PHP in a Nutshell

Flash Text

Following the rest of the library, text inside your Flash movie is manipulated using objects. The two key classes here are SWFFont and SWFText . The former holds the actual font shape data, whereas the latter holds information about the text as a whole, including color, position, string data, and the instance of SWFFont used to draw the letters.

The code to generate text works differently under Windows and Unix. First up, Linux users:

    $font = new SWFFont("Impact.fdb");
    $text = new SWFText();

    $text->setFont($font);
    $text->moveTo(200, 400);
    $text->setColor(0, 0xff, 0);
    $text->setHeight(200);
    $text->addString("Text is surprisingly easy");

    $movie = new SWFMovie();
    $movie->setDimension(6400, 4800);
    $movie->add($text);

    header('Content-type: application/x-shockwave-flash');
    $movie->output();

The Windows code isn't far off, and the end result is the same:

    $font = new SWFFont("Impact");
    $text = new SWFTextField(); // new!
    $sprite = new SWFSprite(); // new!

    $text->setFont($font);
    $text->setColor(0, 0xff, 0);
    $text->setHeight(200);
    $text->addString("Windows is a little harder!");

    $spritepos = $sprite->add($text); // new!
    $spritepos->moveTo(200, 400); // new!

    $movie = new SWFMovie();
    $movie->setDimension(6400, 4800);
    $movie->add($text);

    header('Content-type: application/x-shockwave-flash');
    $movie->output();

You'll need to alter your HTML file to display the new script, and also change the width and height attributes of the <embed> object so that the Flash movie is larger; otherwise, ...