SWF It Good

Update at: How to Add and Remove Mediators in an Actionscript 3 PureMVC App

So I have been working alot w/ PureMVC, well everyday for the last month to be exact. I’m going to try to explain PureMVC the best way I know how. It may not be the best, but I hope it can get you started. And when you learn something let me know.

So the example I am doing is a simple one using Lee Brimelow’s code from the ActionScript 3 Advanced XML example. The only difference between his and what I changed is some method name changes and putting it in PureMVC.

So if you don’t know what PureMVC is or you are quite confused on how to use it…well so am I . I’m still learned and hopefully can teach some stuff. I’m not going to go into the specifics of this framework but think of it as a way to introduce a lot separation of code using the Model, View, Controller. I’ll explain what I see as the benefits after I explain the example.

Read more »

I didn’t think this was going to happen with Yahoo Maps going Ajax and the maps hack they released last year (Yahoo! Maps API Flex 2 Communication Kit).

Check it out: http://developer.yahoo.com/flash/maps/

Someone asked me to give an example of the alpha masking in flash. So here is an example.

Source

My wife’s parents gave me the annual gift certificate to Barnes and Noble, so this year I got Actionscript 3.0 Design Patterns. I am excited about it. Last Christmas I got Advanced AS3 Design Patterns but I was just learning AS3 so I couldn’t figure out Design Patterns also.

I have since understood a good deal of the book but I think this one is a little more basic and has more examples. I hope I can apply these new ideas in to my new job as I am coding in a low-level manner so that the work can be used in either Flash or Flex.

Ok so at my last job I was working on a boat client’s site. They asked for me to do a color option flash piece in two days. So I thought what was the quickest and easiest way to convey color options to a potential buyer…A color picker. But I thought a conventional ColorPicker was ugly and had a lot of things I didn’t need like the hex code input. Secondly the ColorPicker has a bunch of colors and I only needed a few in one row. So I started getting into the Flash CS3 components code, found ColorPicker and ColorPickerEvent Class and extended them to do what I wanted. The result is the CustomColorPicker.

It uses almost everything the ColorPicker does except this color picker stays open for a time after you have selected a color. The picker event passes which index in the Array was selected and you can use that to listen for a color change and trigger an Array in you app to be used in tandem.

Only problem so far is it doesn’t register the first one selected (on INIT, which is 0) inside of the class yet. You have to do it in your app.

In the working example, it loads xml and that is broken up in to VOs. Each VO’s color is pushed into an Array to be pushed into the CustomColorPicker’s colors property and when clicked it sends a message to change the view of the car, color text and color swatch of the corresponding index. For example if you click index 3, it get VOS_array[3].image, text and displays it.
All this is done on the inside all you have to do is grab the color and array index from the CustomColorPickerEvent.COLOR_CHANGE and you are good to go.

Please excuse the mess, I stripped the client data and grabbed images off of a google search of 08 Honda Civics, and changed up some stuff to look a little different. Leaving it ugly, but it looks good enough for you to get the use of the component.
Hope you like it and let me know if you have any improvements or question.

Source | Example

When when you add features to a class and they aren’t seeming to work, STOP. Your doing something that doesn’t jive w/ you code. You are overwhelmed w/ all the code you already have. You are missing something or your code just doesn’t work w/ what your trying to do.

Solution:

Simple, create a new class. Name it controlVariable (yep, just like in Science class). Try that troublesome code there all by its self. That way if it works in controlVariable then you know you code is correct and just the implimenation in you project is off. I feel this is very helpful when I’m in the trenches. Cause sometimes some code chunks don’t play well w/ others.
Don’t be prideful and recompile a swf for 2hrs just because you think, “I declared that Blue Rectangle, it should be there”. When you didn’t addChild or import or instantiate the Shape Class.
Hope this helps someone.

So the other day I spent 2hrs looking for how to and trying to do an alpha mask (I’ve done on once). So like an idiot I was trying to do it the Photoshop way with level of gray.

My method of thinking

• Black = 100 and White = 0
• but it doesn’t matter what color only the opacity.

If you have never mad a alpha mask in Flash before or CS3 it’s easy.

1. open a fla
2. draw a shape
3. Make that shape a MovieClip
4. name it maskee_mc
5. draw a second shape
6. use a linear gradient
7. choose color
8. set one linear color alpha at say, 40
9. Make that second shape another MovieCilp
10. name it mask_mc

[as]

this.mask_mc.cacheAsBitmap = true;
this.maskee_mc.cacheAsBitmap = true;
// as2 was maskee_mc.mask(mask_mc);
maskee_mc.mask = mask_mc;

[/as]
That’s it!

I have been trying to understand Papervision 3d for the last couple of months, but all the examples are using collada or some elaborate functionality. I just wanted to test something simple. So I made a rotating box it rotates on the y axis.

Here how it goes in Flash CS3:

1. add an image into the library
2. set the linkage name to test.
3. make sure width = 336 / height = 335 (for this example)
4. and add this script

[as]

import org.papervision3d.objects.*;
import org.papervision3d.materials.*;
import org.papervision3d.scenes.*;
import org.papervision3d.cameras.*;

var container:Sprite = new Sprite();
container.x = stage.stageWidth * 0.5;
container.y = stage.stageHeight * 0.5;
addChild(container);

var scene:Scene3D = new Scene3D(container);
var camera:Camera3D = new Camera3D(p, 10);

var bam:BitmapAssetMaterial = new BitmapAssetMaterial(“test”)
bam.oneSide = false;
bam.smooth = true;

var p:Cube = new Cube(bam, 336, 335, 335, 5, 5, 5);

scene.addChild(p);

scene.renderCamera(camera);

addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, onFrame);

function onFrame(event:Event):void
{
p.rotationX % 360 == 0 ? p.rotationX = 1 : p.rotationX += 1;
trace(p.rotationX)
//p.rotationY = stage.mouseY – (stage.stageHeight * 0.5);

scene.renderCamera(camera);
}

[/as]

thats it

I have noticed some times I’m an idiot spending an hour on something that would have take five minutes if I’d have paid attention. Well I’m going to start sharing some things I’ve learned from these times.

1. in Flash/Flex when using the TextEvent.LINK make sure your textfield is set to selected = true.
   the link is clickable even when selected = false, just nothing will happen. Very fishy that should be changed. It is very misleading.

In Actionscript 3 you have to do a little more work then AS2.

When working in AS2 you could easily use a random object:

[as]
_flashVar = flashVar

//rest of code
[/as]

With AS3 you could run into IOERRORs and everything in between. The client app could end up with the ugly Runtime Error box, so being proactive about it is better.

Cause you never know, it may work great in your perfect world but when the PHP guy builds the XML structure wrong or the production artist forgets to upload the pictures. All the client will see is you dropped the ball on the flash.
So if you want to use FlashVars in AS3 I’ve found this to be a good solution. Read more »