Can we wrap text around an image?

[cotuitKayaker]

Has anyone looked into the possibility of text wrap around an image. I'm not talking an image embedded in a line of text, but an image in a paragraph (or column) that wraps text dynamically around text. I would be very interested to hear from anyone who has experimented with this.

thanks for your interest!

[sholoi]

Around wrapping is not possible in TLF now and also flex team seems to have no further planning.
You may can use Linked Containers to wrap around texts~

[alitanucer]

I think this is something needs to be addressed in the begining. To me without this feature Text Layout Framework is in alpha stage. Unless there is a smarter way of controlling linked containers and create the same effect without killing yourself.
How come a simple HTML editor can do this and Text Layout Framework with all of those functions can not able to do it. Even simple HTML enabled Flash textbox can do it.
This is one of the most essential layout functions that all of the CMS applications are relying on. Simple text image layout interaction is a must, and the current stage of inline image implementation is not done at all in my opinion.

[Guest]

I totally accept your opinion. TLF is the "most advanced" text engine on the market, but It does not have the wrapping funcionality which is a basic thing I think.

I am looking forward to text wrapping in TLF.

[drumaddict71]

Could'nt agree more with you.

[robin_briggs]

2.0 is available pre-release, as part of our Open Source on Source Forge. We are still working on fleshing out our Open Source offering, but you can get the code using Subversion to checkout. See http://sourceforge.net/adobe/tlf/home/. Sorry, but we don't have dates yet for when it will be available in release form. However, although it is certainly neither bug free nor complete, I think it is fairly stable, and both floats and lists are useable.

- robin

[thx1138]

To say I'm excited is an understatement!

THANK YOU!!!

[daslicht]

Hello Robin,

from me a THANK YOU as well

[cotuitKayaker]

Update: I recently created a component, based on TLF, that wraps text around an image. Before anyone gets too excited, it is based on an array of textFlows in a canvas that relies on an algorithm that calculates the absolute positioning of those textFlows based on the location of (n) images dropped onto that canvas, and the height of the textFlow containers. I works, but is obviously processor intensive and bloated. I believe that this experimental component provides some insight of what should be possible and available in future releases of the TLF.

[sholoi]

Yep~ Using seperate TextFlow's around a image is much more overhead~
I've doing same thing with linked containers~ it's seems more promissing but experimental too.

[thx1138]

I've heard of a company or individual that created a text are that supports image wrapping but I can't find it. It was announced at the same time the TLF was open sourced. Anyone hear about this?

[Guest]

If you were just wanting to wrap text around square images, I think you could potentially achieve what you desire by overriding parcel creation in the container controller or composer to exclude areas where images reside.  Think about the image as a column that doesn't get text put into it.  To do so would require a little bit deeper understanding of how composition works in TLF, but I think that it would be very possible to pull that off.

Brent

[thx1138]

@Brent - How much trouble would it be to post a rough example?

[thx1138]

I found an example here http://www.insideria.com/2009/03/flash-text-engine.html

Anyone care to put this into a component?

[Benjamin Porter]

We have text wrapping around images and arbitrary shapes implemented using the multiple containers method. It is fairly fast (~20 ms) for n wrapped objects and 1000 characters of text so long as all of the text is the same font and font size. Which allows users to drag the text or the wrapped objects around the screen and watch the text reflow in real time. The issue with text wrapping we are running into is determining what will flow into the containers if the the font type or size varies throughout the text block. I do not know of anyway of pre determining which section of text will fit or what has already flowed into prior containers without calling updateAllControllers on the flow composer. This method is extremely slow. Supporting accurate text wrapping for multiple formats drops the performance by a factor of 15 in the best case at which point it is no longer real time. It would be nice to have an updateControllersFrom method or a way to just reflow the text to a specific container.

We are also having issues with determining how tall a container needs to be to flow known line height. If I precompute the needed line height by looking a flowed line of text and asking for that TextFlowLine's height it would be my assumption that is how tall the container would need to be to flow that line of text. That is not the case. The container will never flow that text unless it is some factor larger usually around 1.5x the lline height. This appears to be somewhat arbitrary. Is there a rule for the height of the container needed to flow a specified line of text with a known height?

[rdermer]

It's not really the sum of the lineHeights.  Also need to take into account padding, paragraph spacing and the positioning of the first line of the text.

I don't know of a way to precompute the height of the content either.  Best, of course, is going to be a composer that just does floats.

Richard

[daslicht]

Any news in this field ? Is there now a 'easy' way to wrap text around images and make them clickable?

[bvl]

TLF 2.0 will support floats (=text wrap around images)

[daslicht]

Sounds great,

any insights when we can try it ? beta ?  alpha ?

I need to find a solution up to max end this year, would be nice to know how much time I should spend in frickeling:) around to

get things look how they should or rather wait for a well designed TLF2.0

[rdermer]

It's there in 2.0.  InlineGraphicElements (<img> in markup) support the float property with values none, left, right, start

and end.  none is the default and gives the original ILG behavior.

A blog entry should appear soon describing more details about floats.

Richard

[daslicht]

>It's there in 2.0.

When will 2.0 be released ?