NewSourceMedia Blog » Flash

Apple bans Flash CS5 iPhone App Compiler

admin — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 04:12:47 +0000

Update: Today April 9th 2010, Lee Brimelow, an Adobe platform evangelist responded to the latest poster from Apple with "Go screw yourself " on his popular web blog TheFlashBlog.com. It's hard not to notice the frustration of developers across the blogosphere fuel by Apple's refusal to allow third party API compiled apps in to the iTunes store. The language from Apple's agreement states "Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs". This stipulation is a loathsome move by Apple to render the new Flash CS5 feature of porting Flash files as iPhone/iPad apps totally useless. I wonder how many flash developers will delay upgrade to CS5 once they get wind of Apple's stipulation. I've noticed a few developers complaining that their apps were rejected because of the use of third party APIs such as Corona, PhoneGap & Titanium Read the Titanium's rejection forum post here: http://developer.appcelerator.com/question/3921/about-the-iphone-private-api-in-use John Gruber of Daring Fireball was the first to post these changes: http://daringfireball.net/2010/04/iphone_agreement_bans_flash_compiler

Adobe Flash not on Apple iPad or iPhone

admin — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 02:29:42 +0000

Why is it that Apple refuse to assets Adobe in their effort to deploy Flash on iPhones and iPads? Some people believe that Apple fearful that Flash will reek havoc on their battery life. Some think it's purly profit driven. Think about it. Apple only used Flash on their web site for about a year or two before strictly used QuickTime to handle all of their site's rich-media content. So they are keep in the same vain by not supporting flash on their Mobile devices. As a consumer and as a Flash developer, I'm split on this issue. Why? Well I've been a Apple user (designer) long before I became a Flash user (developer). Plus I've always enjoyed Apple product because they have the tendency of being much more stable than their competitors. I do feel that Adobe is getting the short end of the stick though. Together, Apple's OS coupled with Adobe's creative suits has been such a perfect relationship for those of us in the creative industry. But now with all of the new growth that Apple has had in the mobile sector, they are leaving Adobe to fend for themselves. The good new is Adobe took some huge steps to remedy this problem by adding a new publishing option in the new Adobe® Flash® Professional CS5. We will now beable to publish AS3 projects files as native iPhone apps. I'm note sure on all the technoligy behine it but they have a few apps up on line now ready for your iPhone... all build using Adobe CS5 beta. Here are a few iPhone applications build using Flash and downloadable via the Apple App Store. http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashcs5/appsfor_iphone/

How to pass fashvars using AS3 and Swfobject

admin — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 03:18:48 +0000

Swfobject has become the most popular choice for embedding flash content on the web. They've made it extremely easy to pass variable (flashVars) in to flash using two type of syntax. Take a look at the example below: <script type="text/javascript"> … Continue reading →

How to validate Flash absolute url paths

admin — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 15:50:02 +0000

You may want to dynamically change the way your flash file behaves based on where it's hosted. To do so, you should utilize the "_url" variable to obtain the absolute path of your flash file. Actionscript 2: [as2] var path = _root._url; trace (path); // here's how to validate if the flash file is running locally off line. trace (_root._url.substr(0,7)); if(_root._url.substr(0,7)=="file://"){ trace("running offline"); } [/as2]

MC Tweener Add Glow Filter

admin — Tue, 19 May 2009 15:43:16 +0000

If you are using the latest SVN version of Tweener (AS3), you can get the GlowFilter with Tweener to work. Here's the code sample assuming you have a movie clip named "box" on the stage. Most important thing here is to make sure that you initiate the shortcut: FilterShortcuts.init();

// Import Filters
import flash.filters.*;
// Import Tweener
import caurina.transitions.Tweener;
// Import Tweener propertie shortcuts
import caurina.transitions.properties.FilterShortcuts;
// *** Very Importaint *** : Initialize shortcuts
FilterShortcuts.init();

var glowIn:GlowFilter = new GlowFilter(0x9A1A06,0.8,10,10,2,2);
var glowOut:GlowFilter = new GlowFilter(0x9A1A06,0,10,10,2,2);

box.addEventListener (MouseEvent.MOUSE_OVER, onOver);
box.addEventListener (MouseEvent.MOUSE_OUT, onOut);

function onOver (m:MouseEvent):void {
	Tweener.addTween (m.currentTarget, {_filter:glowIn, time:1});
}

function onOut (m:MouseEvent):void {
	Tweener.addTween (m.currentTarget, {_filter:glowOut, time:1});
}

Create Empty MovieClip Dynamically in AS3

admin — Tue, 19 May 2009 14:03:49 +0000

Here is how to dynamically create a movie clip in ActionScript 3 using the MovieClip class First you have to declare the movie clip: var myMC:MovieCLip = new MovieClip(); Than you have to add it to the stage using addChild: addChild(myMC); You can create MovieClips, Sprites, and Objects by calling the word new Here is an example of the AS2 syntax:

var myMC:MovieClip = _root.createEmptyMovieClip("mc1", _root.getNextHighestDepth());

But for AS3, remember that after declaring your MovieClip it remains in memory and won't be visible on stage until you call addChild(YOUR_MOVIE_CLIP_NAME) Here is the AS3 example with property settings:

var myMC:MovieClip = new MovieClip();
myMC.x = 50;
myMC.y = 50;
myMC.name = "mc1";

addChild(myMC);

Preloaders in AS3

admin — Thu, 14 May 2009 19:10:05 +0000

Here are a few way to create a preloader in flash actionscript 3 One way is to set two event listeners on the statge for PROGRESS and COMPLETE.

import flash.display.*;
stop();
this.loaderInfo.addEventListener (ProgressEvent.PROGRESS, preloaderFunc);
function preloaderFunc (event:ProgressEvent):void {
var pcent:Number=event.bytesLoaded/event.bytesTotal*100;
preloader_mc.txt.text=int(pcent)+"%";
}
this.loaderInfo.addEventListener (Event.COMPLETE, playFrame);
function playFrame (e:Event):void {
play ();
}

A second method would be to use the Enter Frame event like the onEnterFrame for as2.

addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, preloader);
function preloader(event:Event) :void {
	var bytestotal = stage.loaderInfo.bytesTotal;
	var bytesloaded = stage.loaderInfo.bytesLoaded;
	var pctLoaded:int = bytesloaded * 100 / bytestotal;
	preloader_mc.txt.text = String(pctLoaded) + "%";
	if (bytesloaded >= bytestotal) {
		removeEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, preloader);
		play();
	}
}
}

Flash Actionscript 3 Reflection Class Fix

admin — Thu, 14 May 2009 19:01:39 +0000

Thanks to Pixelfumes' AS3 Reflection class, creating reflections on static images and video clips in Flash AS3 is very easy. However there is a problem that many people find in FireFox on a PC.

The reflection image will start to randomly flickers.
The browser's CPU will run high and in some cases, cause your browser to crash.

To fix this problem, set the update time to -1 (not 0) This will stop the interval from redrawing the same reflection over and over again. Try this:

import com.pixelfumes.reflect.*;
var r1:Reflect = new Reflect({mc:mc.thumb_mc, alpha:50, ratio:50, distance:0, updateTime:-1, reflectionDropoff:1});

You can download the latest Actionscript 3 Reflection Class here

Clear or Delete an Array in AS3

admin — Wed, 13 May 2009 13:43:34 +0000

Here is how to delete and clear out an array using the Slice method in Flash Actionscript 3 In this example we defined an array called people and fill it with three names. Than we use the Slice method by setting the first parameter index to 0 (zero represents the first element in the array) and the second parameter to full length of the array. people.length should equal 3. If you trace do a trace on the array people, it should return an "undefined".

var people:Array = new Array();
people.push ("Bob");
people.push ("Alex");
people.push ("Frank");
// clear the array
people.splice(0,people.length);
trace(people[0]);

You could also store the deleted strings in to a second array for future reference. Here is how to assign those strings to a new deleted_people array:

var people:Array = new Array();
people.push ("Bob");
people.push ("Alex");
people.push ("Frank");
// clear the array
var deleted_people:Array = people.splice(0,people.length);
trace(deleted_people); // Bob, Alex, Frank

AS3 Blur Filter with Tweener class

admin — Tue, 12 May 2009 20:39:16 +0000

Here's how to add blur filters when using Tweener. The example below uses a movie clip with the instants name "mc1". Make sure you change it to match the movie clip in your flash file.

// Import Filters
import flash.filters.*;
// Import Tweener
import caurina.transitions.Tweener;
// Import Tweener propertie shortcuts
import caurina.transitions.properties.FilterShortcuts;
// *** Very Importaint *** : Initialize shortcuts
FilterShortcuts.init();
// Blur x and y at 10px in 1 second using linear transition
Tweener.addTween (mc1, {_Blur_blurX: 10, _Blur_blurY: 10, _Blur_quality:2, time:1, transition:"linear"});

Note there was a change in the Tweener class so you may have to change the "B" to a lower or upper case depending on what version of Tweener you have: Upper case B: _Blur_blurX lower case b: _blur_blurX Download a working sample here: http://tweener.googlecode.com/