connectedpixel.com - Flash Articles

Preloader strategy examples

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 11:05:14 -0700

Here's a excellent tutorial on preloader animations. Includes human interface implications.

Big Data Scrolling Flex Charts

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 10:45:10 -0800

If your TextArea has a lot of text, you get a scroll bar. If your datagrid has too many rows or columns, you get scroll bars. If your Image is too large, you can put it inside a container with scrollbars. Charts, however, do not have scrollbars. Charts with too much data look like this:

Callback filter functions in E4X

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 07:48:07 -0700

While porting some xpath-heavy AS2 code to AS3, I ran into problems. E4X (new and improved xml support in AS3) seems to make xpath obsolete. However, all the E4X query examples in the docs use hard-coded literals. I can't use literals because I don't know at code-time what the queries are going to be. My AS2 code creates xpath paths dynamically from variables. What is the E4X equivalent?

After some initial confusion on my part, I now get it. In retrospect, what's below seems obvious -- but that's the way it always is.

Selecting a variable-named node type

Let's work with this xml:

Detecting unwell xml

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:52:24 -0700

If an XML file is created manually or edited manually, it is easy to misspell a closing tag, misplace a greater than sign or forget a quote mark – it's easy to create non-well-formed xml. Flash will not be able to read it and your application will fail. Furthermore, it might load some of the data and operate in a mysterious, crippled fashion, and the cause of the problem will not be obvious.

More embedded font strangeness – CSS

Wed, 03 Jan 2007 19:37:43 -0800

I thought I was done with the Flash-embedded-font in my previous blog entry, but there is more. I received an email requesting help with CSS and embedded fonts, and when I looked into it, found some quirks related to the CSS specified font-family and bold/italic text.

The Unbearable Strangeness of Embedding Fonts

Wed, 03 Jan 2007 19:19:45 -0800

The 'why' and 'how' of embedding fonts is a Flash 101 topic. The main 'why' is that the user can't see fonts that she doesn't have. If your swf uses these fonts, you need to bundle them in the swf (or with the swf). The 'how' also seems very simple: in the properties panel for a given text field, click the 'Embed' button and select the character range you want to embed. Click OK. Done. Move on.

But it's really not that simple. Once you start using fonts in a shared library, referring to embedded fonts in a css file, etc. weird problems start popping up. I've had embedded text working in some swfs but not others, static fields displaying garbage and bloated swfs.

Preprocessor ASSERTS in ActionScript

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:05:38 -0700

Unlike most other computer languages, when ActionScript code fails, it fails silently. If my code sends an undefined argument to a function, there is no crash, no alert message, nothing scary.

Overall, this is a good thing. If my live swf hits a bug, it might work just fine, no one is the wiser and life goes goes on blissfully unaware.

This behavior has a downside, however. The bug that is ignored now might cascade into a serious problem later -- in the next frame or in some code far away from the source of the problem. And I'm left scratching my head trying to figure out the original source of the problem in my code. The appearance of the problem and the source of the problem may be far apart.

Array.sortOn does not work with MovieClips

Mon, 02 Oct 2006 13:59:49 -0700

This problem drove me crazy. I'd thought I'd get it in the google-verse so anyone else who runs into it can benefit from my pain.

Array.sortOn() does not seem to work when the array elements are objects derived from MovieClip. The following code demonstrates.

Simple class. "zz" property will be used to sort an array of these objects.

Bandwidth Limit/Monitor tool

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 18:42:45 -0700

I was working on a website that needs to adapt to bandwidth. To really test it, I had to run it over the Internet -- the 'simulate download' feature didn't cut it in this case. And, I don't have a dial-up modem anymore. Furthermore, the adaptive features needs to work over a variety of bandwidths.

I found a cheap, very useful tool: Netlimiter 2. The pro version is only $30. There is also a lite version. With this tool, you can limit and/or monitor the bandwith and bytes downloaded for each application and each ip address.

My Carpal-Tunnel Solution

Wed, 14 May 2008 08:44:57 -0700

It was about 10 years ago when carpal-tunnel first hit me. Every time I put my hand on my mouse, I'd get spasms of pain in my various parts of my arm. I tried special ergonomic mice and trackballs, but they didn't help. I tried speech recognition software, but it was a joke. Whether I could continue with my profession was becoming an issue. I even tried moving the mouse with my feet. Nose mousing was next.

Then I discovered the Wacom tablet. For a long time, it was a godsend. The pain almost went away -- but not forever.

Face Morph - Part 1, Morphin' George

Wed, 07 Jun 2006 08:04:28 -0700

Unlike Grant Skinner's gooify, which is a free-form distortion, the morph presented here is more constrained. It has an editable triangle mesh (which I'm not showing right now).

Simulate download: Static vars not re-initialized

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 18:44:09 -0700

The 'Simulate Download' feature in the Flash IDE is very useful. It can help debug race conditions that are a cause of intermittent problems. However, it can also lead you astray.

Problem: AS2 static variables are NOT reinitialized when you hit control-Enter the 2nd time to go into simulate-download mode.

If you'd like to try it, here's a simple test class:

Flash Perlin Texture Components: Wood and Marble

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 18:44:46 -0700

A while back, I wrote about rendering Wood and Marble using Perlin noise. But I've found that these code bits are a pain to use. You need to write code just to see them. You can't work with them in the Flash IDE; i.e. they are inconvenient.

Solution: package them in components with live preview. That way you can see them, adjust their color visually, mask them, drop shadow them, etc.

#include for jsfl

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 18:45:16 -0700

Unlike ActionScript, JSFL does not have an include directive. I've started writing some useful jsfl classes, but having no include means a lot of copying and pasting and duplicated code. This is a bad thing.

Component Array Parameter Gotcha

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 18:45:45 -0700

So the other day, I was working on a component that has an inspectable set/get array property. I could not get it work. Although the default value for this array was not zero length and the parameter in the dialog box was not zero length, the set function was being called with a zero-length array at initialization.

This was an invalid situation and broke my app.

Here's a simplified version of the code: