November 2008 Archives

The first tidbit of information I would like to share with you is how to use DefineFont4 to selectively embed glyphs from a font for use in Text Layout Framework, also knowing as font subsetting. While subsetting is not new to Flash via DefineFont3, it is limited to little more than embedding the outlines of glyphs. With DefineFont4, you are able to embed a complete portion of an OpenType font, including the tables (horizontal/vertical metrics, ligatures, kerning, GSUB, GPOS, etc...) that TLF has excellent support for. This is absolutely essential for fully supporting many complex scripts. Although currently you are required to use Flex Gumbo to get access to DefineFont4, I will show you how to use it no matter what type of Flash project you are working on by creating a font SWF. This is valuable knowledge for taking full advantage of TLF without burdening your users with the weight of embedding an entire font. It is especially important when including text from a font such as Adobe Song Std. Weighing in at a hefty 14.8MB it would be ridiculous to embed the entire font, but this should not stop you from taking advantage of all the new features in TLF.

A big thanks to everyone who has already downloaded and started leaving feedback on our Adobe Labs Beta Release! It's exciting to hear all of your feedback. We intend to use this blog to keep you up to date on the latest news on the TLF project, respond to common concerns and questions from our users and (as I'll very soon be doing) provide technical examples, explanations, tips, and tricks for using TLF.

Another special thanks to all who took the time to post about our release:

• Typblography, the Phinney-us Blogg - Flash/AIR Text Layout Framework public beta
• Emmy Huang - Text Layout Framework beta available on Adobe Labs
• Peter deHaan - Text Layout Framework beta live on Adobe Labs
• Publicious - TLF, my new BFF
• Flashthusiast - Want to layout your text better? You can download the beta Text Layout Framework / component (use with Flash CS4 now)
• Joshua Almirun - FLASHX.TEXTLAYOUT
• Papirfly Blog - future of flash typography
• www.video-flash.de - Beta: Neues Text Layout Framework für Flash Player 10
• Rest Term - Flash Text Layout Framework
• Create or Die - Adobe veröffentlicht Text Layout Framework beta
• web technologist - Text Layout Framework
• Akihiro Kamijo - Flash テキストレイアウトフレームワーク （Text Layout Framework） ベータ版の公開
• Apukeittiö.fi - Text Layout Framework Adobe Labsista
• yxqn - Flash CS4 Text Layout Framework
• kiko's memo - Text Layout Framework
• Jinni's Blog - Adobe发布Flash文字布局框架
• Flasher - Adobe® Flash® Player 10 Text Layout Framework
• Adobe AIR Team Blog - New Text and Layout Framework for Adobe AIR
• HTML.it - Text Layout Framework
• seo egyptويب ماستر العرب - Text Layout Frameworkبرنامج النصوص من ادوبي
• RIAトピックス - (Text Layout Framework)ベータ版の公開
• ENETLIVE.NET - Text Layout Framework
• SCRATCHBRAIN.BLOG - Flash Player 10 縦書き（xmlデータでテキストレイアウト）
• Allmas - Text Layout Framework released on Adobe Labs

My apologies if I missed your post!

Go see our Adobe Labs beta release here

Robin Briggs has a session on the Text Layout Framework tomorrow morning at MAX 2008 North America.

Using the Text Component Library for Flash Player

Learn how to use the Text Component Library built on the new text engine in Flash Player 10 (now in public beta on Adobe Labs) to expand your text layout options. The session will cover new capabilities for text in Flash Player and go through examples of how you can get started using right-to-left text, columns, inline images, and all of the new typographic features that are available. You will learn the XML markup format to dynamically read in styled text for your rich Internet applications.

The "now in public beta on Adobe Labs" was a bit premature, but only by a couple of days. I'll post here as soon as our Labs page goes live.

This is a blurb copied from our imminent Adobe Labs release:

The Text Layout Framework is an extensible library, built on the new text engine in Adobe Flash Player 10, which delivers advanced, easy-to-integrate typographic and text layout features for rich, sophisticated and innovative typography on the web.