
Beginning ActionScript 2.0 2006
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18
Handling Text
The TextField is the class used to display text in Flash. Text fields can be drawn onto the stage with the Tools panel’s Text tool. Text fields can be created with ActionScript using a robust property and method set at runtime. Each version of Flash makes improvements over the last and text fields always get some type of enhancement. Flash is continually being adopted for rich network applications, where different kinds of data need to be displayed in different ways with different text formatting.
Text, of course, is a complex subject, with terms like ASCII, ANSI, Unicode, escape characters, HTML code, kerning, smoothing, leading, style, and more. This chapter covers the basics of working with text.
Thankfully, Flash 8 clears up many issues and bugs associated with text in Flash. The capability to cache text as bitmaps allows a new level of text animation and integration within your user interface.
The most notable addition to the Flash 8 text features is FlashType, known to most by its preview name: Saffron. FlashType is a text-rendering engine that produces extremely smooth, clear, and readable text. New features in Flash 8 allow precise control over how and when text attributes are modified.
Three types of text fields exist: static, dynamic, and input. The input text field can also be used as a password input text field, which displays only asterisks as the user types. For each type, you have the choice of using default system fonts that exist on each of the end users’ computers or of using fonts that you embed within the Flash movie.
In this chapter, you learn how to create text fields on-the-fly and how to manipulate text attributes such as font, size, color, word-wrapping, and font embedding. You learn about how to apply rich text formatting, to include HTML in a text field, and to extend the capability to apply text formatting through the use of style sheets. Finally, you explore different techniques for creating scrollable regions of text.



