing: 0em, ..boxes)
}