I've been doing some testing with sharded fonts lately because they are a key part of a project I'm working on right now.
So far, here's what I've learned by searching the FlashCoders archive and reading blog posts. Shared fonts are a mess to work with. But, as of Flash Player 6.0.65.0, it's not as bad as it was before because of the new multi-tier runtime shared libraries that were added to that release of the Flash player. Now, two similar but still somewhat different methods for using sharde fonts have evolved around thos new multi-tier shared libraries. Ivan Dembicky (http://www.sharedfonts.com/eng/) came up with a solution that use 2 SWF files per shared font. Bernard Visscher (http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/pipermail/flashcoders/2006-May/166619.html) crafted his own solution that also uses 2 SWF files per shared font based on Ivan's solution. Zarate (http://www.zarate.tv/articulos/shared_fonts/index.php) came up with a solution that use only 1 SWF file per shared font. Erixtekila (http://www.v-i-a.net/blog/archives/000043.html) crafted his own solution that also uses only 1 SWF file per shared font based on Zarate's work. So after testing all 4 solutions that all these bright people came up with, here's the conclusion I've come to. The 1 SWF file per shared font methods are obviously less of a hassle since we only have 1 file instead of 2 per shared font. However, faux bold and faux italic can't be used and you can't select exactly the glyphs you want included and thoses that you do not want included. I think it's possible to select glyphs using Erixtekila's method which uses SWFmill. I don't know if his method makes it possible to use faux bold and faux italic though. The 2 SWF file per shared font methods initially seemed more work for nothing since it uses 2 SWF files instead of one per shared font but that will be the method I will be using from now on for the following reasons (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong): 1- More control over which glyphs are included. 2- Works with faux bold and faux italic. 3- This is the main reason why I'll use the 2 SWF method over the single SWF method... The 2 SWF methods loads a lot faster in the tests I did. With the one SWF method, the SWF is loaded (let's say it's 15kb) and then it seems to reload the 15kb before the shared font becomes available. But in the 2 SWF method, the SWF gets loaded immediately and the 15KB are only loaded once just before the shared font becomes available. Hope this will help others who are having trouble with shared fonts. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ [email protected] To change your subscription options or search the archive: http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders Brought to you by Fig Leaf Software Premier Authorized Adobe Consulting and Training http://www.figleaf.com http://training.figleaf.com
