An Easy, Cross-Browser, Form Integrated Flash Draw Widget

With the coming of Ultra-Mobiles, Internet Tablets, Tablet PCs, Smart Phones and even PDAs, calligraphic interfaces are growing more then ever before. Though we do not see many sites taking advantage of this like calligraphic forums, blogs, etc.
Our goal was to create a calligraphic widget to put in forms that was as easy as <input type="draw" />; Simple, straightforward and completely transparent for developers.

Features

on version 1.5

Javascript API

The InputDraw class as know a collection of functions, giving the developer a extended API
Using javascript we can interact with the widget, changing the content and settings like color style. It is also possible to enable hooks (callbacks) that can process the widget content improving the interaction and possibilities.

Disable features

Most features can now be disabled to so the end-user can be restricted. This features are clean, undo, stroke size, color and opacity.

Form desintegration

Having a Javascript API, developers may not need or want the widget to integrate with a form. The component can be set to don't auto-integrate qith the form field.

Customization

Both undo and clean icons can be defined by setting images urls. Tools Color background can also be customized.

on version 1.31

Stroke Style

Can define the stroke style - width, opacity and color - .

on version 1.2

Grid

For medical or more precise application we packed a grid that can be fully configured.

Background Image

A most wanted feature. We now enalbe the set of a background image in an easy way.

Transparency

By default, the widget is now transparent which allow the insertion of html behind the widget. You can now put the widget on top of anything. (linux flash player does not allow this)

on version 1.0

Draw/Calligraphic editor/viewer

It doesn’t just serve as a calligraphic area to draw but also a viewer to this drawings.

SVG draw description

SVG is the standard to vector graphics. It’s used world wide by many applications and libraries. This enables the result of this widget to be used in an huge different ways.

Low Lag

Because of the way this widget was programmed, the is very low lag involved. If you saw other flash drawing component, you probably noticed that this is usually slow and with a huge latency. Our’s not.

Cross-Browser

InputDraw was made to fit the most number of browsers as possible. The usage of SWFObject helps integrating the flash file perfectly in the browser. Our javascript library does the rest.

Stroke Options

Draw can be made with different stroke type. Users can pick any colours, several stroke widths and opacities.

User-Friendly Interface

The interface was done having the user as the main goal. We tried to made it as simple and easy to use as possible.

Form Integrated

This is the most important feature. Being directly integrated on the form level, it make it independent of any web framework, CMS, CRM, etc. Any web application can easily incorporate this tool.