Text is hard, even with TLF and Flex (I was one of the front end architects at Shutterfly [1]) Making it work with HTML/JS with all the cross-browser issues is even harder. Good luck!
As far as the WYSIWYG text rendering engine, I have seen a couple of real efforts in this front: One approach uses EaselJS with TypeScript and they pretty much wrote the entire front end text engine from scratch. They use InDesign in the backend. There was a presentation by Ted Patrick at the 360Flex conference this year on this exact topic[2] And he says this engine would be open sourced soon [3] The other approach I have seen in the wild is by the Prezi.com team [4] They use Emscripten to compile a text renderer written in C into JavaScript. Given that you use InDesign in your backend, I am not sure if this is a viable option. Coming to the frameworks, you are right, I am biased towards FlexJS. I can see wrapping the JS text engine component and accessing those APIs from the FlexJS app. Should not be too hard. I have not used Dart, but have used AngularJS. One thing to note w.r.t. AngularJS is the upcoming 2.0 version where a lot of the current 1.3 concepts are being thrown out. So, I would advice against starting a new AngularJS 1.3 project at this point. Also, just want to point out that the Flex app I built for Shutterfly worked perfectly fine on an iPad as a cross-compiled native app. If this option is possible, this is the best approach. You will need to rewrite the UI to make it more touch-friendly, but the core rendering engine should remain exactly the same. This is based on first hand experience. If you have the time, cross-compile the app, tweak it and show a demo to the client. Hope this helps. Thanks, Om [1] shutterfly.com/custompath/start.sfly [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlkCXUToFUg [3] https://github.com/CreateJS/EaselJS/issues/456 [4] https://medium.com/prezi-engineering/how-and-why-prezi-turned-to-javascript-56e0ca57d135 On Sun, Nov 2, 2014 at 2:51 AM, Harbs <harbs.li...@gmail.com> wrote: > A bit of background: > Our Flash/Flex based web app at printui.com is pretty much feature > complete. The last major features on my list to implement was table support > and page editing support which is more or less done. The next “big project” > is getting support for non-Flash platforms. While it’s very tempting to > port the app to AIR, our average client needs a web app rather than a > native one. > > So, in the coming months, I’m looking to start work on porting the app to > HTML. We already have basic HTML functionality implemented using > Angular.js, but it’s a simple forms-based approach. We’re looking to do a > full WYSIWYG HTML app. I need to decide on what framework we’re going to > use. Angular has its advantages, but I’m not looking forward to doing a > complex app in pure JS and Angular. > > The three options I’m considering is: > 1) Angular and JS. > 2) Dart (possibly with AngularDart). > 3) FlexJS. > > I know we’re all a bit biased here towards Flex, but I’m trying to come to > a *somewhat* rational decision. > > No matter what approach I take, WYSIWYG text will be a problem. Unless > there’s others that are willing to work on an open-source Javascript text > engine, I’m going to have to use one work-around or another (or bite the > bullet and fund the development of an internal engine). > > I’m primarily trying to weigh Dart against FlexJS. > > Advantages of Dart: > 1) More mature. (already past beta) > 2) Less cross-compiling of components (deals with HTML more directly). > 3) Bigger community (I think?) > > Advantages of FlexJS > 1) ActionScript — I’m familiar with the ins and outs of the language. Dart > has some peculiarities such as being script about booleans and the like. > 2) Building components in Flex is simpler than in Angular. > 3) I can help shape the FlexJS development. > > What are thoughts? Is FlexJS ready enough to be tried in a major web app > or is it too premature? Has anyone tried weighing FlexJS against > DartAngular? Any suggestions on how to get my feet wet with FlexJS to > become more comfortable with the process? > > Harbs
