Text Layout framework for Flash/Flex (Player 10)

Like many of you I'm sure, I've struggled with text in Flash/Flex more than once. For the most part, I've learned to get it to do what I want, but, there's still some things missing, especially when it comes to allowing users to manipulate text, an easy way to integrate robust HTML text for formatting, that sort of thing.

I haven't played around with it enough to write anything useful, but this looks very promising:

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/textlayout/

The gist is, the text framework is getting a complete overhaul; we'll have it Gumbo, and it's already in CS4, all targeted at Player 10 (which is a significant evolution, what with the ability to save files locally and such as well).

Summary of highlighted features, this is interesting stuff:

- Bidirectional text, vertical text and over 30 writing systems including Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Lao, the major writing systems of India, and others
- Selection, editing and flowing text across multiple columns and linked containers, and around inline images
- Vertical text, Tate-Chu-Yoko (horizontal within vertical text) and justifier for East Asian typography
- Rich typographical controls, including kerning, ligatures, typographic case, digit case, digit width and discretionary hyphens
- Cut, copy, paste, undo and standard keyboard and mouse gestures for editing
- Rich developer APIs to manipulate text content, layout, markup and create custom text components.

Interesting stuff.

March Edition of Flash Flex Dev Mag is out.

The March Edition of this mag is available now, with my article, "Dynamic Views and Mediators in PureMVC".

Check it out at:

http://ffdmag.com/download-2-2010

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My Comments on Steve Job's attacks on Flash technology: C'mon Steve, it's about money and control.

Recently, Steve Jobs has escalated his war on Flash technology. You can read about it here:

http://gawker.com/5474900/what-steve-jobs-said-during-his-wall-street-journal-ipad-demo

There’s so much contrary info available to me about Steve Jobs’ war on Flash that I can’t find his position credible. It’s amazing that anybody would take it seriously.

I’ve been a Flash dev for a long time. Flash hasn’t crashed my computer in years. Browser now and then, yes, computer, never. And I run three macs, and do all my development on them. Steve is telling a half truth here; if he was being accurate, he would say that POORLY WRITTEN flash apps take down BROWSERS. That is the fact.

This is no less true of a poorly written iPhone app. Go to the forums, bad iPhone apps take down iPhones all the time; memory allocation, lockups, you name it.

Steve Jobs is being dishonest about his motivation for his attack, and it’s obvious to anybody that knows how iPhone content distribution works; this is entirely about control, and money, that’s it. If you allow Flash on the iPad/iPhone, people will be able to write games, audio/video experiences, and deliver them to the iPad, without the deathgrip approval process Apple has over applications (you must submit your app to Apple, and get approval, before distributing to the iPhone via iTunes; Apple gets a distribution fee, AND you have to pay every year to be a registered developer to be allowed to submit apps at all) . Apple won’t make the money on the app distribution, and won’t have to force you to go through the app approval process.

That’s the real issue. I am confident that an army of Flash/Flex devs, and Adobe, as well as any legit third-party evaluation process, would state that there is no technical reason that an iPad can’t support Flash.

It is also interesting that, for video solutions, he points to h.264 video (quicktime), which is a patented and privately licensed technology. And guess who owns it. Sure, cheap now...but when people start depending on it, watch Apple change that for "enterprise content distribution" or some such.

Finally, Steve says Flash is on the way out; that statement, more than any other, I just can't fathom. Flash is in no way dying at all, in fact, as a developer using it for years, I have never seen so much Flash/Flex work. I turn down good work all the time because I’m far too busy. 3d advancements and other useful technologies are allowing Flash to go where it has never gone before.

Apple was heavily vested in Flash technology for years; shortly before the release of the iPhone, they ripped it all off their website; I happened to notice this, and was suspicious of the motivation. A few months later, they announced the app store, and the model for development and distribution; then it became clear to me why you would never see Flash on the iPhone.

Apple can’t control content delivered via Flash.

Folks, people say Microsoft is the evil empire, but one thing for sure, they never tried to control the content you see and use on your devices to the extent Apple is currently enforcing. They should call the device the iCensor.

Me, I’m not getting an iPad. If I buy a device of this nature, I want the entire web experience, not some dumbed-down version Apple is foisting off to enforce control and print more mountains of money. A phone, alright…Flash does take CPU cycles and may not be ideal for a phone (though I don’t have enough info to know this for a fact), and dumbed-down versions of Flash for mobile don’t appeal to me. But there is no excuse for the iPad, unless that device is technically just a big iTouch, in which case, imho, it’s a waste of money. I'll buy a device that doesn't tell me "we don't like it so you can't have it".

Watch out Apple, you're creating a real mud-slinging marketing opportunity for Microsoft here. Windows 7 is on the rise and people are fast forgetting Vista.