Author Archives: Curtis J. Morley

New Years Resolutions

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Every year I am an avid reoslution maker and keeper.  I love to set golas and achieve them.  It all started in High School when I made a resolution with my best friend and cousin Vaughn Jensen to drink no soda for the entire year.  That was the first time that I set (and kept) a new years resolution.

I have many resolutions but I won’t list them all here.  The ones I will list relate to this blog and to my life as Flash professional.

So here are my New Years Resolutions in no particular order:

  • Post every ActionScript Error that Flash/Fex will ever produce.
  • Speak on Flash/ Flex/ ActionScript at 3 conferences this year (at least 1 major)
  • Reply to all valid blog comments within 24 hours.
  • Post a Flash tutorial at least once a month (12+ total).
  • Organize all posts into the “Grand Poobah” list of all AS3 errors.
  • Create an AIR app that contains all the errors from my blog.
  • Get my training published on RMI and Lynda.
  • Win one major award for a Flash project that I complete.
  • Get ACE re-certified in Flash CS4, Flash Lite and Flex
  • Become an ACI
  • And finally no carbonation for 2009 (cold duck excluded)

And that is the list.  Check back Jan 1st 2010 and see how I did.

Thanks and Happy Flashing,

Curtis J. Morley

Adobe MAX 08 – Sneaks

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Heidi Williams MC’ed

Client

Flash Media Plus

RTMP Application Level Mutlticast in Flash Player – Michael Thornbuorgh

Unlimited Real Time

Nitro – Platform for widgets

Drag web widgets frin the web to the desktop and it creates a widget
Nitro is the same for Mobile
Widgets will be deployed on TV

portablewidgets@adobe.com if you want to build widgets

Durango- Application Mashups in Flex and AIR

Drag and drop of components from one component to another.
It is live on Labs as of 20 Minutes ago.

TOOLS

Photoshop – Next Generation Imaging Tools
Image Search – Showed images that were found based on another image

Image Compositing – He dragged and dropped a bird onto a scene of a beach and it blended in seemlessly.  Did the same thing with a swimmer and then added a dog and gave it proper shadowing.

Content Intelligence Toolkit – video
Separated video by scene
Can search video by lighting
Can search by colors
Can find faces and search all video with faces
Speech to Text engine that pulls up only the segment that have the searched terms

Dreamweaver Web Widgets
Ajax Rain – website that has over 1000 AJAX widgets
Working with the open AJAX alliance
Showed Adobe Widget Conifgurator – allows to test drive a widget and paly around with look, feel, and functionality of other peoples widgets.
Today the Web Widget SDK is available labs.adobe.com

Infinite Images
One of the most amazing thigs that I have seen.  This was insame.  It allows for a combination of images to do a fly through, rotation, zoom in/out, etc…  Look for the videe coming soon.

Services

Live Cycle and Creative Services
The guy in front of me giggled involuntarily when they showed how this allows for video to be deployed to AIR apps and streamed seamlessly.  Digital Rights can be pushed into the video.  They also showed how a reviewer opens the AIR app and gives feedback that is streamed real time to all the other clients and then back in Premiere Pro it had all f the feedback and let the video guy to go to that exact spot in the video. where the comments were.

Ted Patrick wants everyone to go to the party.

Meer Meer (Mirror-Mirror)

This service allows for anyone using DreamWeaver to test in Meer Meer and see what a website looks in any browser and any OS.  It let’s you see 2 up view as well as Onion skin view, which overlays the two over the top of each other.  It also includes zooming.  This is the best tool for designing consistent web pages that I have ever seen.  IT works with Dreamweaver and local content without having to publish to the web.

Server-side ActionScript

ServerSide ActionScript with ColdFusion and Flex is now possible.

Adobe Max Day 2 – Keynote

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THE Agency

Agent B and Agent F (Ben Forta)

Fighting against Status Quo

Flash
Flash Bones and IK
New animation style
xfl is new format for importing

Photoshop
Content Aware Scale
Automasking and depth of field
Native 3D support

Thermo (Flash Catalyst)
Designers can create a take a PSD file and import it and then add interactivity without coding
What happens behind the scene is a Flex app is coded
Created Transitions and events just like in Flash
Artwork created into components
Converted an Illustrator artwork into a scrollbar component with a few components
FXG is a subset of MXML that Thermo creates for understanding artwork between Adobe apps
Added a 3D transition to make 3D flipping widget that transitioned
Compiles to a SWF when you test.
FXP is how a Thermo File gets into Flex – Flex Project File
DVD’s for Thermo is now available for conference attendees
The full version is going to be on Labs early  2009

Could we run

Project Alchemy

Allows you to run C and C++ code within Flash Player 10

Was able to import encryption directly into Flash

SHA1
SH256
MD5

can now load other multimedia formats
Alchemy using DCRAW can convert itno FLEX lib and
AS3 code can convert RAW into PNG but can use Alchemy then use C code to convert even faster
ALchemy can import and render PDF
Showed Quake running in Flash
Also Show Nintendo Mario Bro’s running in Flash Player

Gumbo(Next version of Flex)
Available to conference goers
A few clicks gave Agent B full import
ColdFusion runs in Flex Builder(Gumbo) environment
Launch server monitor from IDE
Start/Stop Server from IDE
Automatically knows data sources and has autocomplete for all code as good as Flex
ORM is built in and supported
ColdFusion interface is not in yet but Labs has a sign up page
Gumbo supports PHP and other languages
Intorducing new services that can check data feeds live
Gumbo has a mapping for data managaement
Automation of events and data management
Logging and debugging is fantastic
Apply a theme –

Themes will be available for download from Labs

Affino plug in  developed by Ensemble media let’s developers create Flex apps from Visual Studio
Not available yet.  Coming down the line
.NET developers have not had a usable technology to create Flex

Dreamweaver and AJAX
SPRY was the only integrated AJAX frmeworks – now it is able for any framework

  • Jquery
  • Moo tools
  • Spry

Deep dive into code components and colors directly into

Flash Player – Google
Google and Adobe has created what is called a virtual user and new Flash Player takes commends from virtual user to scrub Flash.
Virtual User and Flash Player can pull dynamic data
Use swfOBject
Talk tomorrow at 2:00 – Jim

FMS 3.5
Dynamic Streaming (Multiple bitrates)
StreamFlashHD.com allows new users to stream
Dreamweaver has Dynamic Streaming preview in
Flash Media Live Encoder (now avavilable on Adobe) allows you to take camera source and
Just like DVR (TIVO) over the internet
RTMFP (Real Time Media Flash Protocol) – allows for Flash to Flash(Flash to AIR, AIR to AIR) communication without a server

Groups.Adobe.com

Groups.Adobe.com
Starting User Groups – ust visit the site and then click the Start User Group

5:45 MAX awards and sneeks

MAX 2009 Los Angelos Oct 4 Announced.

Robert Burdick on Flash Lite for Nokia

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Flash Lite for Nokia.

Robert gave a great presentation to get people started with Flash Lite and Mobile.  Because I was so involved I couldn’t take very detailed notes.  But Robert said that he would be putting up his presentation on his website.

http://blogs.forum.nokia.com/blog/robert-burdicks-forum-nokia-blog

2 Places

Go2market

MOSH

Thanks, Happy Flashing

Adobe Max 08 – Keynote

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Kevin Lynch

In emerging markets they expect over 1 billion people to access without ever touching a computer.  Kevin points out that we need to think “Mobile First”  Adobe is going to have 1 billion Flash enabled phones by the end of 2009.

Flash Lite

to launch apps today you hvae to launch Flash lite and then find your swf and then launch and then you get a great experience.  Getting data on phone and finding it after is currently a tough experience.  Teh Flash Lite distributalable player is being launched where you can distribute it and then download from the phone. IT establishes an icon directly in the start menu.

Flash Player 10 for Mobile

Adobe is engineering Flash Player 10 on Smart Phones.  Nokia Phone running symbian on N85 runs Flash Player 10 without any adaptation.  Nokia and Symbian are working closely wih Adobe.

Windows Mobile on HTC phone with Opera works seemlessly with Flash Player 10.  YouTube works on HTC phone without a special YouTube player.

Phones that were displayed using Flash Player 10

  • Android G1
  • 2 HTC windows moile Phones(looked like HTC Touch Pro)
  • Nokia N85
  • Nokia N95
  • Apple is coming
  • Samsung with Wondows mobile

Steve Jobs needs to get a clue.  Adobe is not very happy with you.  Let’s work together not apart.  Here at the keynote all of the MAC computers had a square piece of Silver tape over the logo.  Come on Steve just put Flash on the iPhone.  I can’t think of a more concentrated group of people than here at the MAX conference.  Don’t estrange your user base Apple.

MultiScreen – Multi user experiences

Big Announcements

  • Adobe Thermo is now Flash Catalyst and is release and a new version of Flex is coming out to integrate with Flash Catalyst.
  • AIR 1.5 was announced.  It includes Encrytped databases.
  • Adobe Wave
  • COCOMO as free app on Labs
  • Adobe is engineering Flash Player 10 on Smart Phones
  • Abobe is working on Flash 10 player for iPhone
  • Flash Lite will detect and install from phone browsing.

Kevin Lynch drew text on paths with the new text engine within   It was insane.  He also grabbed the corner of what looked lke a blanket and flapped it around.  It was awesome.  Then he layered on a video.  It was insane.

Nigel Pegg talked about the social networking of cocomo that was screen sharing without screen sharing.  Ot is all over the web.  Adobe has opened up COCOMO as free app on Labs.  That is totally sweet.

New York Times – Fantastic AIR app that does dynamic text layout of articles that was really nic.

Steve from SalesForce.com gave a quote that went something like this, “Enterprise applications is where innovation goes to die.  There just wasn’t time for innovation in Enterprise software. ”  He also said, “Those days are gone.  Applications can now have innovation because of Flex and AIR.

Speaking at FITC Amsterdam

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Flooglytics = Flash + Google Analytics
I am excited to say that I will be speaking in Amsterdam in February at FITC Amsterdam.  FITC has always been one of the leading Flash conferences and happening around the globe.  This will be the full length version that goes more in-depth into techniques and case studies.

What:

Flash and Google Analytics = FLOOGLYTICS
Flash has always been considered the ugly step sister in the world of SEO and Analytics. Well now Flash takes “Center Stage”. Using Google Analytics data can be extracted from Flash that could never be pulled from HTML. This session will explore the ins-and-outs of how to setup Google Analytics to work most effectively with your Flash files and how to set up Flash to work most effectively with your Google Analytics account. Go beyond just seeing what users did. See what users meant to do or even wanted to do but didn’t. The most important part of the equation is how to refine this gold that Flash and Google Analytics provide. Walk away from this session armed with the tools you need to implement Floogylitics and make your site effective. Combine this session with the MAX session announcing the new developments at Google Analytics and you will be miles ahead of the competition.

Where: FITC Amsterdam

When: Feb 22-24, 2009

Links:

Curtis Morley Speaker Bio at FITC Amsterdam
Flooglytics – Flash and Google Analytics Summary

So sign up for and I will see you in the The Netherlands.

Happy Flashing,

Curtis J. Morley

ActionScript Security Error 2060: Security sandbox violation

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ActionScript Security Error 2060: Security sandbox violation: ExternalInterface caller
file:///C:/Curtism/ExternalInterface_GA.swf
cannot access
file:///C:/Curtism/ExternalInterface_GA.html

Description:This error pops up when you are testing or deploying a web page that uses ExternalInterface to call a Javasacript function on the containing HTML page.  You may see this error when using Flooglytics (Flash and Google Analytics) or whenAjax is used in conjunction with Flash.  It basically means that what you are doing is not allowed with the way you have embedded your swf.  It is a really simple solution to fix this ActionScript Security Error

Flex / Flash Security Error #2060 Fix:
In the HTML make sure that the parameter ‘allowscriptaccess’ is set to ‘always’ rather than ‘sameDomain’ or ‘never’ in all cases.  Do a search in your HTML for allscriptaccess and change all references.  Usually there is two places to cahnge this.

Bad HTML Code using swfObject 2.0:

so.addParam('allowscriptaccess', 'sameDomain');

Good HTML Code using swfObject 2.0:

so.addParam('allowscriptaccess', 'always');

————————————————-

Bad HTML Code using AC_FL_RunContent:

‘allowScriptAccess’,‘sameDomain’,

Good HTML Code using AC_FL_RunContent:

‘allowScriptAccess’,‘always’,

————————————————-

Bad HTML Code using embed tag:

allowscriptaccess="sameDomain"

Good HTML Code using embed tag:

allowscriptaccess="always"

————————————————-

Bad HTML Object tag:

<param name=”allowScriptAccess” value=“sameDomain” />

Good HTML Object tag:

<param name=”allowScriptAccess” value=“always” />

————————————————-

This should help you resolve ActionScript Securtiy Error #2060

Thanks and as always Happy Flashing

Curtis J. Morley

Speaking at Adobe MAX – Flooglytics

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Flooglytics = Flash + Google Analytics

I am excited to say that I will be speaking one month from today at the FITC Unconference at Adobe MAX.  FITC has always been one of the leading Flash conferences and has expanded to locations all around the globe.

What:

Flash and Google Analytics = FLOOGLYTICS
Flash has always been considered the ugly step sister in the world of SEO and Analytics. Well now Flash takes “Center Stage”. Using Google Analytics data can be extracted from Flash that could never be pulled from HTML. This session will explore the ins-and-outs of how to setup Google Analytics to work most effectively with your Flash files and how to set up Flash to work most effectively with your Google Analytics account. Go beyond just seeing what users did. See what users meant to do or even wanted to do but didn’t. The most important part of the equation is how to refine this gold that Flash and Google Analytics provide. Walk away from this session armed with the tools you need to implement Floogylitics and make your site effective. Combine this session with the MAX session announcing the new developments at Google Analytics and you will be miles ahead of the competition.

Where: FITC Unconference at Adobe MAX in San Francisco

When: November 19th 3:30 P.M.

So sign up for MAX and I will see you on Wednesday.

Happy Flashing,

Curtis J. Morley

ActionScript Error 1184: Incompatible default value of type int where String is expected.

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ActionScript Error 1184: Incompatible default value of type int where String is expected.

ActionScript Error 1184 Description:
This error is quite simple.  It just says that you have the wrong type of data in your parameter initializer.  Or in other words you tried to assign a string where you typed the parameter as a uint.

Flex / Flash Error #1184 Fix:
Match the parameter type to the proper data type.

Bad Code 1:

bob(someValue:uint = “Happy”)
{
trace(someValue);//error 1184
}

Good Code 1:

bob(someValue:uint = 5)
{
trace(someValue);//output 5
}

Related Errors:

AS3 Error 1047

This should help you resolve Flex / Flash Error #1184

Thanks and as always Happy Flashing

Curtis J. Morley

ActionScript Error 1047: Parameter initializer unknown or is not a compile-time constant.

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ActionScript Error 1047: Parameter initializer unknown or is not a compile-time constant.ActionScript Error 1047

Description:
Let’s break down ActionScript Error 1047 into it’s various parts.

  1. Parameter = The variable inside the parenthesis of a function
  2. Initializer = An initial value set on the parameter inside the parenthesis
  3. Compile-time Constant = Something Flash knows the value of without evaluating

So long story short – you are trying to assign a value to a parameter that has to be evaluated.  Still don’t know what I mean?  Check the code examples.

This is actually a really great feature of AS3.  Say for example you have an event listener that calls a function.  You also want to call this same function without the event. Unless you pass a value in you will get AS3 Error 1136.  AS3 allows you to set the Event parameter to null and therefore accept a call to that function without passing in a parameter.  function myUtilFunc( e:Event = null);

You can initialize and function with any Compile time constant for example a string like “Happy”, a constant like null or an int like 5 but you can not throw in anything that needs to be evaluated like a variable, math operation, an in-line array like [a,b,c] or date.

Flex / Flash Error #1047 Fix:
Remove any variable data and use only constants in the initializer such as Strings, Numbers, Null, etc…

Bad Code:

var init:String = “Happy”
function bob(someValue:String = init){
trace(someValue);
}

Good Code:

function bob(someValue:String = “Happy”){
trace(someValue);
}

or

function multiFunction(e:Event = null){
//doSomething;
}

Related Errors:

AS3 Error 1184

This should help you resolve Flex / Flash Error #1047

Thanks and as always Happy Flashing

Curtis J. Morley