SWF It Good

Alright, in this example, I am cutting each pixel in an image and piecing it back together again. Only this time I animating the pixel to a new location, piecing back the image at 200%. I think this can open a lot doors in what you can do with a bitmap. Read more »

I was messing around last night with AIR and I stumbled apon this:

1. start an AIR app in flash cs3
2. add a list component
   1. name it dir_list
3. drop the code below in the actions panel
4. And Viola!
5. PS – PC people, I put a test to see if My Documents in in that Directory.

[as]

import flash.filesystem.*;

var userDirFiles:Array = File.userDirectory.getDirectoryListing();
for (var i:uint = 0; i < userDirFiles.length; i++) {
if (userDirFiles[i].isDirectory) {
//this.display_txt.text = String(userDirFiles[i].nativePath);
dir_list.addItem({label:userDirFiles[i].nativePath })
var tmpString:String = userDirFiles[i].nativePath;
if(tmpString.search(/My Documents/) != -1)
{

dir_list.addItem({label:”working”});
break;
}
}
} [/as]

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

Source

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

So I was reading a detailed explaination of what the new bet Flash player “Moviestar” can do on someones blog, I forgot who that was. After testing this out I realized how cool this update is.

Flash now can play FLV, MOV, QT, h.264 WITH NO FOOLING AROUND. That is a good amount codecs to support. So I desided to try it for myself.

Here is how you get HD into flash.

1. GET THE NEW FLASH PLAYER 9 9.0.60.184
2. get some HD content. (I downloaded a Steve Carell movie from Apple Trailers)
3. change the file extension from .mov (or other valid format) to .flv (so you can trick Flash since all the API is not up to snuff, when it gets out of beta you won’t have to do this)
4. go throught usual import video and chose your clandestine .mov file
5. set the size to 1920 x 1080 ( the metadata will not auto size it)
6. test in the updated flash player browser (using authoring tool player will not do anything) I’d suggest selecting a skin that has Full Screen.

Don’t believe me here is an example | source

Flash Video has hit the big time if you haven’t already read.

Flash is able to now load and play .mp4,.m4v,.m4a,.mov and .3gp files using the same NetStream API and is HD compatible
for more info

Also Yahoo released some new components

This is an answer to the components Adobe pulled from Flash CS3 and then some.

1. Menu
2. Tree
3. Charting
4. Auto Complete
5. TabBar (great design)

for more info

**UPDATE July 19th**
This code uses FlashVars and SWFObject. I ran into a problem, as we continued to build, w/ getting data to show in the swf.
To fix this error switch out[as]
so.addParam(“wmode”, “transparent”);
[/as]with[as]
so.addParam(“wmode”, “opaque”);
[/as]or delete it all together

**UPDATE July 19th**

I’m working on a TileList for work for a peek at our Portfolios. Right now I’m trying to adapt the TileList to my liking with back and forth button instead of the scrollpanel. But I wanted to share the wealth w/ what I’ve dug up on this Flash CS3 component. I find most of what’s online to be really crappy and not too robust.

I’ve provided a zip to my work: titelist.zip

[as]

import fl.controls.ScrollBarDirection;
import fl.events.ListEvent;
import fl.controls.listClasses.*;
import flash.net.*;
import flash.events.*;
import fl.data.*;

var xml:XML;
// this set a var for parameter xmlData that is set in the
// SWFObject
var _xmlData:* = root.loaderInfo.parameters.xmlData;

// if someone for got to set the xmlData parameter
// load default xml
if(_xmlData == undefined)
{
_xmlData = “xml/default.xml”
}

trace(root.loaderInfo.parameters.xmlData);
// request xml file
var requester:URLRequest = new URLRequest(_xmlData as String);
//load xml file
var loader:URLLoader = new URLLoader(requester);

//set dataprovider to the loaded xml
function setItems(evt:Event):void
{
xml = XML(evt.target.data);
trace(xml);
list.dataProvider = new DataProvider(xml);
}

loader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, setItems);

//on click of item go to data/url
function onItemClick(e:ListEvent):void
{
navigateToURL(new URLRequest(e.item.data),”_self”);

}

list.addEventListener(ListEvent.ITEM_CLICK, onItemClick);

// Set scroll bar direction
list.direction = ScrollBarDirection.HORIZONTAL;

// position TileList and set column and row values
list.move(0,0);
list.columnWidth = 122;
list.rowHeight = 112;

list.width = 366;
list.height = 112;
list.columnCount = 3;
list.rowCount = 1;
[/as]