Posts

I’m pleased to finally announce the Flash Lite Pocket Guide for Flash on the Beach 2006. I had some problems embedding so many images and a large amount of XML parsing required for something like an event guide in Flash Lite 2, the RAM limitation is something you never totally get used to, but on the flip side I believe that limitations can lead to happiness. There are several tricks and tips required to get this working well, but after some effort here we have it: ...

A while ago I posted about casting failing if you cast the result of attachMovie() but only in certain cases. I had the same thing happen today, so I opened it up in FLASM, and I think I can see what is happening: push 'sp' getVariable trace push 'sb', 0.0, 'getNextHighestDepth' callFunction push 'sb', 'com' getVariable push 'domain' getMember push 'controls' getMember push 'ScrollBar' getMember push 'LINKAGE' getMember push 3, 'attachMovie' callFunction push 1, 'com' getVariable push 'domain' getMember push 'controls' getMember push 'ScrollBar' callMethod varEquals As you can see here, it seems instead of performing a cast operation (and “cast” is a keyword you do see in the FLASM output), it actually tries to perform a conversion (as you see with Array or Boolean), treating com.domain.controls.ScrollPane as a function, and applying it to the result from the attachMovie() operation. This results in the undefined/null value we are experiencing because in itself, this function has no return value unless used with the new keyword as a constructor. ...

Well I’ve seen Tink’s and Peter’s wishlists, so I think it’s time I put up my own, and this was really tricky, too many sessions I’m going to have to sacrifice. Day 1: 11:00 Craig Swann – ..and now for something completely different.. 13:30 Branden Hall – Explorations with ActionScript 3 15:00 Aral Balkan – Memo to the CEO 16:30 Erik Natzke – Keep Interest(ed) Day 2: 9:30 Brendan Dawes – Contains one scene of sheep skinning ...

Aral just had an interesting post on XAML, the markup language used for presentation and layout in Microsoft’s Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). He touches upon a fact that it is sometimes quite a shock to see some real abominations when it comes to some of the XAML out there on the web. But there’s more to it than meets the eye when digging deeper. I’d like to post my reply on here also, and make it clear, I am not evangelising for either side in this post, but I find it fascinating comparing these two technologies which are making modern creative development very satisfying…. ...

A colleague suggested it would be useful to build in version numbers into SWFs so that you could simply right click and see just what version you were looking at. Think in terms of QA or a client on the phone. With continuous integration it is useful to be able to say “hey just right click… so it says r12345?”. The r12345 here would refer to the revision number in Subversion. This makes bug tracking say using Trac much more integrated. ...

Next Wednesday (25th Oct ’06) my colleague Rob Bateman and buddy Tink will be hosting another LFPUG (London Flash Platform Usergroup). They will be speaking on Visual Interfaces for the Human Brain and Flex 2 for Flash Developers respectively. Tasty stuff. Last time was a lot of fun even though I had to rush off after my preso, but the venue was really nice so hopefully see you there. Remember to sign up to make sure you get in: ...

So I saw the full-screen video examples the other week using the new Flash 9 update, but the example at the end of this post really pricked my attention. I went out and got a HD TV a couple of months ago because I figured it was time to make “the leap”. As yet I don’t think I’ve made any sort of decent use out of that particular feature apart from watching some Lost s3 over the wifi via a ye olde xbox-1 with media center (convergence is beautiful). Now I’m a firm believer that this whole Blu-Ray, HD-DVD thing is a flash in the pan; a very temporary stop-gap. The last time I bought a physical CD was probably 5 years ago. The last time I bought a DVD, probably a couple of weeks. Why? Because until now only Apple and two companies in the U.S. only have offered full movie downloads in any sort of reasonable, legal manner. ...

Take part in a Flash Lite (and J2ME) contest courtesy of the Mobile & Devices Adobe User Group of Rome and Jamba… Flashlite category: • 1st prize: Flash Studio 8 • 2nd prize: IRiver 2G • 3rd: 3 O’Rilley Books J2ME Category: • 1st prize: Nokia N93 • 2nd prize: IRiver 2G • 3rd prize: 3 O’Rilley Books Enter the contest here .

Just to announce I’ve uploaded my FlashFoward Austin 2006 slides and source. You can download the zip here. As soon as time allows it… a mini-tutorial that goes a little more in depth as to how the multi-user example works and how you can set up SUSHI on your machine (the docs that come with it are great though, so get downloading! In the meantime, to enable HTTP support in SUSHI, you need to follow the instructions supplied with the SUSHI manual, for example, all I had to do was uncomment this line in my Apache httpd.conf config file: ...

A couple of weeks ago we launched several installations in Nike Town, Oxford St., London as part of Nike’s Festival of Air, along with the accompanying website. It all kicked off with a fantastic launch party and there was a lot to see and do, I got to meet someone I consider an inspiration in UK hip hop and grime, Dizzy Rascal, and a good time was had all round. But down to the technology… ...