RBLAB

Flash Camp Birmingham ‘09 – June 16th, 12-8pm

Posted by Riccardo on May 28, 2009 under Actionscript 3, Conferences/Meetings, Flash, Flash Catalyst, Flex

flash_camp_birmingham

From the official website:

Flash Camp Birmingham is a completely free event organised by the Midlands Flash Platform User Group.

Over an afternoon and evening, experts in Flash, Flex and AIR will share their knowledge through presentations and talks. Come and meet the some of the Adobe team, Community Leaders and network with fellow developers and designers.

Whether you’re just getting started with the Flash Platform, or consider yourself a pro, there’s something for you!

This is the schedule:

13:00 | Keynote – Enrique Duvos (Adobe Systems)
13:30 | Getting started with Flex & PureMVC – Simon Bailey (Newtriks)
14:15 | Break, networking & registration for new arrivals
14:45 | Head first Flex 4 Component Development – Mike Jones (FlashGen)
15:30 | Skinning components with Degrafa & FXG – James Whittaker (RefreshingApps)
16:15 | Break, networking & registration for new arrivals
16:45 | Away3D and the future of 3D in Flash – Rob Bateman (Away3D)
17:30 | Rapid prototyping & motion design on mobile devices – Anthony & Jerome Ribot (Ribot)
18:15 | Break, networking & the bar’s open!
18:30 | Adobe On Tour: Presenting Flex 4 & Flash Catalyst (Adobe Systems)
19:30 | Panel: Everything you wanted to know about contracting & freelancing, but were scared to ask Q&A
Stefan Richter (FlashComGuru), Ross Fleming (TEKSystems), Mike Jones, Simon Bailey
20:15 | Prize draws & closing presentation
20:30 | Event ends

To register visit the official website.
See you there!

Tags: Actionscript 3, adobe, as3, Flash, Flash Catalyst, Flex

Adobe Flash CS4 Professional Update (10.0.2)

Posted by Riccardo on May 14, 2009 under Flash

This update for Flash CS4 Professional (10.0.2) addresses issues related to compiling large projects. Specifically, it addresses stability and performance issues related to large animation files, such as timeline scrubbing and looping and nested movie clips, as well as text handling. For more details, read the technote. For more about this update from Richard Galvan, product manager for Adobe Flash Professional, visit Richard Galvan’s blog.

From the technote:

Issue addressed by the Adobe Flash CS4 Professional update (10.0.2):

Adobe Flash® CS4 Professional (10.0.2) addresses issues regarding the compiling of large project files as well as the following key issues:

Performance issues when dragging objects on stage, scrubbing the timeline, entering symbol edit mode in large AS 2.0 and AS 3.0 files.
Performance issues when opening large files or files with many nested symbols.
Performance issues when working in the library such as scrolling, selecting items in the library, dragging item to stage, editing symbol from library.
Several crashes involving creating a text field on stage and opening certain files.
Graphic symbol looping setting changes when apply color effect to instance in Properties Inspector.
gotoAndPlay("framelabel") compiles differently in CS3 versus CS4
Put back the JSAPI that allows users to publish FLA files without opening them fl.publishDocument( flaURI [, publishProfile] );

Bugs fixed in this release:

AS2 Doc Crashes CS4 when buttons not rendered correctly
Auto Format beaks the code if encounters ++ or — with an array inside if statement
Clicking through movie clip with large preview takes long to select in the Library in AS 3.0 file
Scrubbing and pressing Enter to play timeline is not smooth, slower in AS3 documents
Width and Height of instance incorrect after frame 2 if apply tween to instance with filter
3D tools appear incorrectly to a child movie clip when applying skew and rotation to the parent 2d movie clip.
Changing Width/Height for nested 2d>3d movie clip from Property Inspector does not work. After scrubbing the hot text, it snaps back to the original size.
Dragging from Library to Stage is slow in some files in CS4
Selecting items in the library is slow in CS4
Scrolling the library (vertical scroll bar) is slow compared to CS3
In a FLA with lots of library items, double clicking a symbol "in the edit mode" hangs Flash on Mac.
Library contents explode CS4 memory (CS3 sits at 75M)
Performance issue with Stagecore (AS 3.0 fla) – scrubbing, moving, altering objects.
Object visibility is compromised when created inside empty groups in AS 3.0 fla files.
Double clicking symbol or symbol name in library hangs Flash; library contains a lot of items
Text with device font disappears when it is selectable
Component parameters don’t work for scenes greater than scene 1
Selecting frames with textfields is a lot slower if the Components Inspector panel is opened
Empty maskee incorrectly renders mask invisible rather than visible
Crash when opening a FLA that uses a font symbol whose name was identical to the Postscript name of the underlying font (and the font is missing)
Optimize a section within a shape leaves gaps in the shape
Optimize opening and closing FLA files, frame manipulation for FLAs with many frames
Win only: Crash on exit when the text field is in edit mode and clicking X button to quit without save
Compiler errors when opening "Air Settings" while ADL still running.
(screens) Timeline playhead can’t scrub and jitters when playing anything that spans frames
gotoAndPlay("framelabel") compiles differently in CS3 versus CS4
Scrubbing the timeline and selecting frames is much slower in CS4 than in CS3
Crash when creating a text object on stage when there are corrupted fonts
Graphic symbol looping setting changes when apply color effect to instance in Property Inspector
Files with lots of nested clips suffer from performance issue (file open) in Flash CS4
Edit in Place of 2d objects which has 3d movieclips nested inside is not functioning correctly.
Edit in place is slow for complex instances in Flash Player 10 documents
Breaking apart a nested movie clip erases instance name of child movie clip
Efficient calculation between keyframes so dragging is faster and generally makes people happier if spans are long and complex.
AS3 Components not compiling correctly when using the Component Definition dialog
Windows Only: Flash crashes when double clicking a FLA to open while a current FLA is opened with text block selected
Can’t interact with Flash because modal dialog is up (but hidden behind the workspace) when switching between applications
From crash reporter: crash on Mac when double click to enter symbol edit mode (when the black dotted rectangle is drawn)
Mac IDE flashes when right-clicking on Library after doing Test Movie
Performance is slow after double clicking movie clip to enter edit mode and exit
Setting an instance’s width and/or height to 1 makes W and H hot text unusable in the vertical PI.
Hot text in the Vertical PI for X, Y, W, H displays only 1 decimal point while edit field displays 2
Export image: Dimension values in Export dialog and Vertical PI do not match which is misleading to user.
Crash when selecting text field on stage with many fonts on user’s system.
Text Property Inspector is stuck and some controls on the PI are not drawn with certain fonts on user’s system
The JSAPI that allows users to publish FLA files without opening them was inadvertantly removed when the Project Panel was deprecated.
"Export classes in frame" behavior is different in CS3 than in CS4
Drag and drop large nested symbol from library to stage hangs Flash
Dragging from Library to Stage slow on subsequent drag or after scrubbing the timeline
Scrubbing and pressing Enter to play timeline is not smooth, slower in AS3 documents
Width and Height of instance incorrect after frame 2 if apply tween to instance with filter
Large amounts of text nested in a symbol causes performance problems in non-AS3 documents
Playback in authoring is not smooth (playhead skips frames), cannot stop it when hitting enter, eventually hangs and takes long to respond (both AS 2.0 and AS 3.0)
Performance Creating Exported Symbol when the classpath contains lots of files and folder
Create ease, undo after first edit removes ease
Selecting and deselecting raw shape after convert to symbol spikes memory and/or crashes
FLA crash on open when fonts loaded
Mac only: User input resets to previous setting when attempting to change any value in Vertical PI input area
Accessing a Windows SWF after it has been moved or deleted crashes Flash
Crashing when re-opening FLA after cancelling publish
Crash in test movie when running a file with video and filters

You can download the update from here.

Tags: Flash, ide

Source: http://www.actionscript4.me/articles/as3-snippet-if-else-conditional-written-short/

[AS3 SNIPPET] If else short form (ternary/tertiary operator)

Posted by Riccardo on May 4, 2009 under Actionscript 3, Snippets

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var visits:Number = 10;

var action:String = (visits>=1) ? "Welcome back" : "Hi first time visitor";

trace(action); //traces ‘Welcome back’

[AS3 SNIPPET] Associate identifier to loop block

Posted by Riccardo on May 1, 2009 under Actionscript 3, Snippets

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var i:Number;

var j:Number;

mainLoop: for (i = 0; i < 10; i++)

{

    for (j = 0; j < 10; j++)

    {

        if (i > 3 && j > 3)

        {

            break mainLoop;

        }

    }

}

London Flash Platform User Group (30/04/2009)

Posted by Riccardo on April 30, 2009 under Actionscript 3, Conferences/Meetings, Flash, Flex, Papervision 3D

In a couple of hours I’m going to listen Seb Lee-Delisle and Carlos Ulloa talking about Papervision 3D.

From the London Flash Platform User Group website:

Papervision3D, Simplified (19:00 – 20:00) – Seb Lee-Delisle
Finally! Realtime 3D in Flash is taking off and there has never been more demand for 3D games, apps and websites. And naturally, with such a powerful library comes somewhat of a steep learning curve.

This session will cover how to create 3D objects in code, import them from other 3D apps and even make a simple game.

We Make. You Enjoy (20:15 – 21:15) – Carlos Ulloa
Dive deep into the third dimension with the creator of Papervision3D and discover the secrets behind his latest interactive 3D experience, HelloEnjoy.com.

The session will focus on the techniques, workflow and planning necessary to overcome the creative and technical challenges of real time 3D in Flash, giving an inside view of the entire creation process, from concept and planning, to development and art production.

For more informations click here.

[AS3 SNIPPET] Copy text to clipboard

Posted by Riccardo on April 29, 2009 under Actionscript 3, Snippets

1	System.setClipboard("Lorem ipsum");

[AS3 SNIPPET] Webcam supported modes

Posted by Riccardo on April 28, 2009 under Actionscript 3, Snippets

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function webcamSupportedModes(minW:Number, minH:Number, maxW:Number, maxH:Number, fps:Number, step:uint = 20)

{

    var cam:Camera = Camera.getCamera();

    for (var w:uint = minW; w < maxW + 1; w = w + step)

    {

        for (var h:uint = minH; h < maxH + 1; h = h + step)

        {

            cam.setMode(w, h, fps);

            if (w == cam.width && h == cam.height)

            {

                trace(cam.width + " x " + cam.height + " @ " + cam.fps);

            }

        }

    }

}

webcamSupportedModes(320, 240, 640, 480, 15, 100);

[AS3 SNIPPET] Object to URLVariables

Posted by Riccardo on April 27, 2009 under Actionscript 3, Snippets

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function objectToURLVariables(parameters:Object):URLVariables

{

    var paramsToSend:URLVariables = new URLVariables();

    for (var i:String in parameters)

    {

        if (i != null)

        {

            if (parameters[i] is Array)

            {

                paramsToSend[i] = parameters[i];

            }

            else

            {

                paramsToSend[i] = parameters[i].toString();

            }

        }

    }

    return paramsToSend;

}