List of Feathers Features

Feathers is a user interface component library built on the Starling Framework, a GPU-accelerated 2D library for the Adobe Flash Runtimes. Here are just a few of the features that Feathers offers.

• Designed with mobile devices in mind.
  • Optimized for performance on phones and tablets.
  • Supports multi-touch input.
  • Scrolling with optional pages, “throw” physics and elastic, springy edges (and you can select traditional desktop scrollbar and mouse wheel input, if needed).
  • Easy to scale for different screen dimensions and DPIs.
• Simple, but powerful, component architecture.
  • Invalidation. Queues property changes until Starling render phase.
  • No vague getStyle()/setStyle() look-ups with string keys. Strictly-typed properties for all skins and visual properties.
  • Factories and interfaces allow you to customize sub-components. For instance, select the type best suited for phone, tablet, or desktop.
  • Easy to understand for anyone familiar with Adobe Flex or the Flash Pro AS3 components.
• All components are fully skinnable using Starling display objects.
  • If no width or height is provided, components will resize themselves automatically based on the provided skin and dimensions of sub-components.
  • Sub-components may be easily skinned through their parent, nesting infinitely.
  • Supports “themes” that separate all skinning code from the rest of the application. Example themes are easily extended.
  • Add one of the example themes with one line of code.
  • Scale 9, scale 3, and tiled image types provide fluid resizing for skins.
  • Smart image management that can improve performance by swapping textures without creating new image objects.
• Plus a lot more.
  • Choice of text rendering between bitmap fonts or vector fonts drawn to textures.
  • Create your own custom text renderers (Flash Text Engine or TLF, perhaps?) using a simple interface.
  • A powerful screen/menu navigation system with transitions.
  • Drag and drop.
  • Pop-up management (with or without modality).

Feathers includes many different components, including buttons, sliders, toggle switches, check boxes, radio buttons, lists and grouped lists, progress bars, text inputs, tab bars, navigators, scrolling and layout containers, callouts/popovers, and others. Take a look at a few noteworthy features available for some of these components.

• Button
  • Appearance may be customized for each touch/mouse state, including up, hover, down, and disabled.
  • Optional toggle/selection behavior. Doubles the number of states.
  • Customizable skins, icons, and label properties for each state, including the ability to specify defaults when some states will not be uniquely skinned.
• TextInput
  • Uses the operating system's native input controls for seamless selection and copy/paste behavior.
• ScrollContainer
  • Provides scrolling for any kind of content.
  • Supports a variety of built-in layouts, plus your own custom layouts.
• List
  • A scrolling list of items with optional selection.
  • Swappable, customizable, layout algorithms.
  • Layout virtualization for improved performance (creates and reuses renderers only for visible data).
  • Variable item renderer dimensions.
  • Custom item renderers.
  • A robust default item renderer with label, icon, and “accessory” views with all the states that buttons provide.
  • A ListCollection class with data descriptors to support any type of data. Supports Array, Vector, and XMLList out of the box.
• GroupedList
  • Everything that List provides, plus more.
  • Groups or sections with optional headers and footers.
  • Separate renderer types/factories for headers, footers, and items.
  • Multi-dimensional HierarchicalCollection with data descriptors.
• ScreenNavigator
  • Use events or, optionally, as3-signals to trigger navigation between screens (such as game menus).
  • Pass properties into screens, such as a shared settings object or other assets.
  • Specify animated transitions for switching screens.

To learn more about Feathers, return to the Feathers Documentation.