Er, um... While flipping through my Flash search feeds today I came across a post by Jean-Francois
Arseneault at ArseNealt.ca blurting out how he didn't realize how complex Flash is. He downloaded the 30 day trial of
Flash 8 recently, installed the app and opened the IDE to its shinny new GUI in OSX. He was quickly over powered by the
shock of panels and all sorts of options to be found once inside and almost immediately had to close down the program.
He says he will grab a beginner's guide soon in order to get into Flash for real in the future.
Reading this reminded me of the first time I jumped into Flash with Flash 4 on a Mac G3 workstation with OS9. My
hardship involved jumping from Windows to Mac and jumping from limited Director 7 and Photoshop 5 experience into the
new Flash world. Though my jump from Director to Flash was probably easier than my original jump from straight web
design (only Frontpage and Corel, please forgive me, it was 1998) to Director. I lucked into jumping into the IDE
via an art class on Digital media and immediately jumped into scripting (using my background in Java and
other object oriented programming languages really helped here) and animation(Director and experience
with art in general helped here). And now I'm here... What about you? How was your first time? Did you get thrown off
track till finding that perfect starter guide? Did you dive right in and push out that first site or game or what ever?
Let me know in the comments below.
InformIT put up a sound tutorial earlier this month that shows how to create a control a couple of sound buttons that
mute and unmute audio that is playing from your library. The tutorial is meant as a starting point for new Flash users
who want to integrate sound into their projects and want to give their users a little needed control of the audio. New
Flashers can extend this tutorial by flipping to the Livedocs at Adobe's site and looking over the Sound object. You can take a user's experience to
a whole new level with audio manipulation via balance, fade, volume and even dynamic control. I recommend even browsing
the Microphone object to look into ways to
create a visual experience that feeds on sounds fed into the user's computer (much like many of us are doing with the
Camera object for video controls).
Last week, we all heard of the security risk posed by the current Flash player and I'm sure
you all already updated your web players. Mike Downey points out
that there are also updates for
the Flash 8 and Flash MX 2004 Test Movie players as well. So start your morning off right by patching away!
My network guy says firewalls are good. I don't know about that. Lock them down enough and say goodbye to some very cool Flash features. Ok so maybe network security should be more important that building a desktop Flash-based XML reader (ie: RSS, my precious). It seems some Firewalls can prevent your Flash Player on your desktop from having access to the outside world and could put a crimp in my plans for Google Sidebar. Of course this issue may only be for extremely secure networks. Maybe I should just stick with non-loading development... Options exist though these may ruin my movie. According to the Flash-XML FAQ, you could switch what port Flash reads external data from, but this may cause more problems than not getting any data at all. Plus, once the project is deployed to the web the issues disappear, since most web servers seems to be a little more open than most networks. What do you think? For more information on XML in Flash check out the Flash-XML FAQ at the link below.
Quick how do you make a Flash video player? Easy... Open Flash MX 2004 change your stage to 300 x 200 pixels. Open Components and the Media Components list. Drag the MediaDisplay component to the stage. Open the Align panel and re-align the component to the center (no borders here). Select your MediaDisplay on the stage and open the Component Inspector. For URL type theVideo.flv. Select Automatically Play and Use Preferred Size. Save and Publish to SWF. Now you have a very quick, very dirty FLV player of your own. Place in a directory with any Flash Video file. Re-name said video to theVideo.flv. Open the quick and dirty player in Flash player (or the web browser of your choice). Since the video player isn't wrapped in HTML, it has no size set. The size of the movie is the default size now, but zoom in an boom you have the possiblity of full screen video.
Other ideas... Add a bit of actionscript to the beginning of the player to ask for the file location of the video the user wants to play. Use the MediaPlayback Component instead to utilize Flash's default player properties. Press Ctrl+F or Apple+F to automatically fullscreen the player in Flash Player, repeat to bring back to normal size. Add your new video player to Google Sidebar and watch TV on your Desktop.
Google has been releasing new stuff left and right. Sure Google Talk is cool, but what about that new Google Sidebar. Though Sidebar (and Google Desktop) is currently Windows only that will not stop development. Sidebar features user customizable panels and a full API for creating your own plug-ins. Unfortunately that API is based on the Microsoft Windows Component Object (COM) and may be something Flash developers don’t want to deal with. Then how do we get into plug-in development? Via Flash and the ActiveX plug-in display. Sidebar’s settings include a Panels and Alerts box. You can view the ActiveX plug-ins installed on your machine (including Flash) by:
1. Click the menu arrow button at the top of Sidebar 2. Select “Add/Remove Panels…” 3. Check the “Show ActiveX plug-ins…” box 4. Check the box next to “Shockwave Flash Object” (and other plug-ins if you want) 5. Click OK.
Now to add your Flash file to the Sidebar. Click the down arrow on the new panel and select Options to view the Flash panel’s properties. If you’re using an online Flash file type its URL into the Movie URL box (the file path should also work here). Select Quality and other properties to change the display. Click OK and see your Flash in the sidebar. Now you can use a Flash-based RSS reader or a Flash mp3 player or a Flash anything inside your sidebar. Plus Flash developers now have and easy in for all Sidebar users, all we need is someone to make a panel creation plug-in that asks for a URL and automatically inserts our Flash.
If you can't wait for the release of the Flash 8 IDE (formerly known as 8-Ball) to start authoring for the Flash 8 player (formerly known as Maelstrom), well...you don't have to! Neil over at nwebb.co.uk published a tutorial way back in May on how to use the Flash 7 IDE to publish SWFs for Flash 8. Now, you'll have to code because obviously there aren't any WYSIWYG tools for the new goodies in the older version, but you too can start exploring the new BitmapData class (and more!). Be the first on your block to apply dynamic drop shadows to your text! Wow your neighbors with your Photoshop-like blend modes! You'll already be a pro when the new IDE hits your office mate's front porch!
Speaking of Flash-based email, haven’t you always wanted to create a Flash-based email for for your site? You could mess with your users and force them to praise you in the subject or content. You could even open up the full Flash site to anonymous commentary. The Macromedia Flash support forums coughed up a great tutorial describing how to create your own PHP and Flash-based email form the other day and now I am passing it on. The tutorial is contained in a sample chapter (warning large PDF) from David Powers Foundation PHP 5 for Flash book. Remember PHP is relatively easy to understand, so it should not be to hard for you .NET crazies and JSP wackos to convert to the code of your choice.
A couple of years back, you might have gotten an email in your inbox that took you off to a nutty looking website where a geeky white guy taught you "How to Dance Properly." That guy's name is Ze (pronounced "zay") Frank, and that email is one of the great viral stories of the web. In the end, a lot of folks got that email and went off to learn not only how to dance properly but all kinds of life lessons. And then, if you stuck around, you might have even found some of Ze's cool Flash toys like Kaleidoscope for Shelda's Mom. By this time, you pretty much knew that this guy was brilliant.
Well, I'm here to confirm that Ze is indeed one intelligent guy. Not only has he created a highly entertaining website that continues to grow, but he's thought a lot about what it means to be creative and communicate with people (via the web as well a in other venues). Ze's presentation at SIGGRAPH showed not only his erudition but his passion, and I have to say that it was for me probably the highlight among all the highlights.
Currently, Ze is writing a book on creativity which I will highly recommend even before reading it. But if you can't wait for Ze's book, then read what Ze is reading!
Argh! Yes that’s right, Argh! I came across this portfolio site for a small design firm and I couldn’t stop browsing through it. Sure the site is obviously in the beginning stages and really needs some fleshing out but the dancing logo mixed with the static television effects just would not let me go. Wacked USA is a small portfolio website created to showcase a designer’s talents so he could demonstrate his skills since apparently he needed a cool site to find a cool job. I gotta say, I’d love to see some more of your workaround the web, but please stop it with the hypnotic logo!
While trolling the web the other day looking for Flash fun, I came across a strange complaint post that referenced a “hidden backdoor in flash player.” In the comments ever present Flash guru John Dowdell responds with a link to the Flash Player settings manager. Of course I took a peek to see what he was talking about and I find a cool Flash based version of the internet options found in most web browsers. You can easily edit the information various websites have stored on your computer for their Flash files use. You can adjust which sites are allowed to access your web cam and microphone. There is even an option to check for the latest Flash player along with a notification option. While this whole thing is really cool, I wondered why I had never noticed it before. Then I right clicked a Flash project in my browser and realized the link to the settings manager was right under my nose the whole time. If you open the Flash Player Settings window and click the monitor with an eyeball to view the privacy settings, there is a button to open advanced settings. This button is a direct link to the settings manager. Very interesting, but I think we need a quick and dirty improvement here. Sure its great that I can see all available setting on the advance settings web page but I think the in player settings window needs to include that update notification option with a little informational box saying the user’s version of Flash is up to date.
Time for a visual display of that wondrous Del.icio.us cloud. Stamen has created an open source Flash display that allows you to see all the popular Del.icio.us bookmarked pages one week an a time. You can click on each color-coded link or even see how links have lost or gained popularity in the last week. There is even an option to step back through the history of the popular bookmarks to compare them. While you’re checking it out click on the select links below the display to view highlights of each link’s popularity over time.
Yahoo recently announced the release of the Yahoo! Shopping Web Services API. The API gives the developer direct access to product search, catalog listing and merchant search formulation. The bundled development kit includes code samples in Perl, Phyton, PHP, Java, Javascript, and… (drumroll please) FLASH.
Before you break out that dev kit check out the services examples and notice how easy the Flash integration must be. Each web service call returns an XML formatted page that any Flash developer can tell you will be readable and parse-able via ActionScript. Finally a web professional can create a professional online store for relatively cheap via Yahoo! that uses a Flash front end to wow users and clients. Hopefully Homestarrunner will re-code their store in Flash and I will be able to buy my beloved Strong Bad shirts directly from Bubs.
Now that you have had your cup of Flash tea why not head over to Teagames and try out some time-wasting extreme physics in Flash-based games. None of the games are easy to stop playing so make sure you finish the rest of your weekend chores before clicking this link. If you want to learn more about some of the math that is behind these types of games check out this physics in Flash study on ActionScript.org.
Yahoo announced today they had bought Konfabulator and will be giving it away for free to all who want it. Konfabulator is a background application tool that allows a user to run small application widgets composed of simple JavaScript, XML, and images in a background layer of their operating system. This application is mimicked by the current Dashboard feature of OSX Tiger 10.4. Unfortunately developers can’t wrap Flash projects inside of widgets, yet, but there may be a good reason for this. Apple’s Dashboard discouraged use of Java, Flash and Quicktime due to their memory use. Conceivably adding a Flash project to a widget could slow a user’s computer to a crawl (given there would be more than one widget running at a time and possibly multiple large Flash based widgets devouring the computer’s memory). So let’s think of a different way to accomplish your Flash widget ideal. Create a simple widget with a thumbnail of your application in it. Clicking the thumbnail opens the Flash project in a new sized web browser via the JavaScript within the widget. Use the SharedObject class to keep track of the user’s interaction in the Flash project and enable a close window command when the user switches to another window or application. Unfortunately now you have an application that doesn’t stay open. Maybe the user could have a keep window open option? Of course all of this maybe moot because the Konfabulator developer has stated in his forums that embedded Flash is currently on their requested features list.
InformIT put up a sound tutorial earlier this month that shows how to create a control a couple of sound buttons that
mute and unmute audio that is playing from your library. The tutorial is meant as a starting point for new Flash users
who want to integrate sound into their projects and want to give their users a little needed control of the audio. New
Flashers can extend this tutorial by flipping to the 
My network guy says firewalls are good. I don't know about that. Lock them down enough and say goodbye to some very cool Flash features. Ok so maybe network security should be more important that building a desktop Flash-based XML reader (ie: RSS, my precious). It seems some Firewalls can prevent your Flash Player on your desktop from having access to the outside world and could put a crimp in my plans for Google Sidebar. Of course this issue may only be for extremely secure networks. Maybe I should just stick with non-loading development... Options exist though these may ruin my movie. According to the 
Quick how do you make a 
Google has been releasing new stuff left and right. Sure 
Speaking of 
Argh! Yes that’s right, Argh! I came across this portfolio site for a small design firm and I couldn’t stop browsing through it. Sure the site is obviously in the beginning stages and really needs some fleshing out but the dancing logo mixed with the static television effects just would not let me go. Wacked USA is a small portfolio website created to showcase a designer’s talents so he could demonstrate his skills since apparently he needed a cool site to find a cool job. I gotta say, I’d love to see some more of 
While trolling the web the other day looking for Flash fun, I came across a 
Time for a visual display of that wondrous Del.icio.us cloud. Stamen has created an open source Flash display that allows you to see all the popular Del.icio.us bookmarked pages one week an a time. You can click on each color-coded link or even see how links have lost or gained popularity in the last week. There is even an option to step back through the history of the popular bookmarks to compare them. While you’re checking it out click on the select links below the display to view highlights of each link’s popularity over time.
Yahoo recently announced the release of the 
Now that you have had your cup of 
