Just a quick post to say this Thursday I’ll be doing a presentation on Flash Lite at the London MMUG and would love to see anyone interested down there. Also presenting is Rob Bateman of the BBC on best practices for developing components and the upcoming SMX component set, so there should be something for everybody from designers to hardcore coders, just click link at the bottom of the site to attend for free....
Hot off the press, BlueskyNorth have just announced SWF2SIS is now officially released. “In short, SWF2SIS provides a way to package your application .swf file with any extra files (sfws, txt files etc.) and attach an icon which will appear on the handset’s menu, then save it all in a single installer file.” Very good news for Flash Lite developers, and at $40(£20), a great deal for those without the time or knowledge to mess around creating multiple config files that compile into another intermediary file and so on, when using the Symbian SDK....
I spent the last week working on something I wanted to try in Flash Lite. The result is a prototype for a virtual pet that will run on any Flash Lite enabled mobile phone. I’ve created a very quick (and pretty rubbish) mini-site where you can download the app, play an online emulated version and find out how to care for your creature. I still need to tweak the logic so that it is actually fun and addictive to play, but still, this is just a test app....
It’s pretty essential that we understand which devices/handsets support which Flash Lite features. So following this discussion, I created a Flash app to collect and display the data. Onur Tekin and myself also set about adapting capabilities.swf (comes with the FL CDK) to automatically send the data from your handset and have it recorded. (Thanks for kick starting that Onur I would have been too lazy without the push.) View the web app here (90kb no preload)...
I set myself a little challenge yesterday, I wanted to see just how quick it was to develop in Flash Lite, that being a major selling point. My chosen project was a (greatly simplified) version of Jermain Andersons TV Guide application. I’m not sure exactly how he put his together, but I can talk about how I went about it. I’ve also provided all source code and a demo at the end....
I guess this is as good a time as any to announce the Flash Mobile Community site. The original aim was to allow developers to share SWF’s for testing on a variety of devices, but it now aggregates relevant news feeds, members can publish their own blogs and discuss anything Flashy. All made possible with Drupal (which I am seriously impressed with). Flash Mobile Community can be found at: www.flashmobileforum.org
For those using Natural Docs, after the barrage of related posts on MXNA, FullAsAGoog and today’s great news. I’ve just finished a quick GUI in Java for those on Mac/Linux (using MTASC! ;)) and Windows of course. I haven’t got a Mac machine so if anyone cares to try it, please let me know how it goes! More info and download/source here.
Thankyou… thankyou… Patrick for your efforts and Alessandro for pointing this out! http://www.sephiroth.it/blog/2004_12_10_weekly.html#110267803977774175 p.s. Looking at the CVS, Mr Mineault has also added Service Browser functionality (from the IDE?).
Oh dear 🙁 This one really can mess up a game or application if you are publishing for Flash 6 player (or 7 in depending on coding restrictions), or at least have you stumped for a few minutes….. Your mx.transitions.Tween’s can simply stop responding, or even better, your sprites dissappear (depending on the order the following occurs). Here’s an illustrated problem: This can occur in a purely AS2 (class based app), but I’m going to simplify it for now and put in some timeline based code....
For anyone wishing to use the Yamago File upload component in a Flash 7 movie, it requires a little bit of tweaking. I wrote about how to do this in this FlashCoders thread: http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?1:sss:123252 Update: Ok so Chattyfig password protected the archives, which is completely understandable, so I’m pasting my replies here: …case sensitivity in MX2004 strikes again 🙂 Just change the Object.registerClass from: Object.registerClass(“idYamzbrowser”, Yamzbrowser); to Object.registerClass(“idYamzBrowser”, Yamzbrowser); and…...