There is a severe TextField bug in current Flash Player version 10.3.183.5, causing text to display vertically with each letter on each line in TextField instances where the wordWrap property has been set to true.

This causes a concern for the Flash Platform in general, because this shows that existing code is basically held hostage to future Adobe Flash Player updates that may break past deployed code. I would expect Adobe QA to be more rigorous than this.

This issue can be found in the bugbase, but while marked as fixed, it is not:

https://bugbase.adobe.com/index.cfm?event=bug&id=2941694

Being an inherent player bug that causes problems to past deployed code, this is not something that can be fixed by using “workaround code”.

The problem is severe enough to warrant a quick update to version 10 (or pull 10.3.183.5 from further distribution), but Adobe has chosen to fix it only in version 11 BETA instead. I don’t think this is acceptable.

Here is how you can draw an outline on text glyphs during run-time via ActionScript. This method works with embedded as well as non-embedded fonts.

Continue Reading »

Drawing outlines on text glyphs can help to give the text emphasis, or simply make it more legible or visible. This type of text rendering is commonly seen in video subtitles.

When using the Aspire UI AS3 library, if you need to draw outlines on text glyphs in uiText instances, you can do so by defining the “outline” property when defining your text style(s). This feature works with both embedded as well as non-embedded fonts.

Continue Reading »

If you often embed fonts for use in Flash/Flex and needs to specify “unicodeRange” in the [Embed] meta tag, the following site gives you the unicode tables for the various character glyphs:

Continue Reading »

Here is how to apply embossed (and engraved) text effect during run-time easily using ActionScript. This works only when the TextField instance is using embedded font and its antiAliasType property is set to AntiAliasType.ADVANCED.

Continue Reading »

Yesterday, the Aspire UI library was updated to version 1.2.0. Among other changes, we have also implemented support for faux bold weights for embedded fonts.

Faux bold is “fake” bold. It is an efficient way to display text in the same typeface but with different weights (bolder, thinner, etc.). It can be used as an alternative to the real bold font, or used in combination with the real thing.

Sometimes, the bold version of a font simply doesn’t exist so this is also where faux boldness comes in. Or, you can use this feature to make the typeface thinner (rather than bolder).

Continue Reading »

Sometimes, it is useful to give an empty text input field a textual background. It serves as a “hint” to end-users as to what input is expected from them, or it can also be used in-lieu of input field labels.

A “hint” text is different from a default text value. The “hint” text is displayed only if the text field is empty; it is not displayed while the field has focus or if the field is already populated with any value. The “hint” text is also not reported as the value of the text field.

Continue Reading »

In a previous demo Loading embedded fonts on-demand using the uiFonts manager, the uiFonts manager was shown to load external embedded font SWFs “on-demand”.

The uiFonts manager can work with embedded font SWFs compiled either from the Flash IDE or the Flex compiler.

When compiling using the Flash IDE, we use Font Symbols in the Library (see uiFonts usage notes).

When compiling using the Flex compiler, we use a single AS3 class file. The following shows how the AS3 Class must be written in order for the resulting SWF to work with the uiFonts manager.

Continue Reading »

There is a rather strange issue with the flash.text.TextField class, one related to the delayed updating of the TextField.bottomScrollV and TextField.maxScrollV properties. The TextField.bottomScrollV indicates the bottommost line that is currently visible in the specified text field while the TextField.maxScrollV indicates the maximum vertical scroll position value.

The problem with these two properties is that they do not update immediately at those times when they should -

(i) when a TextField instance is resized such that the vertical scroll bounds change; and

(ii) when the TextField.wordWrap property changes (from false to true or vice versa).

Continue Reading »

In Aspire, text styles are managed via an external CSS file which is loaded and parsed automatically by the framework. This CSS file is by default “text.css” in the theme folder (so you can easily define different text styles that are appropriate for different themes).
Continue Reading »