Anirudh Sasikumar of the Adobe Flex Evangelism team created an amazing app called "Readefine" that demonstrates the power of the Text Layout Framework. Readefine imports any HTML, RSS feed, or plain text data and displays it as organized multi-column TLF text adjusted for readability.
URL here: http://readefine.anirudhsasikumar.net
Be sure to check it out. Great work, Anirudh!
Introduction
The goal of this post is to give some information on TLF Markup. There is no DTD or other schema available at this time.
TLF Markup is converted to and from TextFlows using the TextConverter class. See the examples.
The attributes for TLF Markup are best documented on the TextLayoutFormat class page bundled with the Flex 4 documentation. Get the documentation appropriate to the build you downloaded gumbo from here. Select the download from the "Language Reference Download" column.
Elements
The elements in TLF markup are all in the flashx.textLayout.elements package. This table maps elements to TLF classes and lists their allowed children.
| XML Tag | AS3 Class | Allowed Children Elements/Notes |
|---|---|---|
| TextFlow | TextFlow | div, p, tcy, a, img, span, br, tab, format, linkNormalFormat, linkHoverFormat, linkActiveFormat, and raw text |
| div | DivElement | div, p, tcy, a, img, span, br, tab, linkNormalFormat, linkHoverFormat, linkActiveFormat, and raw text |
| p | ParagraphElement | tcy, a, img, span, br, tab, linkNormalFormat, linkHoverFormat, linkActiveFormat, and raw text |
| a | LinkElement | tcy, img, span, br, tab, linkNormalFormat, linkHoverFormat, linkActiveFormat, and raw text |
| linkNormalFormat | TextLayoutFormat | attributes overrides for link in normal state. |
| linkActiveFormat | TextLayoutFormat | attributes overrides for link in active state. |
| linkHoverFormat | TextLayoutFormat | attributes overrides for link in hover state. |
| tcy | TCYElement | a, img, span, br, tab, linkNormalFormat, linkHoverFormat, linkActiveFormat, and raw text |
| img | InlineGraphicElement | none allowed. see docs for additional attributes |
| span | SpanElement | br, tab and raw text |
| br | BreakElement | none allowed. Is normalized into a newline character by importer. |
| tab | TabElement | none allowed. Is normalized into a tab character by importer. |
| format | TextLayoutFormat | none allowed. See additional note. |
<TextFlow xmlns="http://ns.adobe.com/textLayout/2008">
<format id="english" fontFamily="Minion Pro"/>
<p><span>This is supposed to use the default font</span></p>
<p><span format="english">This is supposed to be in Minion Pro via a named format</span></p>
<p><span fontFamily="Minion Pro">This is supposed to be in Minion Pro via a fontFamily attribute</span></p>
</TextFlow>
NOTE: The attribute id in the format element is going to be changed to name. Check the ReleaseNotes posted with each TLF build.
Today we're making the announcement that the Text Layout Framework is being released as open source technology. We're very excited about opening our hard work to the world and can't wait to see your feedback and contributions!
We're releasing the source code and accepting new code as part of the Flex bugbase with a specific TLF tag. More information on the Flex bugbase and contributing to TLF can be found on our new open source web page at: http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/tlf/Text+Layout+Framework
Find out more on the announcement from the following sources:
Tom Barclay wrote on the Flash Platform blog about TLF and Open Source Media Framework announcement, including highlighting some of the excellent technology already powered by TLF:
http://blogs.adobe.com/flashplatform/
Dave McAllister describes the Open@Adobe strategy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNzrn8-JFSE
Adobe just released a preview of Acrobat.com Presentations, a new online service that lets people easily create and collaborate on presentations. The Text Layout Framework is used for all the text objects in the slides. Here is what Norman Stratton of the Presentations team had to say about his experience with TLF:
Be sure to check out the preview on Adobe Labs: http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/presentations
Be sure to check out today's release of the AIR-based New York Times Reader:
http://www.nytimes.com/timesreader
The NYT Reader was built using Adobe AIR and the Text Layout Framework. It is one of the most innovative uses of TLF we have seen and we're proud to have it as the largest showcase of TLF and text in Flash Player 10 to date! It is an excellent demonstration of TLF's reflowing text, multiple columns/containers, and top notch typography features.
Want a peek inside the development of the Reader application? Check out issue #4 of Adobe XD's Inspire publication: http://xd.adobe.com/
