First beta prototype of e2publish

Question

e2publish is a sophisticated AIR application that uses the Text Layout Framework.  I've just made the first beta prototype available of my website.
http://www.e2easy.co.cc/e2publish.html
An ambitious project such as this relies on the feedback of test users.  Comments, suggestions, recommendations, ideas, and bug reports.  Let me know what you think?
A video presentation about this project can be found here:-
http://e2easy.wordpress.com/2009/10/19/announcing-an-adobe-air-publish-application/
The most novel feature is way the text arranges itself to warp around the pictures, wherever they are placed on the page.

Answer 1

Thanks for feedback Richard.  Your comments are very useful for me.  And my replies are useful to me too - as they help me to revisit, rethink, and crystallise my ideas and vision for this project.
>I wanted to draw more boxes and connect them with arrows.
In layout mode, you can use the Layout drop-down menu.  It allows you to Create (add) new text boxes, Split an existing text box, or Remove a text box.  It's my fault you didn't see these - and I was already thinking that I should put some buttons next to the layout view, where users will notice them.  UI design is an iterative process.
There are three pre-set layouts.  One, Two, or Three columns.  I'm not sure about the same layout on every page?  Magazines don't tend to do this. On some pages, text boxes are arranged around images that feature more prominently than the text.
Soon, I'll add a feature to create text boxes that aren't connected to the flow.  With optional big quotation marks for pull quotes.
I was thinking of allowing the user to save layouts, so that they can then apply a saved layout to any page.
>Is the undo stack integrated?  The UndoManager is designed with the hope that other clients can use it and stack their own operations.
I already have my own undo manager class that I've been using and refining for years.  It works well with my own custom components. Unfortunately, Adobe's UndoManager assumes it runs the whole show.  This frustrated me.  It's a pity that it wasn't designed with adequate hooks to play second fiddle.  In the end, I devised workarounds, and implemented a scheme so that Adobe's UndoManager is controlled from my undo manager.
>It'd be nice if the ctrl-z and ctrl-y keys worked everywhere and not just over the TLF area.
I'll get around to it after Christmas, when I'll have access to a windows PC for testing.  Everything works as it should on a Mac.  I just need to implement naive PC menus.  They'll handle keyboard shortcuts properly, and channel everything through my undo manager.  (e2spreadsheet and e2vector also require this.)  Currently, the ability to do ctrl-Z or ctrl-Y inside a text box on a PC causes a problem.  Because it bypasses my own undo manager.
>The scrollbar doesn't indicate there are more pages or provide a way to switch pages - that's annoying.
I attempted to write this application prior to the Flash 10 player (before flash.text.engine), with my own textflow mechanism and TextFields.  (I actually made a request to Adobe for a "textflow" mechanism about six years ago! - at least we got there in the end).  TextFields just weren't powerful enough.  I battled against performance issues, and this page-by-page scheme was a compromise at the time to reduce computational complexity.  TextFlow seems powerful enough - I should go back to scrolling over the entire document - you're right.
>Not sure if your goal is to demonstrate knowledge of TLF and Flash, or to make some sort of word processor.
This is definitely a conversation I want to have.  This is the first prototype, warts-and-all.  My vision is more than just a word processor.  I want to create a publishing application capable of creating stylised and captivating e-magazine pages.   I wrote something on my blog yesterday, where I called it a potential tablet magazine 2.0 solution.  I made comparisons with "Web 2.0" that allowed non-technical users to collaborate write to the internet, not just read from it.  My vision is to allow enthusiasts to collaborate on their own magazines.  Not just read them.
So I definitely want to know what you think is missing that would make this more like a real word-processor?  I'm hoping that Squiggly will soon be integrated with the TLF, and I'll be able to put spell-checking in quite effortlessly.
Bear in mind that I'm working on this in my spare time.  This isn't Buzzword.  Nobody is throwing huge amounts of money at me to do this.  In fact, every day that I work on this, I'm losing money because I could have worked that day for one of my commercial Flex project clients.  So while I want to this project to aspire to a professional standard.  It might take a little longer - I still have my day job.