sIFR: Smart Flash typography
I’m way behind the curve on this, mostly because I can be somewhat cantankerous when it comes to Flash. But Scalable Inman Flash Replacement is really clever. Here’s the breakdown of how it works, nicked from the sIFR home page:
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A normal (X)HTML page is loaded into the browser.
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A javascript function is run which first checks that Flash is installed and then looks for whatever tags, ids, or classes you designate.
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If Flash isn’t installed (or obviously if javascript is turned off), the (X)HTML page displays as normal and nothing further occurs. If Flash is installed, javascript traverses through the source of your page measuring each element you’ve designated as something you’d like “sIFRed”.
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Once measured, the script creates Flash movies of the same dimensions and overlays them on top of the original elements, pumping the original browser text in as a Flash variable.
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Actionscript inside of each Flash file then draws that text in your chosen typeface at a 6 point size and scales it up until it fits snugly inside the Flash movie.