sIFR
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- BaskerviIle
Anyone used sIFR (scalable inman flash replacement) on a site.
I've got it all working but the replaced text doesn't look perfect.Just wondering if there's any other issues anyone has encountered with it or major problems. I've seen some quite big corporate sites starting to use it now.
- ornj0
it just takes a lot of tweaking to get close to perfect. I'm not the biggest fan, it's a lot heavier than I think is some times necessary.
Don't use it more than once or twice per page.
- burnt0
Yes we have used it quite a bit on various sites. It works very well but currently there are limitations. I think using on navs etc has problems for things like roll overs. Links are also tricky I think...well thats what my coders say.
Do you need it to do anything specific?
- mimeartist0
http://blog.pixelbreaker.com uses it I think...
Looks good there... but not a fan myself
- BaskerviIle0
I'm just going to use it for some headings, only 2 or 3 on a page and they won't be links or anything.
what kind of tweaking needs to be done to make the type display perfectly smoothly, at the moment it's a tiny bit rough (though not that noticable)
- blaw0
it doesn't make sense that the text would be rough, as it's just a rendered .SWF.
you might want to check your export settings in flash.
- madirish0
just as a note; it is "shaun"
inman flash replacement.things to tweak/check:
- pixel-placement w/in .fla of typesetting. make sure the text field is not on a fractional pixel .
- that you have published both a PC/OS X version of the .swf
- that said .swf is published usingthe correct type file-type
- that you are not placing using complex or dynamic div's (just gets messy)
http://www.shauninman.com/ is the source and it is used extensively there.good luck.
- BaskerviIle0
as another note, I know shaun inman developed it but it is generally known as scalable to differentiate from earlier versions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIF…
they've used sifr on this site:
http://www.barbican.org.uk/see the 'welcome to the barbican' text, it's a tad blurry. Or am I being picky?
it works well in all other respects, thanks for the flash tips.
- madirish0
hmmmm.... i would say you are not being picky- that typesetting should be crisp and clear. to go a step further, i will say i see very few sites that push a bunch of text through flash that do not do it very well. poorly rendered, etc. don't know what the trick is, but i do notice this.
i will say that the 'best' examples of the typesetting in Flash being clear and crisp is when a light-stroked face is used. heavy/bbold weights don't tent to render as clean, IMO.
- BaskerviIle0
yeah, I've noticed that too. Oh well, it's still new and apparently sIFR 3.0 will handle the rendering a lot smoother. Thanks for the help.
Still beats verdana for what I'm doing anyway!
- johndiggity0
i think it has to do with text set in illustrator then exported into flash. like you mentioned, illustrator allows fractions of pixels and that's what's throwing it out of whack. try setting the text in flash or using fireworks or photoshop.
- StratusGD0
johndiggity-
sIFR is dynamic text replacement - it's not about importing text from Illustrator or anything like that - it using Flash and JS to replace HTML text in your file with a SWF with an embedded font.
With that out of the way... are you sure the text box in the FLA isn't shifted to a partial pixel? How about increasing the text size by .5 px or 1 px?
And, MadIrish, what was that you were talking about with making both an OS X and PC version of the swf? A SWF is a SWF, why should it matter?
- BaskerviIle0
when you download the siFR kit it includes a flash file with all the relevant chatacters etc. You just change the typeface to what you want to use. So I haven't altered any flash settings, but I'll look into the whole partial pixel thing, thanks.
- madirish0
right on dude. couple of things:
- i think jdiggity was referring to the common practice many have of typesetting everything in Illy, then bringing that into Flash, then producing the .sfw. not ideal when it is going to be in flash anyway, but illy allows for clarly more flexibility w/ typesetting than flash does.
- regarding the OS X/PC versioning thing; i had a friend who would use sIRF quite a bit, and would do this by having 2 different .swf's, depending on what browser/platform user would be using. he would sniff for the platform combo, then deliver the 'appropriate' .swf so the user would be seeing the file type that displayed 'best/most natively' for them. might have been overkill, but he sweared by it. so then, PC people would be served the .swf using PS1 type, and OS X people would be served the .swf using the .OTF/.TTF type.
again, might be overkill, but with Flash'd tendency to want to over hint type, it seemed like a good idea to me. just 2 cents...
- StratusGD0
I'd be curious to look at the two side-by-side and see if there was a difference, because I have seen some OT fonts display pretty different anti-aliasing behavior than their PS1 twins (Futura BT comes to mind) - I always assumed it was a setting somewhere).
- kerus0
imo its not worth the hassle anymore esp with browser plugin incompatibility issues
- Nairn0
esp with browser plugin incompatibility issues
kerus
(Oct 9 07, 07:05)I'm curious - what do you mean? (I know it's a bugger in legacy IE versions..)
- BaskerviIle0
yes kerus what do you mean. Works well in the majority of browsers and if it doesn't then it downgrades to your standard css, so I don't see any issues there.
- Dancer0
Why not just use images and use a CSS image replacement method?
Just curious at the actual advantages of this technique
- BaskerviIle0
the text will be generated dynamically so I can't be making lots of jpegs etc.
- Nairn0
I'm not sure what you mean by a CSS image replacement technique, but with sIFR, it's a one-time deal, Dancer. You don't need to generate new graphics, you can include as much or as little of the character set as you like, you can have colour-change rollovers, it degrades to CSS where unavailable and provides a very clean result.
If you used it heavily, it would probably lead to smaller file sizes, though it can be a bit clunky and the text isn't selectable (at least, mine isn't).