Category Archives: Flash

Flash Takes a Giant Leap – 3D

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Flash, the worlds most amazing web technology, development platform, interactive media tool, web based animation creator, video webcast deployment, cell phone application environment, global platform (or whatever you want to call it) is taking the next giant leap.

Flash 3D - Flying Rhino

3D in Flash, that’s right 3D in Flash! Let me say it again – 3D IN FLASH!!!!!!

This is truly a revolution in the web world and will make so many other technologies instantly obsolete. And the amazing thing is that it is an open source project.  The open source project is Papervision and can be found at http://www.osflash.org/papervision3d.  The homepage for the project is located at http://blog.papervision3d.org/ and you can find some other fine examples at http://www.mrdoob.com/ and http://www.rockonflash.com/blog/.  You must take a look at the amazing renderings and as always….

Happy Flashing.

Jake Hilton has a great article on Optimizing Flash Media Server on Linux

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Jake Hilton - Flash and Server Guru

A good friend of mine Jake Hilton just posted another article on the Macromedia(Adobe) website entitled Performance-tuning Flash Media Server 2 for live webcasts using Linux. For anyone that is trying to get the best performance from Media Server this is a must read. Jake is truly an expert in this field as evidenced by his development of Huddle (a very cool web conferencing tool). He should be speaking about Flash and server technologies at conferences like FlashForward, Max, FITC, and DX3 (Lynda’s new gig).

Even if you are not setting things up on Linux this is a great article that can help you understand how to optimize Media Server. Go check it out and as always,

Happy Flashing.

Windows Vista Comes with IE7 and Flash Player 7

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As a Flash developer you need to be aware that people upgrading to Windows Vista will not be ale to see your work until they upgrade the Flash Player also.

At work and on my new personal computer Toshiba P105-s9339 I have installed Windows Vista. At work it is Windows Vista Enterprise and Windows Vista Ultimate is installed on my personal laptop. An average of 92.68% of the worlds connected population already has Flash Player 8 and over 60% already has the Flash 9 player. See below.

Flash Penetration Statistics

Even though the adoption of the latest versions of the player are the fastest yet, the default install of Windows Vista has Flash Player 7. This is definitely a throwback.

So what can you do? The best thing to do is put in the SwfObject Express Install that is part of SwfObject. This is the quickest way to get people into the latest version of Flash.

This worked great for me with the exception of the having to restart my browser to properly use the new plugin.

Here is one of the best articles I have read on Embedding Flash into Web Pages. It is written by Bobby van der Sluis who created (UFO) Unobtrusive Flash Objects which is another methodfor embedding Flash into web pages. He is also working jointly on a project with Geoff Stearns on a project called SWFFix. You can bet that I will be watching this one closely.

Good Luck Guys!

As always Happy Flashing.

Flash Remoting Server works locally but stopped working on the server

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In the latest and greatest project that we are doing we are using Flash Remoting for the communication between the application and the server. We downloaded the Flash Remoting Trial Version and it seemed to work great on all local machines and across local machines and went very well. As soon as we put Flash Remoting on the server everything decided to stop working. There is a technote that says we may have to buy Flash Remoting it in order to get it working on the server. The same technote
I know that many of you are saying why are you trying to use Flash Remoting instead of AMFPHP? This is a very valid question since AMFPHP has always worked in the past. The answer is simple we have an fantastic .NET programmer. AMFPHP doesn’t work with .NET so we decided to use Flash Remoting.

After over 5 hours on the phone yesterday and an hour and a half today I asked the adobe support agent, “So there is no way to get support for this?” The Adobe rep replied, “That is correct”. He then directed me to a page that I might possibly get help from
adobe.com/support/portal which resulted in the following page

Adobe Support Page for Flash Remoting

Finally, after 2 days, more than 7 hours total, 2 hours 36 minutes on hold, 11 transfers, 5 departments, 2 disconnects and 1 404 page error. I got a received a call this morning from Jim Schley at Adobe. I was very happy to hear from Jim and he actually assigned an engineer to me that should be calling back to help solve the problem. He even gave me his personal line so that I could call him back directly if needed. (No I won’t post this number)
Thank you Jim for caring enough to find a solution to my problem and not passing the buck to someone else. I look forward to hearing from your engineer.

Here are the numbers that I called or was transfered to for support:
(800)833-6687 Adobe General Support (These guys were not helpful at all in regards to Flash Remoting)
(888)649-2990 Adobe Pre-Sales Support (These guys also didn’t know or were “not trained for this sort of thing”)
(888)715-4687 Adobe Download Support (This isn’t even Adobe. They were baffled when I was transfered because they only host the download site and support getting the zip files onto your desktop)
(866)335-2256 Adobe Enterprise Server Support(They couldn’t help me but actually spent the time creating a ticket that resulted in the call from Jim Schley)

So the end result is that I look forward to a call from Jim’s engineer that should be able to help with the problem. I will let you know the result.

If you are also having issues with Flash Remoting then these links may be helpful alternatives to the Remoting service.

AMFPHP I can vouch for this one. It is great. Plus it is Free. I highly suggest that you use this. This is only for PHP.

WebORB I haven’t used this yet but plan on installing this as a backup in case. WebORB is a platform enabling development, deployment and runtime execution of Rich Internet Applications. The product facilitates connectivity between rich clients created with Flex, Flash or AJAX and server-side applications developed with .NET, Java, Ruby on Rails, PHP or XML Web Services.

StarWolf I can not vouch for this at all. I don’t even know if it works but it is out there so I thought I would list it.

PHPObject Flash Remoting for PHP. Looks promising haven’t used it.

OpenAMF – Flash Remoting for J2EE. Again, looks promising haven’t used it.

RubyAMF – Flash Remoting for Ruby, Seems to be gainging popularity.
Good luck and I hope that you have some successful Flash Remoting.

Valentines Day – Quick gift

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Flash Based Valentine Creator

Did you forget to buy Flowers and now you are wishing you had a last minute Valentine’s day gift. Well if you are here you are in luck. Just fill in your name and your loved ones name below and from your printer will come many Valentines Hearts that you can cut out and put on your love’s car walls, mirrors, house, etc… I suggest putting red, pink or bright pink paper into your printer. Each Valentines heart comes out with a unique saying.

Flash application that prints multiple Valentines hearts, each with a personalized Valentines saying. Create your own valentines. Give your love a heart attack(the good way).

Have fun and spread love.

Effective way to Test Dynamic Data from Server and in Flash Authoring Tool

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Say you have a Flash widget that you need to put on the server to receive dynamic data yet you want to test it in Flash with all of your nice trace(); statements etc… The only trouble is that when you post it to the server you always forget to comment out the values that you test with. These are the hard coded values you typed into the file or Class. You don’t want to have to remember each time you FTP the file up to the server to comment out those pesky variables that are critical for testing in the Flash authoring tool.

The solution to the problem is quite simple. All you need to do is ask Flash where it lives. You do this by having Flash ask what is its URL using this._url

Here is the code:

if (this._url.substr(0,5) == "file:")
{
var fillBytes:Number=978;
var totalBytes:Number=2712;
}

Here is the explanation:

  1. Setup a conditional statement - if()
  2. Because anything run in Flash will be located at a file path, ask if the location(_url) name starts with the characters "file:" - this._url.substr(0,5) == "file:"
  3. If the answer is yes then set your variables - var totalBytes:Number = 2712

A web address will never start with the characters "file:" but rather "http" or the name of a subdomain. Because of this the variables will not yet be defined when the file is on the server and your .swf will be ready to receive anything the server has to throw at it. And yet, you will always be able to test it in the Flash authoring environment.

Happy Flashing

Google Analytics and Flash

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I am putting up a test experiment for a Flash class that I built that will add a lot of functionality to the Google Analytics. Please help me test out my class by simply playing with the Flash objects below. Mouse over them click on them, just leave your mouse alone and do nothing at all.

The purpose of this Flash and Google Analytics experiment is to get more granular data about how the user interacts with the Flash object. The class I’ve created will tell me how long it takes people before they interact with the piece, how long they are interacting with it, how many times the user mouses-over, clicks, etc…

Thanks for the help in testing this. I will post results next week.

Floating Planes

The Greatest Mozilla Firefox Extension Ever.

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So I was surfing the other day and I came across a Mozilla Add-on that is fantastic. This Firefox Extension is a huge time saver and an amazingly wonderful tool for any Flash Developers out there.

Of course this Firefox extension was built by Alessandro Crugnola of Sephiroth. It takes a someone like Alessandro to make such a useful tool.

Download Flash Switcher here. http://www.sephiroth.it/weblog/archives/2006/10/flash_switcher_for_firefox.php
For those of you not familiar with how extensions work you will want to download the extension (.xpi file). Open it from the download window and then when the download window asks what program to open it with find Firefox.

This should bring up a window like this:

Install Flash Switcher

Click “Install Now” and then after you restart look for it down in the corner of the browser.

This Firefox Extension is a must for any serious Flash Developer
Happy Flashing with all versions of the Flash Plugin

P.S. My second favorite extension is the myStickies

My drop down menus are behind my Flash

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Have you loaded up a Flash file and now your drop down menus are all a mess because they go behind your Flash instead of on top? Did you try changing the zIndex of your iFrame or try to put iFrames behind the menu to push it to the top? Does your drop down menu look like this?
wmodeBehind
But you wish it would look like this.
No wmode = transparent property
Well forget all the iFrame business and and feel relieved because all that is neccessary is to simply include the wmode parameter in your HTML. All you need is a little love and a simple tag and you should be fine.

To get started you should be using either swfObject or the Adobe AC_RunActiveContent.js to embed your Flash. I highly suggest the swfObject Flash Detection scripts because of how complete it is. swfObject combines Active content activation, Flash detection, Flash Express Install, and is search engine friendly.

Below you will find the wmode code for each method so that you can have menu systems like everyone else on the web.

Code – swfObject – var so = new SWFObject("myFlashMovie.swf", "mymovie", "200", "100%", "7", "#336699");

so.addParam("wmode", "transparent");
so.addParam("salign", "t");
so.write("flashcontent");

Code – AC_RunActiveContent.js- AC_FL_RunContent(‘codebase’,’http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=7,0,19,0′,’width’,’550′,’height’,’400′,’align’,’middle’,’src’,’myFlashMovie’,’quality’,’high’,’name’,’myFlashMovie’,’pluginspage’,’http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer’,’movie’,’myFlashMovie’,’wmode’,’transparent’);

Make sure that you have an even number of parameters with the example above or it will break it.Other links about the issue:

Stephanie Sullivan article on Community MX
Interakt Online Article
http://menumachine.com/kb/65
http://www.actionscript.org/forums/archive/index.php3/t-101350.html

Utah Flash Design Talent

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Flash Forward just finished. Although I had plans to be there, I wasn’t able to attend because of my job at DirectPointe. I started to notice how many people from Utah attended. It made me realize what a mecca Utah has become for Flash talent. The 2006 Austin Flash Forward was well represented by Utah Flashers. For starters Tyler Wright (of mediaRAIN) and Rob Taylor (of Strathus and www.FlashExtensions.com) spoke at the conference on Flash SEO and Browser communication.

We also had 2 Flash Foward Film Festival Finalists from Utah as well. Paul Mayne otherwise known as Pete, and Scott Stoddard. They both had phenomonal projects and both should have won. Scott Built an amazingly cool Flash game. I don’t know if I have seen one of this caliber on the web. Pete built a wonderful symbolic piece. His Flash Navigation and concepting is great. The project has an objective around helping people that are ill by lifting their spirits. Pete is great.

mediaRAIN, the best Flash Design in Utah, was just honored with another Macromedia/Adobe site of the Day

The List:

Tyler Wright – Lead Flash Developer mediaRAIN / musicRAIN , Flash Forward Conference Speaker
Rob Taylor – www.FlashExtensions.com, Flash Forward Conference Speaker
Scott Stoddard – Spiritonin.com, FlashThief.com Site of the year, Shockwave.com featured game, Flash Foward Film Festival Finalist
Paul Mayne – Flash Foward Film Festival Finalist
 Matt Maxwell – Adobe Site of the day
 Pete Hawkes – AGIdeas Speaker in Australia, OgilvyOne Verge Exhibit in the Guggenheim and the CJM award for simplistic complexity
 Jared Kroff/Adam DeVincent – 5 FITC Awards
Chase Brammer – Utah Multimedia Arts Festival Winner and interactive Marketer for DirectPointe
 Jake Hilton – Flash Media Server Beta Team, writer of a Macromedia Developer Center Article
Ryan Simmons – Creator of Cartoon Solutions and StarWars Spoofs(the best place to get Flash Cartoon Character Animations) Dreamworks Animator, Numerous Animation Awards
Josh Buhler – Cofounder of Uflash.org and big time blogger
Kyle Follett – Folco.net (The only guy I know that can update his site constantly)
Bryce Barrand – mediaRAIN
Evan Ehat – Hey Evan what is your website?

Honorary Great Utahns:
Larry Lentz – Lead Flash Programmer at Air New Zealand (US) (Took my class and lived in Utah for many years)
Josh Dura – Flash Communications Server Applications Developer for Yahoo (From Utah)
Danny Dura – Developer Relations Product Manager, Adobe, Inc. (From Utah)
Robert Penner – Lead Flash Programmer Adobe, Inc. (Contracted with mediaRAIN and spent much time in Utah including Rock Climbing)

I know that I forgot some people so I apologize in advance. Please, if I know and like you let me know who you are. If I know you and really respect you and your work I would be happy to put you on the list. If I don’t know you but you think I would like to then post a comment and let me know who you are. If you know someone that you feel is a great Utah Flasher, then please post a comment.
Thanks,

Curtis J. Morley