Flash developers looking for the latest method to manipulate letters were recently enthralled by SwiSH, which debuted at San Francisco's FlashForward 2000. It was breakthrough technology that allowed a developer to save hours of time and much effort creating text effects for Flash movies.

But SwiSH was just the beginning. The latest entry into the roll-your-own text FX field is FLASHtyper from our own sister site Flashkit.com.

The secret of the success of FlashKit (about one million page views per day now) is it's great community and interactivity focus. So it comes as no supprise to us that FlashKit would make FLASHtyper an on-line tool. Here's a bit of introduction...

Animate Your Text On-line
FLASHtyper is the world's first on-line text effect generator and a must-have bookmark for any Flash developer. This powerful online tool enables you to:

• Enter you own text
• Choose and edit any RGB color for your text and background
• Generate hundreds of perfectly smooth text effects
• Use a huge array of public domain fonts
• Maintain a list of your favorite effects and fonts
• Modify the kerning and leading (line spacing)
• Load your own movie into the background for pixel perfect design
• Customise the behaviour of the text effect
• Get feedback on what your effect is doing with a built-in status variable
• Export your text effects as .SWF files and load them into your movie

When you go to the FLASHtyper section on Flashkit.com you get an overview to get started, then get right into it. You can play with all sorts of effects and fonts, just follow the links, and once you're adept at it, you can go to the sections you need with a click, such as:

• FLASHtyper Home
• Tutorials and Help
• Edit My Text Effects List
• View Text Effects
• Edit My Fonts List
• View Fonts
• Launch FLASHtyper
• FLASHtyper Support Forum
• Read guide to using FLASHtyper
• Choose Text Effects to use
• Select Fonts
• Create New animations for Flash Typer with SDK
• FLASHtyper Support Forum