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.

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.

thanks Microsoft for the image

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.

Click through for Disclaimer and screen shots via the Wireless Weblog.

Disclaimer: I found out all my Sidebar and Google Desktop information via the Google Desktop page, the Unofficial Google Weblog, Mike Outmesguine of the Wireless Weblog and the Google Group devoted to Google Desktop Plug-ins. I do not have Google Desktop installed personally. Screen shots below:

Add new Panel to sidebar

Flash panel properties

FlashInsider logo in Sidebar

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.

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 work around 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.

via ishbadiddle and the Social Software Weblog

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.

via O'Reilly

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.

via Jay is

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.

via downloadsquad

I've been thinking about a post I saw on the 5 1/2 blog at the beginning of the month. They ran into a problem when running Boolean tests of 'null === undefined' inside ActionScript for a Flex application and couldn't figure out what this traced to false and 'null == undefined' traces to true. In order to explain this we need to dive into the definitions of these two equality operators. The single equals sign (=) in ActionScript means 'is assigned to.' In other words, 'x = 2' means x is assigned the value of zero. The double equals sign (==) or equality operator means 'is equal to' and is used as a Boolean expression to see if the things on both sides of the operator have equal values regardless of type. In this case, 'x == 2' means 'x has the same value as 2.' The triple equals sign (===) or strict equality means 'is exactly equal to' and is used as a Boolean expression to see if things on both sides of the operator are equal in all respects (value and type). Here 'x===2' means 'x has the same value as 2 and has the same type as two.' (You could also get the same result by using the equality operator and the typeof operator).

But wait, how can we see this in action? Find out more after the jump.

Open a new FLA in flash and open the actions panel for the first frame of the project. Now enter the following:

var theNumber:Number;
theNumber = 2;
var theString:String;
theString = "2";
trace(theNumber == theString);
trace(theNumber === theString);
stop();

Now select the Control menu and choose Test movie to see what the trace statements display. Notice the Number '2' has the same value as the String "2" but they are of different types hence the second evaluation to false.

What does this have to do with the problem of null equaling undefined but null not strictly equally undefined? Return to your FLA and change you ActionScript to the following:

trace(typeof(undefined));
trace(typeof(null));
stop();

Testing the movie will show that 'undefined' has a value of 'undefined' and 'null' has a value of 'null.' Remember the definition of the strict equality operator. Based on the types of the two values alone they should not be strictly equal, but why are they considered equal via the equality operator (==)? To answer this we need to look at the basic values of null and undefined. Null is used to define a variable with no value or to define an empty set of values. Also null evaluated to 0 in a numeric sense Undefined if used to explain that a variable has no value before a specific value has been assigned or even before the variable has been declared. Both definitions are similar and thus equal in a broad sense but when carefully (or strictly) examined the two are not exactly equal.

Let's end with a quick and dirty summary. Null is equal to undefined in value, but not type so null is not strictly equal to undefined. I know this is confusing, so if you have any comments or questions feel free to comment below. For more information on everything here check out the Macromedia LiveDocs: undefined, null, typeof, equality operators

via 5 1/2 blog

Internet TV is looking for designers create a design for their open source video player. The video player technology is based inside a bit torrent style video distribution service. The code has been written for the backend, but the frontend is not yet pretty so Internet TV has a contest running until July 31 offering a thousand dollars to the best design for the video player front end and three hundred dollars for the best logo.

Conceivably a Flash based design could be created to accomplish all of their requirements including a channel sidebar, a main display window and a thumbnail collection view. The trick would be to create something open source inside Flash, so maybe a visit to OSFlash would be the best place to start with you design. The current alpha of their player only runs on Mac OSX, but the future players will be cross platform.

The tips box strikes again with the opportunity for all digital media artists and designers. The Fita Foundation has begun accepting entries for their Second International Prize for Digital Art (I can only assume they mean second annual). The contest has a theme of Maternity and all work must be submitted on cross platform CD in a web compatible format, like Flash. The winner will receive five thousand euros (about six thousand US dollars). If you enter the contest and post your work to a personal website shoot me a link for a quick artist's critique.

Get those creative juices flowing and good luck.

Just came across this freeware product that allows real-time tracking of your Flash files from within the swf. MochiBot Beta allows a developer to add a couple of lines of ActionScript to track their work anywhere around the web. Who cares if your work gets taken and put on someone else's site, now you can find out where it is and either tell them to take it down or just be proud. The code is placed in an empty frame of separate layer in the developer's main timeline. It creates an empty movieclip and loads a specific tracker swf from MochiBot's site. Then the developer can login to the MochiBot site and see live statistics including average views, traffic reports and individual domain reporting.

This means you can prove your cool Flash animation is popular web wide and use the stats to get more clients, especially those companies that want a custom viral marketing scheme. The concept is so simple; I can't believe I didn't think of it first.

Dammit, Janet. Let's lighten the mood a little with a Rocky Horror Bunny Show. Angry Alien Productions takes popular movies and cult classics and make entertaining bunny-fied 30 second Flash shorts of them and releases them for our view pleasure. Their latest offering is the quick and dirty bunny version of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. As of today they will also be premiering their shorts on Starz. Be sure to check out the entertainment at the link and see how your comic talent mixed with Flash design can get your work on television.

via asymptomatic