sIFR 2.0 Beta Coming This Weekend

September 9th, 2004

UPDATE: Version 2.0 is now available. See article here.

I didn’t want to go the whole week without giving a quick update on the latest builds of sIFR. I’ll be releasing version 2.0b on Sunday and features to look forward to include:

  • A completely rewritten set of javascript/DOM methods which are now object-oriented and fully compatible with XML Strict documents (even when served as application/xml!), courtesy of The Netherlands’ Mark Wubben, brewer of fine javascript. Much more on this to come.
  • Support for hover colors, multiple links, manual position adjustments, text-centering, and more.
  • New, smaller .swfs resulting from the use of character subsets. About half the filesize of version 1.1.4. Along with this font subsetting comes support for international character sets as well.
  • Quicker text rendering.
  • Domain-securing of your .swf font files.

With contributions coming now from Seattle, Baltimore, Sweden, The Netherlands, and other corners of the world, the task of getting all of components distilled down to a single mechanism is not trivial. The 2.0b release this weekend will still be a “developer’s release” per se and might not quite be idiotproof yet, but it will contain the same full feature set as the release version.

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18 Responses:

  1. Gabriel Mihalache says:

    You guys should have your own U.N. comission: The UN High Comission for Usability, Design and Typography :-)

    #1 - September 10th, 2004 at 1:03 am
  2. Olly Hodgson says:

    manual position adjustments

    Does this mean i’ll be able to set margins and things? ROCK ON!!!

    #2 - September 10th, 2004 at 1:27 am
  3. Mark Wubben says:

    Mike, care to publish the beta? ;-)

    #3 - September 10th, 2004 at 2:00 am
  4. Olly Hodgson says:

    Does this mean i’ll be able to set margins and things? ROCK ON!!!

    On the other hand, I might have just figured this out anyway (just style .h1-replaced etc). Now, about those instructions my mum could understand ;-)

    #4 - September 10th, 2004 at 4:23 am
  5. Krzysztof says:

    Just gorgeous!

    #5 - September 10th, 2004 at 4:34 am
  6. Igor says:

    Would you marry me Mike?

    #6 - September 10th, 2004 at 5:10 am
  7. Jonathan Broome says:

    The 2.0b release this weekend will still be a “developer’s release” per se and might not quite be idiotproof yet…

    I plan to be testing it. As an proven idiot, I’ll let you know how it goes. :)

    #7 - September 10th, 2004 at 6:04 am
  8. Jeff Croft says:

    Mike-

    I can’t wait! I’ve using sFIR in a client’s site I’m working on, so I’ll give it a good test!

    #8 - September 10th, 2004 at 6:56 am
  9. Olly says:

    I’m struggling with Firefox and sIFR 1.1.4 :-(

    Are Mozilla based browsers particularly pedantic about paths to flash files and things? I’m testing out sIFR on a site here and its working fine in IE5.5, 6 and Opera 7. However, its not working in Mozilla or Firefox – its just drawing out a white (or whatever the bgcolor is) box.

    AFAICT the sIFR.js script is working fine, and according to the DOM inspector, the path to the swf is correct (images/flash/sIFR.swf), but the movie just isn’t loading (I right-click on it and get “movie not loaded” in greyed out text).

    Anybody have any ideas?

    #9 - September 10th, 2004 at 8:05 am
  10. Sean Sperte says:

    Yes! I look forward to the idiotproof release.

    #10 - September 10th, 2004 at 8:41 am
  11. Dan Mall says:

    This is the first time I’m posting here, but I’ve been consistently reading your posts. Between you and Inman, I couldn’t wait to see what you came out with next.

    And now version 2.0? I’m psyched. Thanks for all of your hard work. What else do you guys have up your sleeves?

    #11 - September 10th, 2004 at 8:59 am
  12. Jim says:

    Thanks for all the work you’re doing to help make the web a better place. It is truely wonderful!

    #12 - September 10th, 2004 at 10:10 am
  13. Jon Hicks says:

    I feel like I can go back to my beloved font catalogues and start dreaming again! Roll on Sunday…

    #13 - September 10th, 2004 at 12:52 pm
  14. Aaron Coffey says:

    I was just amazed by the demo page for this, and waited excitedly as the zip file downloaded…only to find when unzipped, the files were all blank. Anyone know what could be going wrong?

    #14 - September 11th, 2004 at 2:32 pm
  15. Marc Broad says:

    The anticipation builds… I think i have checked the site about 30 times this morning already…

    #15 - September 12th, 2004 at 6:20 pm
  16. Andrei Herasimchuk says:

    One quick bug for the bug pool in case no one else has mentioned it. If you add an “id” attribute to sIFR replaced elements, that “id” aattribute is lost when the new DOM is written. See: http://www.designbyfire.com/000153.html. Or any of my music entries for examples.

    Just an FYI.

    #16 - September 12th, 2004 at 7:26 pm
  17. Absalom Media says:

    I wait with baited breath for the 1.2 release..

    #17 - September 12th, 2004 at 10:22 pm
  18. Mike D. says:

    I am closing this thread because sIFR 2.0 is now out. Read about it and download the new files here.

    #18 - September 21st, 2004 at 11:46 am
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