Blog

  • Flex 2.0 alpha licensing?

    I`m too lazy to look it up – and if i would do so i would not get a word 😉
    Does anyone know if we are allowed to post sample swf generated by Flex 2.0?
    It`s such a pitty that it`s half a year to go since the web will see the future!
    By the way any good arguments i can tell my company (very design orientated) to switch to flex development?

  • Sound spectrum code

    Here is some code for playing with the sound spectrum/peak in flash player 8.5.
    package {

    import flash.display.MovieClip;
    import flash.util.trace;
    import flash.media.Sound;
    import flash.media.SoundChannel;
    import flash.net.URLRequest;
    import flash.events.*;
    import flash.util.ByteArray;
    import flash.util.SetIntervalTimer;
    import flash.display.Sprite;
    import mx.controls.Button;

    public class AsOnly extends MovieClip {

    private var mySound:Sound;
    private var myChannel:SoundChannel;
    private var mySprite:Sprite;
    private var mySprite2:Sprite;
    private var equalizer:Sprite;
    private var spectrum:ByteArray;
    private var myButton:Button;

    public function AsOnly() {
    var request:URLRequest=new URLRequest("mySound.mp3");
    spectrum=new ByteArray();
    mySound=new Sound();
    mySound.addEventListener(EventType.COMPLETE,completeListener);
    mySound.addEventListener(IOErrorEventType.IO_ERROR,ioErrorListener);

    var id:uint=flash.util.setInterval(progressListener,100);
    mySound.load(request);
    myChannel=mySound.play();

    mySprite=new Sprite();
    mySprite.graphics.beginFill(0x666666);
    mySprite.graphics.drawRect(0,0,200,20);
    mySprite.graphics.endFill();
    addChild(mySprite);

    mySprite2=new Sprite();
    mySprite2.graphics.beginFill(0x666666);
    mySprite2.graphics.drawRect(0,30,200,20);
    mySprite2.graphics.endFill();
    addChild(mySprite2);

    equalizer=new Sprite();
    addChild(equalizer);

    myButton=new Button();
    myButton.label="hallo";
    myButton.x=100;
    myButton.y=50;
    addChild(myButton);

    }

    private function completeListener(event:Event){
    trace("event: "+event.type);
    }

    private function ioErrorListener(event:Event){
    trace("error: "+event.type);
    }

    private function progressListener(){
    //trace("left Peak: "+myChannel.leftPeak+" rightPeak: "+myChannel.rightPeak);
    mySprite.scaleX=myChannel.leftPeak;
    mySprite2.scaleX=myChannel.rightPeak;
    flash.media.Sound.computeSpectrum(spectrum,false,2);
    equalizer.graphics.clear();
    equalizer.graphics.beginFill(0x666666);
    equalizer.graphics.moveTo(0,200);
    for(var i:uint=0;i
    So far i really love flex 2.0 / fp 8.5. If flash 8 was the greatest release ever for MM what is this?
    Microsoft may have something coming with Sparkle but Flex is allready here!

  • scaleGrid9 is sooo powerful!

    It`s the small additions that make Flash 8 such a great tool.
    First i thought scaleGrid9 only works with vectors but it also works with bitmaps.
    Here is a small example showing a windows window 😉 in flash. It`s all just one MovieClip.
    Drag the clip to scale it. The edges will not distort! Turn of scaleGrid9 and see how it would look without it.
    That will be great for component development.

  • final thesis on open source flex

    I`ve decided to give away my final thesis about my approach to develop an open source alternative to flex.
    It`s 150 pages dealing mostly with generating swf files out of mxml on the server. I don`t want to make a public link here but you can drop me an email and i will send you a pdf. You can see the content of my paper here. I hope you`ll like it and give some feedback.

    BTW: After finishing my studies i`m now looking for a flash developer position in the area of berlin (germany).
    I`m also thinking about trying other countries. So if you know anything drop me a line! (thanx)
    I`m just about to finish my portfolio but i could send some reference material before that 😉

    Cheers

    Update: Forgot to say that my thesis is in german 😉 But as it contains a lot of code i think even with little german you are able to follow my thoughts.

    Benjamin

  • line Style in flash 8

    We all saw in those presentations that with flash 8 one has more control over line properties in the flash IDE than in MX 2004.
    Since those presentations i tried to find the way to use this via Actionscript and tata…
    After some try and error efforts i found that the lineStyle method has several new arguments. The first two are still unknown to me the third new parameter is for the cap style (i tried “round”,”none”, “square”) and the forth is for the joint of two lines (i found “bevel”! and “round”).
    See this example here
    Sure you need Flash 8 beta player installed to see the magic.
    Get the fla here

    Anyone know more about those parameters?

    Cheers

    Benz

  • could flash 8 solve flv problems?

    It seems Flash 8 solves one of the biggest problems i had with locally loaded, progressive flv files.
    The problem was that only one client could connect to the same flv at the same time.
    It seems that it was a bug in the Flash Player 7.19. I tried it with Flash 8 beta – and it worked!
    I used this standalone wrapper.
    I would like to test it with a previous flash 7 (7.14) standalone player but couldn`t find a link to it.
    I know their is this macromedia archive for old players but it only archives browser plugins.

    But it all looks quite promising.

  • Splitting BEX into several tools

    I have developed BEX as far as i wanted for my diploma thesis. One thing i realized is that the server side stuff like generating the swf, merging components and analysing MXML files isn`t such a hard part. The problem is the component framework. For testing purpose i`ve rebuilt some of the containers from Flex like Box and DevidedBox. But for BEX to become useful it will need a strong component base like flex. I think i`ll wait for some open source-frameworks to arrive or 8Ball as i thing this will change some things in component development.
    Until than i plan to take some parts of BEX and release them as seperate tools.
    Here is what i have:

    A Class Analyser (analyses as classes and tracks down their functions, props, events + metadata)

    A basic SVG2SWF converter (it will really be usefull when 8ball comes out)

    A SWC-Merger (merges several SWC`s to one file and looks for dependencies and such things)

    A Media Injector (injects images or other types of external content into a swf which than can be accessed by a identifier like @embed)

    I think some of these tools especially the SWC-Merger could be great additions to the MTASC universe.

    I would like to get some feedback on how you would use such tools so i can make them as developer friendly as possible.

  • Could become a great year!

    I`ve just received the news that this little blog has been added to the macromedia news aggregator!
    That will hopefully motivate me to update this blog more regularly. But no doubt i will. In 8 days i will be finished with my final thesis and there is a lot of stuff in it that i will release here. Than i need to find a job and did i missed something – flash player 8! So as the title says i`m sure this will be a great year.

  • The week starts with a boooom!

    What a great start in a new week! Here are some new features for the flash 8 player:
    – support for GIF,PNG and progressive Jpegs!!!
    – File Upload/Download

    Macromedia has really listened to us developers!
    Can`t wait for Flash 8