| There are a number of features dealing specifically with text. For instance, Flash now includes a spell checker. Another new feature allows you to use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to format text: the TextField.StyleSheet object in ActionScript. It's just a small subset of the full CSS that you can use with HTML tools such as Dreamweaver, but you can set all the common text attributes such as color , size , font, style (normal, italic, oblique ), and weight (normal, bold, lighter). Flash CSS also supports a few other standard HTML tricks like making the font of a hypertext link change when the mouse pointer is over it. The CSS feature enables you to maintain a level of consistency between Flash and HTML files. It allows you to create one stylesheet and apply it in both environments. In Flash Player 7 and later, you can also include images (JPEGs, SWFs, or movie clips, but not GIFs) as part of a text block.  For more on including images in text, see "Text Formatting Options," page 372 , in Chapter 17, "Working with Text."
The new Alias Text button allows you to force aliasing (or disable anti-aliasing, depending on how you want to look at it). Anti-aliasing smoothes the edges of letters , so that they don't appear jagged. However, anti-aliasing can blur smaller fonts. The Alias Text feature can prevent this blurring. For more on the Alias Text button, see "Turning Anti-Aliasing Off," page 370 , in Chapter 17.
The new Strings panel facilitates publishing Flash content in multiple languages. You can set things up so that whenever you save, test, or publish your application, Flash creates folders with external XML files for each specified language. Translators can either work in the Strings panel in the Flash authoring environment, or use an XML editor directly on the XML files. |
