Displaying bidirectional multiline text from XML file in flash

Question

I have been asked to add support to a xml based website. I have been looking into it and have realised that it is not going to be very straight forward. The text does have english phrases in when describing products being used.

After doing some research I have found that CS3 does not 'support' rtl text. I also read that CS4 has added support, is this worth looking into? I read that it was buggy.

I found FlarabySWF which does what I think I am after, but not for all the languages I need, and only at design time rather than runtime.

I also found Gchats TextBox 3.0.0 but this didn't seem to work.

I also found some solutions using CSS, but these didn't seem to work with multiline text. See this example. It also didn't work as the text I am trying to display is bi-directional ..

Actualy, importing Arabic text is not a problem, but dealing with bidirectional text of Arabic and English within the same line is a big one.

Can anyone offer me any advice on the best way of doing it?

I am developing using Flash CS3 and AS3.

Thanks.

Answer 1

I think you will need to use the new text engine that Flash Player 10 introduced (Flash CS4). I'm not aware of any solutions for previous versions, and I highly doubt there are, specially for dynamic text.

The new text engine is very powerfull, but also very hard to use, so be sure to have a deep look into its implementation before deciding anything... I'll leave you with a few links:

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/textlayout/

http://help.adobe.com/en%5FUS/AS3LCR/Flash%5F10.0/flash/text/engine/package-detail.html

http://www.slideshare.net/MatthewFabb/overview-of-text-layout-framework-presentation

Answer 2

Not really bidirectional if you are aware how TFL works ! Adobe , please be fair and do it right . you can only apply one direction allover the control , but not bidirectional. too bad.