Scalable Inman Flash Replacement (sIFR) is an obsolete

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of Website, websites use JavaScript on the Client (computing), client side ...

and

Adobe Flash Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a multimedia Computing platform, software platform used for production of Flash animation, animations, rich web applications, application software, desktop applications, mobile apps, mo ...

dynamic

web fonts Web typography is the use of fonts on the World Wide Web. When HTML was first created, font faces and styles were controlled exclusively by the settings of each web browser. There was no mechanism for individual Web pages to control font display u ...

implementation, enabling the replacement of text elements on

HTML The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaScri ...

web pages with Flash equivalents. It is

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

and was initially developed by Mike Davidson and improved by Mark Wubben. It is a scalable variety of HTML text-to-flash replacement pioneered by Shaun Inman. With the retirement of Adobe Flash across all major web browsers, and the introduction of web font support in

CSS Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used for describing the presentation of a document written in a markup language such as HTML or XML (including XML dialects such as SVG, MathML or XHTML). CSS is a cornerstone techno ...

, sIFR is no longer in mainstream use.

Overview

support in web browsers did not, at the time of sIFR's creation, allow webpages to dynamically include

, so there was no guarantee that fonts specified in CSS or HTML would show as intended, as the browsing user may or may not have had the specified font installed in their system. sIFR embeds a font in a Flash element that displays the text, pre-empting the need for a font to have been manually pre-installed on a user's system. A common technique is to use

raster graphics upright=1, The Smiley, smiley face in the top left corner is a raster image. When enlarged, individual pixels appear as squares. Enlarging further, each pixel can be analyzed, with their colors constructed through combination of the values for ...

to display text in a font that cannot be trusted to be available on most computers. Text created this way pixelates when scaled and cannot be partially selected. In contrast, sIFR text elements mimic normal HTML text – they are relatively resizable and copyable. sIFR requires JavaScript to be enabled and the Flash plugin installed in the reading browser. If either condition is not met, the reader's browser will automatically display traditional CSS based styling instead of the sIFR rendering. sIFR is not designed for body copy text as rendering greater bodies of text with Flash places formidable demands on the computer. Due to this restriction, Mike Davidson himself admitted that sIFR has been used on a variety of well-known web pages, such as those of GE,

Nike Nike often refers to: * Nike (mythology), a Greek goddess who personifies victory * Nike, Inc., a major American producer of athletic shoes, apparel, and sports equipment Nike may also refer to: People * Nike (name), a surname and feminine given ...

and

Red Hat Red Hat, Inc. is an American software company that provides open source software products to enterprises. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina, with other offices worldwide. Red Hat has become ass ...

. As of December 2008, the current sIFR release was version 2.0.7, and version 3 was in beta.

Limitations

Growing popularity of browser

ad blocker Ad blocking or ad filtering is a software capability for blocking or altering online advertising in a web browser, an application or a network. This may be done using browser extensions or other methods. Technologies and native countermeasures ...

plugins and some smartphones may prevent Flash content from loading, instead displaying a "block" button which thereby obscures the page data, although this can be adjusted through individual plugin settings.

Alternatives

Since the creation of sIFR, dynamic

support in browsers has been renewed, with at least the latest versions of the four most popular browsers supporting them. Older alternatives to sIFR included: * Facelift Image Replacement (FLIR) is a similar software to sIFR. However, instead of using Flash, it embeds plain images that are generated automatically from the text on the webpage. However, FLIR requires that the website host is capable of running

PHP PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared toward web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementation is now produced by The PHP Group ...

, and it is even less

accessible Accessibility is the design of products, devices, services, vehicles, or environments so as to be usable by people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design and practice of accessible development ensures both "direct access" (i.e ...

than sIFR. * Cufón is an alternative that converts font paths to

vector graphics Vector graphics is a form of computer graphics in which visual images are created directly from geometric shapes defined on a Cartesian plane, such as points, lines, curves and polygons. The associated mechanisms may include vector display a ...

stored in

JSON JSON (JavaScript Object Notation, pronounced ; also ) is an open standard file format and data interchange format that uses human-readable text to store and transmit data objects consisting of attribute–value pairs and arrays (or other ser ...

data format and then renders the fonts to

canvas element The canvas element is part of HTML5 and allows for dynamic, scriptable rendering of 2D shapes and bitmap images. It is a low level, procedural model that updates a bitmap. HTML5 Canvas also helps in making 2D games. While the HTML5 canvas off ...

s or

VML Vector Markup Language (VML) is an obsolete XML-based file format for two-dimensional vector graphics. It was specified in Part 4 of the Office Open XML standards International Organization for Standardization, ISO/International Electrotechnica ...

(depending on availability) using a JavaScript rendering engine. A significant disadvantage in using Cufón is the requirement that the embedded font's

license A license (or licence) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another party (licensee) as an element of an agreeme ...

allow its distribution in unencrypted form, which many commercial fonts expressly forbid.

Trivia

The name of the original technique was derived from an anagram of the acronym for the CSS image-replacement technique it was designed to replace,

Fahrner Image Replacement CSS image replacement is a Web design technique that uses Cascading Style Sheets to replace text on a Web page with an image containing that text. It is intended to keep the page accessible to users of screen readers, text-only web browsers, or ...

References

External links

Wiki.Novemberborn, sIFR Documentation & FAQIntroducing sIFR: The Healthy Alternative to Browser Text
by
Mike DavidsonOnline sIFR Generator

Another Online sIFR Generator

Google prefers sIFR as announced during SMX Advanced 2008
jQuery sIFR plugin
a

jQuery jQuery is a JavaScript library designed to simplify HTML DOM tree traversal and manipulation, as well as event handling, CSS animation, and Ajax. It is free, open-source software using the permissive MIT License. As of Aug 2022, jQuery is used ...