Author Archives: Curtis J. Morley

Speaking at the SLC Photo Club on Lensbabies

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I will be speaking at the SLC Photo Club Nov 17th. The topic of the meeting is still life and I will be presenting on the amazing new lens called the Lensbabies. This highly reviewed lens is amazing and saves enormous amounts of time in Photoshop. Famed photographers such as Kevin Kubota (ranked Top 10 wedding photographers by Popular Photography Magazine) use this lens to make his subject matter have that dreamy ethereal look that every new bride wants. This lens is great for weddings, portraits, still life & flowers, food, commercial, and stock photography.

Here is an example picture of apples shot with Lensbabies 3G. The Lensbabies let you capture a selective focus and really make the subject matter pop. No Photoshop required. Come to the meeting to see many more. Picture of Apples shot with Lensbabies and 3G

My presentation will be a hands on demonstration that will allow photographers to use the Lensbaies 3G, and the Lensbabies 2.0 with the telephoto and wide angle attachments. I will have my Lensbabies 3G at the workshop as well as a 3G and 2.0 for the Nikon and 3G and 2.0 for the cannon mount. I will demonstrate the differences in the apertures and have a slideshow on the results of each aperture.

All attendees will receive a discount code for 10% off any of the products from LensBabies. Go to SLC Photo Club to sign up.

Flex 2 / Flash CS3 Syntax Error #1100

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Error #1100: Syntax error: XML does not have matching begin and end tags.

Description:
Here is another easy AS3 error. This Flex/Flash Error means that your XML is not valid because the end tag is simply missing or you left off the end slash (/). *Note: This AS3 error is similar to ActionScript Error #1085

Solution:
Close that end tag.

Bad Code 1

var dogXML:XML =
<dog>
<name>Fido
</dog>

or

var dogXML:XML = new XML();
dogXML =
<dog>
<name>Fido<name>
</dog>

Good Code

var dogXML:XML = new XML();
dogXML =
<dog>
<name>Fido</name>
</dog>

Related Errors:
ActionScript Error #1085

I hope this helps you solve ActionScript Error #1100

As Always Happy Flashing

Curtis J. Morley

Flex 2 / Flash CS3 Error #1085

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TypeError: Error #1085: The element type “name” must be terminated by the matching end-tag “</key>”.

Description:
Here is another easy AS3 error. This Flash Error means that your XML is not valid because the end tag either does not match the opening tag or that the tag is simply missing. When it says “The element type” it is talking about the XML element. In my case this would be <name>. *Note: This AS3 error is similar to ActionScript Error #1100

Solution:
Check your spelling and make sure that you have properly nested tags.

Bad Code 1

var dogXML:XML = new XML();
dogXML =
<dog>
<name>Fido</namer>
</dog>

Bad Code 2

var dogXML:XML = new XML();
dogXML =
<dog>
<name>Fido
</dog>
</name>

Good Code

var dogXML:XML = new XML();
dogXML =
<dog>
<name>Fido</name>
</dog>

I hope this helps you solve ActionScript Error #1085

As Always Happy Flashing

Flash SEO – Google Analytics and Flash Overview

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What is the most effective way to use Google Analytics and Flash?

How would you like to be able to know exactly how people are accessing your site and what they do when they are there? With Flash you can. And Google has provided the back end system free of charge for you to do it. It is called Google Analytics.

Google and Flash can show you exactly what people are doing on your site. I know how many people are mousing over the Flash piece. I know how many people are clicking a certain button. I know how many times a button is rolled-over without being clicked. I know how long the mouse is over the object. I can know every piece of data that is possible to know about what and how my users are interacting with the page, advertisement or application.

There are three key components in using Google Analytics combined with your Flash/Flex application or website. First is determining what you want tracked and how you want to use the statistics, the second is creating a Google Analytics account and setting up the proper filters etc.., the third is setting up the code in Flash and Javascript.

This is part 1 of a 5 part series on how to accomplish each of these areas.

Stay tuned for
Part 2 – “What Flash events should & shouldn’t be tracked with Google Analytics?” coming soon.

As always Happy Flashing.

AS3 Quicktip – Reversing a String With one Line of Code

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ActionScipt 3 Quick Tip of the Day: How to reverse a string with one line of code.

I had the thought the other day – Is it possible to reverse a string in Flash/Flex with only one line of ActionScript Code?

I determined that it was. And here is the result of my ActionScript conjuring.

var myString:String = “ActionSript 3”;
trace(myString.split(“”).reverse().join(“”));
//Output – 3 tpirSnoitcA

Wondering what this is actually doing? Here is the explanation:

split(“”)

split() takes any string and separates it it based on the value that you pass in the parenthesis. This value is called the delimiter. For example, if I had a string “1!2!3” and split that string using an exclamation mark as the delimiter then I would have an array that includes the elements ["1","2","3"]. If I used “2” as the delimiter then the array would look like this ["1!","!3"]. Because I am not using a delimiter, just empty quotes, the string is split on each character. split() and split("") are not the same. split() without empty quotes will split on nothing and you will get an array with only one element which is the entire word.

reverse()

reverse() is a method that will take an array and and reverse the order. An array like this var myArray:Array = ["a","b","c"] will trace out as c,b,a if you use the following code trace(myArray.reverse());

join(“”);

join() will combine the elements from an array and create a string. The parameter that you pass it is called a separator and will be used to separate all the elements within the string. I use the empty string again in my code so that there will be no separation between the letters of the word. Without putting in the empty quotes you will get the result of 3, ,t,p,i,r,S,n,o,i,t,c,A with a comma separating each character including the space.

So in essence apply functions to the result of the previous function all in one line.  I take a string and split each letter into an array element, reverse that array and then join all of the separate elements back into a single word.

And that is your ActionScript 3 quicktip of the day.

As Always Happy Flashing

Flex Error – Flash Player Not Found

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Are you running your Flex Application and continually getting the error below?

“C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\plugins\NPSWF32.dll
Flex Builder cannot locate the required version of the Flash Player. You may need to install Flash Player 9.0 or reinstall Flex Builder. Do you want to try to run your application with the current version?

Flex Error - Flash Player Not Found

Description:
This error is not a critical error and if you click on the Yes button the application will most likely run the way the you expect it. The reason this happened may have been because you recently did an express install or just an upgrade to your Flash Player.

Solution:

To get rid of this window constantly popping up you need to do one of the following:

  1. Reinstall the Flash Player
    Follow this link and reinstall the Flash Player. Get the latest Flash Player Debug Version
    This may or may not solve the issue.
  2. Put the missing file in the folder that Flex is expecting.
    As you can tell Flex is looking for the dll in the folder C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\plugins but if you look in that folder I would wager that the file NPSWF32.dll is not there. Where you will find the file is in the following folder C:\Windows\System32\Macromed\Flash . Simply do a copy and paste from the Macromed\Flash folder into the Firefox\plugins folder and you will eliminate the error.
  3. Point Flex to another browser.
    If the above method doesn’t work (which it should) then you can use IE as your default browser. The way you change your default browser in Flex is by going to the menu and clicking Window >> Preferences. This will pop-up the Flex preferences window. From within the Flex preferences window select General >> Web Browser and then change the Browser from Firefox to IE as shown in the image below.
    Flex Preferences window Web Browser
  4. Last resort reinstall Flex.

Below are two links to help you trouble shoot.

Get the latest Flash Player Debug Version
Find out what version you have.

As always Happy Flashing

P.S. I tried the solution on the Adobe Live Docs of updating the patch in Flex and this did nothing.

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Flex Error – Flash Player Not Found

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Please read post below for the real answer.

This duplicate post is a result of using the Bee AIR application to do posts.

I am leaving it here to show what happens when using BEE.

error_FlashPlayerNotFound.JPG

http://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/downloads.html – Get the latest debug version of the Flash Player.

http://www.adobe.com/products/flash/about/ Find out what version you have.

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Adobe Max 2007 – Sneak Peeks

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Adobe Sneak Peeks

Adobe Visual Communicator

It can be streamed live with Flash technology.
Blue Screen and Green Screen is supported
Everyone at Max got a copy of Visual Communicator

Voip in the Flash Player

PTP & P2P will be coming soon.

Flash Home

Totally cusomtizable phone interfaces for phones
RSS feeds
Integrated with the device
– SMS, phone, email, games, ringtones, call logs, ring detection, etc…
Push technology
OTA – Over the Air home screen updates

Photoshop Express

Built in Flex
Web based

Features:

  • AutoCorrect
  • Exposure
  • Crop and Rotate
  • hite Balance
  • Vibrance
  • Highlight
  • Blemish Removal
  • Saturation
  • Shadow
  • Full undo
  • Red Eye Removal
  • Timeline/History
  • Replace Color
  • Sketch
  • Hue
  • Tinit
  • Distort
  • Sketch
  • Distort

Fireworks

Skinning Flex Components
Truly create custom skins
Preview in AIR

Web to Print

Abode Flex and InDesign Server for print allows for custom print on demand.
Admininstrative Login and templating
On the Fly image exchange
Adobe PDF output

Future version of Flash

New Stage Rendering Core based on Flash Player 10
Live videoon Stage Playing at Author Time
Fully interactive video while playing – You can actually pick colors out of video while playing
3D in the Authoring tool
Property Changes over time
Create Motion Tween on Symbol rather than in the
Bezier Path for Tweens
Bone Tools – Works on graphics, movieclips, etc..
Runtime Reverse Animatics – Give the user the ability to manipulate the kinesthetics

Acrobat

Flash Runtime integrated into PDF
PDF is like zip – you can add any file types and it will play directly in the Acrobat Player
Create your own Interface for PDF in Flash/Flex
Flash and PDF can talk to each other
Flash can pull live data from the web, web services, Web API’s and throw that into a PDF and vice versa
CoCoMo is integrated in a PDF
Chat, View of Users, etc.. added to PDF
Sync view with other users in PDF

Flex on Linux

Full Flex Builder running on Linux
Available currently on Adobe Labs

C++ and Flash

He compiled Quake in Flash using C++
Seam Carving

SO INSANE!!!!!!
This was amazing!!!
It sizes and scales  without squishing or squeezing the image.
Shai Avidan

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Adobe Max 2007 – XD Bringing the Desktop to the web

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Ty Lettau

One big issue with creating desktop apps is that people don’t know why they are on the app.  If someone is willing to buy a $1000 application then they are going to know the point of first involvement.

If everything is important then nothing is.

If you are going to do drag and drop make the objects look like physical objects.  When the object is able to be dopped then higlight the drop zone and make it painfully obvious that the drop zone is where the user can drop the object.

Seam-line model solves many problems

Contextual controls allow immediate control without mouse movement and additional clicks.

Constantly writing to an XML file that compiles on the fly.

People are not going to wait for a 2 minute compile time.  It needs to immediately be played back.

Bring the App to the content.  Don’t make users store the content in one more place.

Premiere Express took over six months with 1 engineering 4, manager, Bus dev lead.

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