fla2xleff is a tool (written in JSFL) for converting Adobe Flash forms into an XLEFF document. Antonio De Donatis, the author of XLEFF wrote this great XML Layout Engine in order “to generate a component-based user interface starting from an XML description”.

fla2xleff will be a part of XLEFF TBX

The process of creating XLEFF documents is kind of inefficient for some reasons.
At the moment the workflow of creating XLEFF docs is like this:

1. design the user interface (typically in Flash IDE)
2. set up an XLEFF project (folderstructure, classpath, etc.)
3. create an XLEFF xml document
4. look up for the pixel values (x-pos|y-pos) of each element (component instance) in order set the correct value inside the XLEFF document (calculating offsets)

Why this kind of workflow in my opinion lacks ?

• @ 1.) ok, this we really have to do manually, nothing to automate
• @ 2.) new users (like myself) make often mistakes while configuring the XLEFF workspace (wrong classpath, forgetting library imports etc.). This all could be done automatically (smells like a batch task)
• @ 3.) writing an XLEFF document takes a lot of time (breaking up the strukture, give correct unique instance names, declare params etc.) and is full of stumbling blocks (misspellings, wrong codeconventions, wrong parameters etc.)
• @ 4.) the most tricky part: calculating the precise pixel values is realy anoying. you have to handle with many offsets. you allways have to switch between the .fla file and the XLEFF document. This can be a little bit of pain if you want to change your design, which means: recalculating all touched objects.

With fla2xleff I want to speed up the workflow I described above and reduce the debugging time.
The idea behind fla2xleff is, to rapid prototype (visual) a component-based user interface with the form application features of the Flash IDE. After that you simply export it into an XLEFF xml document through fla2xleff.

... comming soon

... comming soon

http://www.3kopf.de/projekte/fla2xleff

Jan Viehweger, 3Kopf
Halle/Saale (Germany)