Overview of Adobe's Text Layout Framework for the Flash Player

Overview of the Text Layout Framework By Mathew Fabb

Who Am I
I’m a Flash/Flex developer that has been doing Flash work from the tail-end of Flash 4 and the beginning of Flash 5
I recently left Questrade, and start work at DesignAxiom in December
I’ve been doing a technical edit of Wrox’s Professional Flex 3
Authored by: Joseph Balderson (aka JoeFlash), Andrew Trice , Peter Ent , Joe Berkovitz , Tom Sugden , Todd Prekaski , David Hassoun , and Jun Heider .

Text Layout Framework
Flash got a new way to display text with version 10 called Flash Text Engine (FTE)
FTE was created by the InDesign team
API for FTE is very low-level
This means a high level API is needed to make it easy for most developers and designers to use
The Text Layout Framework (TLF) is Adobe’s take on this high level API
Because FTE is low-level any 3 rd party company, organization or developer can come up with their own framework or set of components for FTE
Low-level API, high level API done in ActionScript seems to be the future direction of the Flash Player

So what does the TLF give us?
Bidirectional text, vertical text and over 30 writing systems including Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Lao, the major writing systems of India, Tate-Chu-Yoko (horizontal within vertical text) and more.
Text with inline graphics (images, SWFs or any DisplayObject)
Multiple columns of text with text flow and text selection through these columns
“ Print-quality typography for the web” meaning kerning, ligatures, typographic case, digit case, digit width and discretionary hyphens

Enough talk! Demo time!
Links:
Pagination example
Highlight adornment example
Spell check adornment example
Editability example (demonstrating the TLF undo manager)
Note: These the source for these examples are available with the TLF downloads on Adobe Labs

TLF can be used in both Flash CS4 and the Flex Framework (version 3.2 and the upcoming Flex 4 “Gumbo”)
For Flash CS4 there is a new component called TextLayout that uses the TLF
For Flex 4 the FxTextArea component is built off of the TLF
Outside of these components, the TLF can be accessed in ActionScript code in Flex 3.2, Flex 4 and Flash CS4

Flash CS4 Text Layout panel

TLF consists of 3 SWC files:
textLayout_core.swc
Handles storage of text, the creation of text containers, and the display of text
Contains the majority of the framework code and TLF cannot be used without this component
textLayout_conversion.swc
Used to import and export text from the TLF
Not needed if the text is compiled directly into the SWF
textLayout_edit.swc
Used to make text selectable, editable and contains the undo manager code

FTE classes can be found in the flash.text.engine.* namespace
The old Flash text classes are found one level up in the flash.text.* namespace
TLF classes can currently be found in the flashx.* namespace
TLF is based on the MVC pattern

TLF markup
<TextFlow xmlns="http://ns.adobe.com/textLayout/2008" fontSize="14"> <div><p>This is an example of Text Layout Framework Markup.</p> <p color="#0000ff"> <span font Style='italic'>This is the first span of the second paragraph.</span> <span color="#ff0000">This is the second span of the second paragraph.</span> </p></div> <div><p>This is the second div in the markup example.</p></div> </TextFlow>;

TLF’s Text Flow Hierarchy

Links
Text Layout Framework on Adobe Labs
Text Layout Framework Team blog

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Overview of Adobe's Text Layout Framework for the Flash Player

by Matthew Fabb on Nov 30, 2008

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Overview of Adobe’s Text Layout Framework for the Flash Player — Presentation Transcript