{"id":34,"date":"2004-09-13T02:18:15","date_gmt":"2004-09-13T10:18:15","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2016-05-25T23:34:40","modified_gmt":"2016-05-26T06:34:40","slug":"sifr2-kick-the-tires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mikeindustries.com\/blog\/archive\/2004\/09\/sifr2-kick-the-tires","title":{"rendered":"sIFR 2.0b: Come Kick the Tires"},"content":{"rendered":"

UPDATE:<\/strong> Version 2.0 is now available. See article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"Without further ado, I present for download sIFR 2.0b<\/a> (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<\/a> does not have a single image<\/em> anywhere on the page or even in the CSS. It’s pure XHTML text. That’s it. <\/p>\n

Now then.<\/p>\n

How about an update on what’s occurred since 1.0.<\/p>\n

Major goings on<\/h3>\n

Perhaps the most interesting thing that’s happened in the last couple of weeks is that according to Daypop<\/a>, the original sIFR article<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

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<\/em> shown up in the comments. The highly esteemed Joe Clark<\/a> is absent, which means one of three things:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Joe is vacationing on a beach and away from a computer.<\/li>\n
  2. Joe is sick of responding to my nonsense.<\/li>\n
  3. sIFR is actually accessible!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    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.
    \n
    \nThe other major development since 1.0 is that     Mark Wubben<\/a> volunteered his masterful javascript skills to rewrite Shaun Inman<\/a> and Tomas Jogin’s<\/a> replacement script as an object-oriented anonymous function, fully compatible with XML Strict documents, even when served as application\/xml. That’s right. Even if you’re one of those XML-as-pagan-worship zealots, you, too, can use sIFR! Mark’s script — described by Tomas as “supermodel beautiful” — is guaranteed not to interfere with any other variables or functions on your pages (hence the anonymity) and won’t break your XML.<\/p>\n

    Instead of manipulating the content between HTML tags using innerHTML, Mark’s replacement function uses XML and the DOM to physically change the nodes of the document on the fly. sIFR now hones in on an element, strips the content, inserts a node with a Flash object in it, feeds the original content into the Flash movie, and then reinjects the original content back in place, wrapped in a span, as accessible, yet hidden, text. It sounds complicated because it is<\/em> complicated. Thankfully, Mark took care of the hard stuff.<\/p>\n

    Notable feature additions<\/h3>\n

    Here are the major additions which made it into sIFR 2.0b:<\/p>\n