A friend at work is running into a really odd LocalConnection bug on the Mac. Basically, he has 10 seperate SWFs… On a PC, each swf connects to, and calls a method successfully, but on a Mac, only 8 swfs will connect to each other and call said method. Was wondering if anyone knew of a bug in the Flash Player with the amount of SWFs it can connect to. Below is a test URL, click on the Y!.
As you could probably tell, the Recently Playing music list to the right wasn’t being updated lately. I had made a transfer from a Mac (at Slingshot), to a PC (at Yahoo!). In doing so, I lost the use of a great plugin for iTunes, Recent Tunes. Luckily, I was able to find Now Playing, a similar plugin for the PC version of iTunes that generates an XML file, and uploads it to my server.
I decided to put together a quick Flash file to load in the album cover via amazon, and display the Title, Album, and Artist. Using AS2, and XPath, it was fairly easy. The Album cover even links to Amazon if you wish to buy the music. If you want to check out the source, I have uploaded it here.
Today, Ted Patrick released IFBIN. In its simplist form, it is a code distribution service. While I think the idea is good, the implementation has a couple flaws. This article isn’t meant to bash any single person, or company. Just my viewpoints on a certain project/company. Please do not take this as me bashing you :)
How many people are going to be willing to shell out $350 a year for this service? Take the DRK’s for example. A good amount of people balked at the idea of paying $99 for a CD of high quality components, and applications (not saying this was the downfall of the DRK, just pointing it out). I think the price here needs a little bit of a breakdown. Is there going to be support included with these examples? Will you get FULL commercial access to this code? Can I distribute modified code?
I do think there is a market for selling code. This article wasn’t meant to debate the commercial/noncommercial aspects of the community. Take for example, Joshua Davis selling his Praystation CD for $35. That’s a price that people can deal with, and if I am not mistaken, isn’t he one of the highest end Flash Developer/Designer?
Where would the Flash community be without people like Joey Lott releasing his Actionscript library for free, or Keith Peters releasing his Flash experiments for free, or the now hundreds of blogs placing example code on their sites? These are all high quality developers, releasing high quality examples… for free. I can’t count on the number of people that I have heard say “Damn, there is a shitload of free content to learn from in the Flash community” or “It’s amazing the amount of great developers that are willing to give out this information for free”. This is what community is all about, am I wrong? Sites like Flashkit, Ultrashock, Actionscript.org, and Kirupa are based on open source code.
I know that IFBIN isn’t going to take any of this away, I just truthfully don’t see the point in it. In my opinion, I would rather either 1) Create my own example to further my knowledge. 2) Take the extra 10 minutes, and search Google for an example near to the same of that on IFBIN. It is going to take a lot from IFBIN to impress people enough to spend $350 a year for code.
Macromedia has officially announced the Flash Player 8 Public Beta. Please test your current applications, sites, etc. with the new player. The beta introduces a new update mechanism, which seems to be based off of the Central installer (very very easy). Don’t worry about it screwing up your browser (being a beta and all), as it comes with an uninstaller. Once done testing, submit feedback to Macromedia. They listen, trust me.
Check all of your client sites. Check all of your applications. Check all of your daily visited sites, make sure all Flash content works as before. Getting these bugs fixed now, ensures that the final product will be that much better.
As I mentioned in my FiTC recap, I have become very interested in how others prepare and manage projects, mainly from the coding aspect. My code usually ends up as a jumbled mess, and is not easy to update/maintain for other developers. I myself find it fairly easy to update, but I worry about what would happen if someone needs to edit it when I am on vacation or a sick day. I know I am not the only one in the community thinking about this, so I wanted to get a couple developers point of views on the subject.
The way I usually prepare for a project, well, its lackluster to say the least. I usually just dive right into the code, writing and organizing things as I go. There are some good and bad things to this.
For one, I truthfully don’t see how most developers diagram their coding structures beforehand. I have tried, and I usually end up forgetting needed functions, methods, etc. Which just leads me back to the same place I am in now. So how exactly do you go about this, without forgetting things? Or do you just develop a certain naming convention, and go from there?
One very bad effect of this method, is that when you come back to the project, things are usually very un-maintainable, especially for an outside developer. Functions are strewn all over the place, naming structures are non-existant,etc… You are starting to see my need for a new way, right?
File structure is one area where I have actually found a pretty standard solution, that seems to work quite well. I figure since I am asking for so much support in this entry, I might as well give some advice. The way I usually structure things, is I have an assets folder, which contains any miscellaneous files not directly included in the file. I also have a source folder, which contains all fla files, and as files. the last folder, is a build folder. This is where I publish all my swf files to, and also store all loaded jpgs, swfs, mp3s, xml files, etc… The one major advantage to this way, is you have a build folder to just upload and publish when needed. This helps tremendously.
One of the problems Stacey mentions in her article, is that its nearly impossible for a developer to sit down in a 1 hour conference session or 1 page tutorial, and explain the best way to plan a project. This is where I think the strength of a blog comes in. A good discussion will receive many solutions to a fairly large problem. My questions are as follow…
1) How do you plan a UML document, when you don’t truely know EVERY function you will need? Or am I just too impatient when planning this? I am a noob when it comes to this, so go easy :)
2) When on a short deadline, how do you like to seperate your time between planning and coding? 20/80? 50/50? Does having a short deadline affect your ratio?
3) For the designer/developers, does your planning change if you are developing a project in HTML? PHP, CF, etc? Design work?
Woohoo! I found out late last night that Slingshot approved me to go to Flash in the Can this weekend. I will be arriving at 5pm on Friday, and leaving around 5pm on Monday. If anyone wants to get in touch with me, I will have my Sidekick on me at all times, and AIM will be on, so just IM me (jdura99) and we can meet up, or something.
Most nights will probably be spent gaming with the usual crew (Danny, Mike, Christian, Sam, etc…), so that should be a lot of fun. If you really have a need to get whooped in hockey on the Xbox, PLEASE let me know :)
You can also expect me to update the blog with photos, live updates, and more. No video this time though :) Reply in the comments if I can expect to see you there.
Sorry for the short notice, but tonight, the Dallas MMUG is meeting at 7pm, here at the Slingshot offices. If you are interested in attending, you can visit the Dallas MMUG site for a map, and more info.
Tonight, my good friends, and co-workers Jonathan Stevens and John Nicholas will demonstrate some of the code behind NRANews.com, an all flash streaming video site that uses Flash Communication Server and Flash Remoting.
Today, my most recent project, MXNA 2.0, launched. Christian and Mike contacted me about 2 months ago, wanting an all new design for the aggregator that we all know and love. They wanted something that was 1) Standards compliant, 2) Represented the Macromedia brand, but didn’t copy the current macromedia.com design, 3) Was useable, and most importantly 4) Looked damn good :) Heres to hoping everyone thinks we accomplished our goals.
Special thanks to Christian for creating a DAMN good backend for the design. This is THE BEST aggregator online, that I have ever seen, and it’s going to be tough to top it. Also, thanks to Christian, for once again proving that Macromedia is the best client to work with. If you ever get a chance to work with Macromedia, take it.
Todd Dominey has released his SlideShowPro application, and WOW… I must say this is quite possibly one of the best Flash/XML photo apps I have seen. The feature list is quite extensive, and the UI is absolutely amazing. Congrats to Todd on an amazing app. Oh yeah, did I mention it is only $20!
Check out the demo or just go to the product site.
After a 3 month break from meetings, we have finally planned the next meeting for the Dallas MMUG. We have also changed locations, so please go to the new site and check out the map. Note: The design of the new site is temporary :) We will have something new up soon (read: whenever time permits).
When: February 2nd @ 7p.m.
Where: Slingshot offices (map on the site)
Who: Developers and Designers, etc… We are hoping to branch out and not just focus on Flash, but all Design/Development topics.
Just wanted to update everyone with some stats on the Sneak Peeks video…
Sneak Peeks Hits – 15,062
Sneak Peeks Video Downloads – 5,269
Total Bandwidth – 78,140,245 KB (approx 76 GB)
Google Ad Clicks – 182
To keep it in perspective, the root of my site has gotten a total of 11,048 hits this month. So this ONE entry has outdone my blog :) AND, the hits just keep on comin. Thanks everyone!
Below you will find a link to a 320×240 Quick Time movie of the Sneak Peeks session at MAX 2004. A couple of notes before the link…
1) Flex – New charting components (WOW!)
2) Flash – Blending modes, Filters (drop shadow, etc), Improved Performance in the player, Authoring tool preview, Improved Library, etc…
3) Central – Flex in Central, Flash without shell/chrome!!!
4) The high pitched, annoying noises you hear, are whistles they gave everyone to indicate which features they liked.
5) Don’t give Mike too hard a time about the “costume” he had to wear :)
There is a lot of new stuff in this video, that wasn’t shown in Colin’s video. You will notice that the Central section of the video jumps from one section to another. Thats because I was running out of tape, and I knew people would want to see the player without the shell stuff. Dannys session with Central/Flash Player was probably my favorite, as these are features I have been waiting YEARS for!
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My last day at MAX wasn’t as fun as the first, but more of a learning experience. Went to a couple more sessions, learning some Flex and Central. All in all, the conference was VERY well put together, and I will definitely be here again next year.
Last night at the Sneak Peek session, some GREAT new stuff was shown… I have a video of the Flex, Flash, and Central portions of this, and should have this online tomorrow or this weekend sometime.
Flex – showed some great new Charting components. 1.5 is released.
Captivate – This is probably one of the lesser known, but GREAT application. You can literally create tutorials in 5 minutes (with audio, interactivity, etc)
Dreamweaver – Great new XSL template improvements. Homesite code tools added to the left toolbar. Collapsible code portions.
Flash – Showed a lot of the new player features shown in Colins movie. Also showed the new authoring tool! This is going to ROCK. You will see all of this in the video.
Central – Danny showed some great stuff here. Showed some new Central shells with autohiding panels, etc. Also, he showed prototypes of Flash running on the desktop with no shell, chrome, borders, etc.. Also, it had transparency and custom shapes.You will see the new desktop stuff on the video, but my tape ended right as he stopped showing it.
Cold Fusion – Even though their computer bluescreened right off the bat, they still talked about Blackstone and some of the features. They talked about some other default gateways that will ship with Blackstone, including Jabber XMPP. Also, about how Blackstone will support asynchronous events, and multi-threading.
Think about this. 1 year ago, they would have barely acknowledged that their was a new Flash in development, now they are showing authoring tools, players, improvements etc. to the general public. Good move Macromedia :) Look for the video sometime very soon.
So I got in last night around 7pm and immediately headed up to the “game room” of the Hilton. Let me try to explain the sheer madness of this room. There are a total of 4 projectors, 4 Xboxs, and 16 controllers. Couple this, with about 20 video game deprived Flash Developers, and you have madness. Halo was the game of choice for the first half, then we split between Project Gotham, and Halo (2 projectors with Halo, 2 with PGR). I will be the first to admit that I have never played Halo in my life, but for some reason, I finally caught onto the whole FPS with a controller thing. What a blast!
After gaming, Danny, Mike, Christian and I all went to try and find something to eat. It was 11pm, and despite what idiot New Orleans people told us, there wasn’t a single place open. We finally decided to go get something to eat in the Harrahs casino across from the Hilton, and this just opened up a whole new can of worms. Mike and Christian started out just throwing $20 on the roulette wheel, and when they won, the fever caught on. Danny and I stayed at the casino until about 2:00am, and Mike and Christian, well, I have yet to see them :) Hahaha, nah, they SAY they left at 3am.
So, onto the first conference day. WOW. First off, this conference is quite possibly the best Flash/MM Dev conference out there. The professionalism of the conference is amazing. The auditorium looks like something straight out of Steve Job keynotes (you will see this in a specific video I release at a later time, muahaha). Everything just seems more planned out, and organized. I don’t know if I will be able to go to any other conference after this one.
The sessions are amazing. Makes me feel like I have a LOT to learn :( I met up with Chris Kensworthy of dream.in.code fame FINALLY (have known him for YEARS). Believe it or not, Chris likes Cold Fusion!!! Who would have thought?
Right now, I am sitting in the auditorium, waiting for the Sneak Peek presentation to begin. Should start within a half hour, and I can’t wait. I will try to take down notes, and will probably blog about it after the event. Also, later tonight is the MAX special event (this should get interesting), and you can also count on multiple hours of xbox.
Just got word that my company is sending me to Macromedia MAX this year. Unfortunately, due to heavy work loads, I will only be attending Tuesday night, Wednesday, Thursday, and departing Thursday night.
So who all is going to be there? I am really looking forward to attending a conference that isn’t Flash Forward :) Just looking for something different I guess. Plus, I have heard that MAX is a GREAT conference.
