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"flash"

25
Sep
2007

Flash CS3 : finding the gradient transform tool

I’ve just been driven up the wall trying to find the Gradient Transform tool. 🙁 Most of my work in the IDE is arranging libraries of assets supplied by others, for coding. So for drawing I am a newbie.

I needed to make my own block with a gradient. I knew there was a tool for modifying one once created, but I couldn’t see it in the tool panel, I couldn’t find an option for it in the Modify menu, and the Help page simply referred to it in the Tools panel.

Loation of the Gradient Tool

I eventually found it hidden behind the Free Transform tool : you have to click-hold Free Transform to reveal the Gradient Tool. I still haven’t found it in the menu hierarchy. I have posted comment to livedocs, but thought it worth posting here in the meantime.

Posted by creacog in CS3, Flash Platform, 14 comments
31
Aug
2007

flash, flex and vice versa

I have a small AS3 project where I need to keep the SWF quite small. I really want to use the Flex Builder environment to do the coding, and ultimately produce a target or targets suitable for inclusion both in Flash and/or Flex projects.

Two very helpful posts of the last couple of days with respect to setting up a suitable environment:

Posted by creacog in Adobe, CS3, Flash Platform, Flex 2, Flex 3, 1 comment
20
Jul
2007

flash ‘n hardware

Looking forward to this month’s LFPUG meet-up on the 26th July and seeing what can be done with a Wiimote and a Make Controller Kit. Full details on the site.

Posted by creacog in Flash Platform, User Groups, 3 comments
09
May
2007

initial gripes with new Flash CS3 ui

I know – I’m turning into Victor Meldrew. I can’t seem to help it. Should Adobe sort out the current licensing and pricing nightmare I’m going through, I’m sure I will become more chilled.

While others have been hung up on the new icons, personally I have no issue with them. They remind me of Rowntrees Tooty Frooties – which is not a bad thing! My issues (admittedly minor) are with some of the work on the new user interface.

I can appreciate the general investment in improving the UI. However I find some of the additions odd, and on my system some seem poorly implemented?

1. Introduction of Windows style controls on the Mac.

Most of the palettes introduce a collapse control (-) and close control (x) in the top right-hand corner. Mac convention is for the close control to be top left control and in both cases I think aqua controls and positioning would have been better – more consistent with other (non Adobe) applications.

I also find it strange that most palettes introduce this new arrangement, but other ‘windows’ retain the standard Mac behaviour (e.g. document windows and the control window). Mixing it up in this way just feels odd.

DebugController

2. Palette drag

When dragging a palette, it will go semi-transparent. Potentially useful – being able to see what will be covered up before dropping the palette into position. This is also part of the softening of the UI and should enrich the user experience. But on my system, when the mouse is released, the palette disappears briefly before being re-drawn opaque. This ‘flicker’ when a palette is released is plain ugly and detracts hugely from the user-experience. Until it is fixed I would have rather not bother with semi-transparent efforts.

I guess this might be an issue with my system being quite old? (Mac G4 Dual 1GHz Mirror).

3. Welcome panel links to the Adobe site are not working as intended

I think this is just an issue of the Adobe site not having been updated to service the links. You’ll find that from the Flash Welcome window, clicking on either “Getting started ››” or “New features ››” simply dumps the user at the flash product page. The problem seems to be server-side. The pages which flash attempts to take you to, simply re-direct back to the product page.

We fare slightly better with “Resources ››”. However most of the content on that page is written for FlashMX 2004 or Flash 8. I think by now there should be some CS3 articles on there.

Hopefully that’s the end of today’s grumpiness. Although I just read the SaveAs Gotcha written up by Aral. 🙁

Posted by creacog in Adobe, CS3, Flash Platform, Mac OS, 2 comments
27
Mar
2007

flash button sound disobeys master volume

Ok, this I am sure is an old one, and has probably been blogged countless times before, but it bit me for the first time last night and googling didn’t turn up any useful results.

The scenario:

I’ve been working on a container movie. It’s job is to hold a master navigation control and to load content movies developed by a third party, based on user actions. In addition it plays a sound track.

It contains a mute button which controls a Sound object created with a line such as mySoundControl = new Sound( this ); and then mySoundControl.setVolume();

On the face of it, it controls the volume very well. Including the time-line sounds within the content movies.

The problem: We found that certain items in the content movies triggered sounds independently of the master volume and simply disobeyed the volume. The common factor in each of these was that they were button symbols each with a sound applied directly to the over frame.

The solution: quite simply was to create movie-clip symbols containing the sounds, and replace the over frame sound with an instance of the new movie-clip.

Posted by creacog in Flash Platform, 0 comments
14
Mar
2007

apple update includes flash player (9.0.28)…

If, as suggested by JD’s post, the latest Adobe Flash Player will continue to be included in Apple System updates, this can only be a good thing for shoring-up and keeping the installed base current.

Unfortunately this morning’s update trampled over my debug player (already at version 9.0.28) replacing it with the standard plug-in. This is going to hit loads of developers similarly. It would be nice if Apple could add a rule to the updater to respect the presence of the debug player. That said, it isn’t a big deal to simply re-run the player’s installer from the Adobe Flex Builder 2 ‘Player’ folder.

Posted by creacog in Flash Platform, Flex, Mac OS, 7 comments
28
Sep
2006

flash webservices pending call gotcha – well got me for a while

I have a webservice running from asp.net. Sample method interface…

[WebMethod( Description = "Returns the About content" )]
public XmlDocument getAbout()
{
  xmlDoc.LoadXml( "<about></about>" );
  rootElement = xmlDoc.DocumentElement;
/*
* add some child nodes... etc
*/
...
  return xmlDoc;
}

As you can see the return type is of XmlDocument.

In ActionScript I am using code within a class similar to…

  private var myPCO :mx.services.PendingCall;
  private var myWSO :mx.services.WebService;

// myWSO is intialised once in a constructor or some other suitable location
  myWSO = new WebService( "/TheService.asmx?WSDL" );

//inside some function we initiate the data load
  myPCO = myWSO.getAbout();
  myPCO.onResult = mx.utils.Delegate.create( this, pcoResult )

// we handle a dataresult...
  private function pcoResult( result:XML ):Void
  {
    trace( result.firstChild.nodeName );
  }

The trace returns ‘undefined’. Spotted the mistake?

Because my service is returning an XML object, I assumed the ‘result’ would be the XML object. It isn’t. It is simply an object which contains the XML object, the root node of which you can access directly by name. In this case…

private function pcoResult( result:Object ):Void
{
  trace( result.about.nodeName );
}

This now correctly traces ‘about’.

Posted by creacog in ActionScript, Flash Platform, 1 comment
08
Jul
2006

mac flash switch

I recently had the need to be able to switch player versions on the mac, and was very grateful to have found Mike Chambers‘ “Flash Player Switching on Mac” entry. Following the instructions in that entry may well be all you need. Be sure to read comments IV and V – they are important!

In my own set up I made a couple minor alterations to ease things in my own mind (to be read in conjunction with Mike’s article)…

  1. With respect to setting up the ‘soft-link’ or alias to “Internet Plug-Ins” I find an alias name of “InternetPlug-Ins” less likely to cause confusion than the more generic “plugins”. (Norton utils for example creates a “Plug-ins” folder within /Library)
  2. Similarly to avoid any confusion within the InternetPlug-Ins folder which in my case contains loads of files, I created a sub-folder “flashplayers” into which I placed the version folders.

So my resulting folder/file structure is as follows…

/Library/InternetPlug-Ins/
  Flash Player Enabler.plugin
  Flash Player.plugin
  flashplayer.xpt
/Library/InternetPlug-Ins/flashplayers/7
  Flash Player Enabler.plugin
  Flash Player.plugin
  flashplayer.xpt
/Library/InternetPlug-Ins/flashplayers/8
  Flash Player Enabler.plugin
  Flash Player.plugin
  flashplayer.xpt
/Library/InternetPlug-Ins/flashplayers/9
  Flash Player Enabler.plugin
  Flash Player.plugin
  flashplayer.xpt

The idea being that the three files currently in /Library/InternetPlug-Ins represent the currently active version of the player.

As my folder structure is different to that of Mike’s, my script is slightly modified…

#!/bin/bash
#
# Script to change the flash player
#
if [ $# != 1 ]; then
  echo "Usage: $0 name-of-player-version-dir"
  exit
else
  plugin_dir='/Library/InternetPlug-Ins'
  np_dir="$plugin_dir/flashplayers/$1"
  if [ ! -d $np_dir ]; then
    echo "$np_dir does not exist."
    exit
  fi
  cp -rv $np_dir/* $plugin_dir/
fi

Finally if you are not familiar with writing and running scripts via the terminal, two things to bear in mind…

  1. Placing your script file in a folder picked up by the path, will ensure it is available to you whatever is your current working directory. In my case I use the default tcsh shell and cfp is placed in my /Users/username/bin directory. This is added to the path in my via my .tcshrc file with the line 
    setenv PATH "$PATH":bin
  2. Make sure you set the executable flag on the script file: 
    chmod +x cfp
Posted by creacog in Flash Platform, Mac OS, 2 comments
06
Jul
2006

embedding flash in html page – best practice? (SWFObject)

For a long time I simply used the html published from the Flash IDE to embed a SWF. Expecting that to be the ‘best practice’ approach. Like others I was concerned at the impact of Microsoft’s upcoming changes to IE in response to EOLAS patent issues. I was dreading either having to write my own JavaSript or research countless approaches.

With SWFObject the problem is solved. It has been around for a long time (formerly known as FlashObject) and appears to be well tried and tested. I was really pleased with how simple it is to use, how it degrades gracefully. I’ve used this on a number of projects and now consider it to be best practice. In future I’d need a very good reason not to use it.

Update (14/03/2008): SWFObject 2 released

Posted by creacog in Flash Platform, Javascript, XHTML/CSS, 2 comments
17
Jul
2016

Long time no speak

Was 2012 really the last post from me?

In that time lots has happened in the world, especially the last few weeks! So far as this blog is concerned, I’ve been in permanent employment as a Digital Project Manager for about 4 years. So there’s neem a lot less time spent programming and nearly no time with Flash. Which, for the kind of projects I was using it for, is now truly dead. Of course niche requirements remain, and major sites still use it’s video capabilities, but much of the world is coming to the El Reg way of thinking of this and pretty much any other browser plugin.

In its place we have html5, the canvas and WebGL, ironically catching up to where flash was 4 years ago – but with a much worse language. Can’t help thinking how much more advanced browser interactivity would now be had ECMA Script 4 been adopted to advance javascript. Adobe AIR never really worked particularly well for me – especially on the HTC Desire I got for the purpose of testing. So despite investing a huge amount of time and cash in ActionScript development, it will be a rare day those skills are put to direct use in the future.

Looking back over the articles published, the one with the most traffic is the one that was most off-topic, and connected to the 1980’s tech of my teenage years: resurrected my tascam porta 05

Looking forward, since flash programming is mostly off the agenda, future subjects are likely to include:
* Photography
* Project Management
* Interactive media – websites, mobile apps, IoT etc
* General bits of tech that interest me

Posted by creacog in Personal, 0 comments

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