sIFR 2.0: Release Candidate

UPDATE: Version 2.0 is now available. See article here.

Alright, we have a solid release candidate! This evening, I present sIFR 2.0 Release Candidate 1, and unless any major problems are found, this will end up being the exact code in the final release. I want to thank everyone who has put sIFR through its paces and helped Mark and me squash bugs and add feature enhancements. It wasn’t until I released sIFR that I fully realized the power of open source. What may have taken months to develop otherwise, instead took only weeks… and only evenings at that. I know I still have to create the official sIFR primer and idiotproof instructions, so I’ll be doing that over the next week or so and monitoring this comment thread for any issues which may arise. The download is here and the updated example is here.

And since David Guillory asked, it is indeed pronounced “siffer”. Spread the word to the homies.

What’s new in this release

Here are some details about sIFR 2.0 RC1:

• This release was mostly for fine-tuning. The concentration was on stability and reliability.
• Proper uppercasing is now supported and it won’t mistakenly uppercase your URLs in the process. Please note that “upper” or “lower” are now passed in as the last parameter of the function to induce uppercasing or lowercasing. This is the only change which may affect existing implementations.
• Various DOM and speed improvements.
• More consistent font sizing.
• Support for common usually-escaped characters like “, ‘, &, and %.
• Automatic whitespace-stripping, following the same conventions as HTML.
• Complete IE 5 Mac compatibility.

Quick Instructions

The usage instructions are identical to the previous betas with the exception of the upper/lowercasing change mentioned above. Here is what to do:

1. Download 2.0 Release Candidate. sIFR is licensed free of charge under the standard CC-GNU LGPL.
2. Get familiar with index.html. That’s really the only file which contains the things you’ll need to adapt. It contains the replace statements at the bottom and the CSS at the top.
3. To make your own .swf files, simply open up the .fla file in Flash, doubleclick the textbox which is on stage (it takes up the whole stage), and choose your own font from the Properties palette. Then, choose File > Export and you’re done!
4. The parameters to use in your replacement functions are explained in the html file. Plug in your parameters and you’re good to go!

Additional Notes

You won’t have to replace any of your existing replace statements (from beta 2) unless they are affected by the upper/lowercasing change mentioned above. You need only replace your .js file and your .swf files. You may notice a slight font sizing difference between the last beta and this release. This release’s sizing is more correct and consistent so please roll with the new.

There are only two significant issues I know of which remain unsolved:

1. Possible weirdness in certain versions of Opera.
2. Certain typefaces, especially script fonts, may contain characters with non-conventional metrics which can cause clipping of letters in some cases. An example is a handwriting font (like Cezanne, for instance) where the crossbar on the “t” extends far beyond the width of the T. Sort of like if you were signing your name and you dragged the tail end of the last letter back over the word. The problem with this sort of font is that Flash is unaware of the stray strokes. The only solution to this, moving forward, is for users to manual adjust the left and right margins in the Formatting palette in Flash if necessary. I don’t consider this necessarily “solving” the issue, but if you find yourself in this predicament with an ornate script font, give it a try.

sIFR 2.0b2: The Mo’ Betta Beta

UPDATE: Version 2.0 is now available. See article here.

Another week, another round of improvements to sIFR. I think we’re 95% of the way to an official release now. Here are the improvements in the latest beta:

• Syntax now 100% compatible with XHTML Strict, even when served as application/xml
• Optional conversion to uppercase or lowercase now supported
• Optional link underlining on hover
• Bolding and italicizing of TrueType fonts now supported
• Automatic removal of extra white space in HTML
• Full support for Safari, Firefox, Mozilla, Mac IE, and PC IE
• Improved support for Opera
• Better international character support
• Ability to use quotes, ampersands, and other normally escaped characters
• Various speed improvements and bug fixes

For people who have already implemented sIFR, you don’t need to redo any of your CSS. Simply pop the new JS file into place, re-export your SWFs, and you should be good to go. Please make sure you have the updated .as files in the same folder as your .fla when you re-export.

There was only one minor change to implementation you should be aware of: The replacement calls must now go either at the end of your HTML document or at the end of the JS file. This only affects people who may have embedded the replacement calls in the middle of the JS file previously.

Alright, here’s the sIFR 2.0b2 download. Bang away.

sIFR 2.0b: Come Kick the Tires

UPDATE: Version 2.0 is now available. See article here.

Without further ado, I present for download sIFR 2.0b (or Scalable Inman Flash Replacement Two Point Oh Beta). Before I get into the details, I just wanted to post the link first, and also, an example of sIFR 2.0b in action. Note that this new example does not have a single image anywhere on the page or even in the CSS. It’s pure XHTML text. That’s it.

Now then.

How about an update on what’s occurred since 1.0.

Major goings on

Perhaps the most interesting thing that’s happened in the last couple of weeks is that according to Daypop, the original sIFR article was the 13th most popular page in the entire world (well, blogosphere at least) for a short period last week. That’s pretty cool, damnit. As blogging spreads from the techies to the general public over the next several years, reaching the top 20 is going to get harder and harder, so I reckon that’s probably it for me. Might as well retire now.

Besides the nice linkage, I received posts or e-mails from people in over 20 countries. Most posts or e-mails were feature requests, improvements, or written expressions of glee. Besides all the nice e-mails, it’s interesting to note who hasn’t shown up in the comments. The highly esteemed Joe Clark is absent, which means one of three things:

1. Joe is vacationing on a beach and away from a computer.
2. Joe is sick of responding to my nonsense.
3. sIFR is actually accessible!

So now that I’ve shot the big accessibility flaregun into the air, we’ll see what happens. Great accessibility improvements have already been made, but I don’t claim to be a master at testing screenreaders, so if you have insight, please post it.
Read more…

sIFR 2.0 Beta Coming This Weekend

UPDATE: Version 2.0 is now available. See article here.

I didn’t want to go the whole week without giving a quick update on the latest builds of sIFR. I’ll be releasing version 2.0b on Sunday and features to look forward to include:

• A completely rewritten set of javascript/DOM methods which are now object-oriented and fully compatible with XML Strict documents (even when served as application/xml!), courtesy of The Netherlands’ Mark Wubben, brewer of fine javascript. Much more on this to come.
• Support for hover colors, multiple links, manual position adjustments, text-centering, and more.
• New, smaller .swfs resulting from the use of character subsets. About half the filesize of version 1.1.4. Along with this font subsetting comes support for international character sets as well.
• Quicker text rendering.
• Domain-securing of your .swf font files.

With contributions coming now from Seattle, Baltimore, Sweden, The Netherlands, and other corners of the world, the task of getting all of components distilled down to a single mechanism is not trivial. The 2.0b release this weekend will still be a “developer’s release” per se and might not quite be idiotproof yet, but it will contain the same full feature set as the release version.

sIFR Update: More Enhancements on the Way

UPDATE: Version 2.0 is now available. See article here.

Three days and tens of thousands of hits later, sIFR has so far held its own as a solid, compatible way to replace browser text with custom typography. I’ve released a few new updates in response to minor glitches reported, but more importantly, a solid release is only days away. In the meantime, please feel to download version 1.1.4 which simply refines the replacement function a bit so that it should work on very complicated replacement rules and such. I’ve also updated the example page.

Here are some of the issues which I plan to address in version 1.2 (to be released hopefully in the next few days):

1. Simple instructions your mom can follow. This thing can really be implemented across an entire site in under ten minutes if the instructions are clear enough.
2. Support for international character sets. This is an issue I haven’t solved yet because I’m a snooty uncultured American whose foreign language acumen is largely limited to profanities.
3. A more rock-solid replacement function that is perhaps even quicker than the current one.
4. A built-in adjustment for Flash’s tendency to position text a tiny percentage away from its textbox origin.
5. Ability to include a reduced character set, for extra bandwidth savings. Most people probably only need standard letters, numbers, and punctuation, so by eliminating all of the characters you’d never use (like a degree symbol maybe), the .swf filesize can be reduced by, in some cases, 50%. This will involve having an actual textbox on stage in the .fla instead of dynamically creating one. Not as pure as I’d like, but I don’t think there is a way to selectively embed character subsets using pure Actionscript.
6. An adjustment for the box-model problem in IE 5.x (PC) whereby offsetHeight and offsetWidth are reported slightly differently if padding is included in the element.
7. A change to the display method of the hidden browser text so that it is even more accessible.
8. Lockability of .swf files by domain. This will prevent others from using your font .swf file.

I’m probably missing some stuff, but those are the biggies. I want to again thank everyone who has taken the time to put this thing through its paces over the last few days. sIFR is nice in that it is portable enough to pop into your site fairly quickly, and pop out of your site even quicker. The nice side-effect of this is that when I release updates, they should be fairly easy to apply. The upcoming 1.2 release will have its own dedicated page with release notes, but I’m a designer so don’t expect a full-on SourceForge repository or anything.

Please feel free to comment on any of the items above… especially if you have solutions to suggest or additional features to request.