Scott Fegette

June 03, 2008

Pandora Desktop with Adobe AIR

My favorite music browsing/listening service, Pandora, just released a beta desktop client... and it's built using Adobe AIR. Sweet! Yet another example of how easily you can move from web to desktop using AIR. As Pandora was always Flash-based, it's not a surprising move (and the design/look/feel is pretty much just like the site so not a huge jump forward in functionality), but a welcome move nonetheless- I'm not a fan of listening from my browser and much prefer the OS X dock controls the AIR desktop client provides. You can read more about the desktop beta at the Pandora team blog, and download/install the desktop beta here.

Posted by sfegette at 06:52 PM | Comments (0)

August 10, 2007

My iTunes - Flash Widgets

Amidst all the new iMac/iLife/iWork iNews this week, I somehow missed this little tidbit (thanks to JD for the nod)- Apple's new 'My iTunes' site offers several downloadable/embeddable page widgets to share your iTunes prefs with the world- and said widgets are delivered in Flash format.

Widgets and code snippets like this aren't quite breaking news, but given all the chatter recently about what Apple ISN'T doing with Flash today (most notably the iPhone, of course), I found this a rather interesting example of some cool things Apple IS doing with Flash.

Posted by sfegette at 11:58 AM | Comments (3)

February 27, 2007

swfIR Image Replacement

I love it when standards and Flash play nicely together, and the release of swfIR today really illustrates how Flash can be used to progressively enhance images in your standards-compliant markup- and in a nicely unobtrusive manner. Inline rotations, drop shadows, rounded corners, dynamic resizing and flexible borders are now yours for the price of a svelte JS include and 'shim' SWF file, at the expense of a simple <span> wrapped around your image. And of course, like sIFR before it, should your user agent not support swfIR the original image - with it's pristine and standards-compliant markup - is shown as expected, sans the glitzy effects. Kudos to the swfIR team - Jon Aldinger, Mark Huot and Dan Mall - for this tasty morsel of progressively-enhanced joy.

You can read more at the swfIR site, and find additional commentary at both Jeffrey Zeldman and Mike Davidson's weblogs (as they cued me in on swfIR to begin with). Good stuff.

Posted by sfegette at 10:35 AM | Comments (2)

November 22, 2006

"Flash 3D" from Focal Press - Thumbs up!

I've been meaning to post a review of Focal Press' new book "Flash 3d - Animation, Interactivity and Games" for a few weeks now, but found myself digging through it more and more, which is a sure-fire sign that I'm enjoying it thoroughly. And that's definitely the case. Big thumbs-up from me, especially if you've been daunted by 3D animation and/or development before. Kudos to co-authors Jim Ver Hague and Chris Jackson for presenting this material in such a down-to-earth and easy to disseminate format.

Now I must admit I'm a bit bummed that this book is even necessary- as being a long-time After Effects user I've been using 3D cameras in AE for quite a while and have always wished the same functionality was available in my vector animation app 'o choice, Flash. But I digress. In lieu of real 3D cameras, objects/primitives and views in Flash, this book does a fantastic job of both walking through the basics of 3D perspectives and geometry, and getting down and dirty with real-world examples and implementations you can chew on right here, right now.

Starting with a great overview of perspective and depth - the book quickly moves into a very well-explained set of chapters covering the mathematics and spatial environment required to animate and code in 3D, and how to apply those principles to your Flash projects. No worries to the algorithmically-challenged- if you skipped geometry and trig in school, you won't get lost here.

After a blitzkrieg (but well-explained) run through the fundamentals of 3D space, the book rounds out it's tail section with a discussion of 3D objects and elements, and how to both transform planar objects 3D space as well as extrude/add dimension to them in order to simulate real depth and volume. And the companion CD-ROM includes source and reference projects to supplement all of these great examples throughout. All in all, a very well-done book that fills a rather large void that's existed for a while in the Flash animation world.

If you're interested in adding rich 3D effects and perspectives to your Flash projects, whether simple spatial tricks to add dimension to your planar animations or full-blown environmental simulations with camera perspective, "Flash 3D - Animation, Interactivity, and Games" could just be the book that fills the void for you. Check it out- I really enjoyed it and am pretty sure you will as well.

Update: you can also download a sample chapter in PDF format (Chapter 1) from the product page on the Focal Press site, or by clicking here. Good stuff!

Posted by sfegette at 10:18 AM | Comments (0)

November 20, 2006

From After Effects to Flash

Tom Green and Tiago Dias have a new book coming out, focusing on the intersection of After Effects and Flash for creatives. And good news- you can get a chance to read the first two chapters early starting right now on the Community MX website here. Since I've been using these two apps together for quite some time, this is obviously a very interesting subject to me- and knowing Tom well (and just having met Tiago at MAX this last October) it's looking like the two of 'em will rip up the subject quite well. Swing over to Community MX and check out the first excerpt from Chapter 1 - "From Concept to Final Product in After Effects 7". Look forward to reading the rest, guys!

Posted by sfegette at 02:36 PM | Comments (0)

November 06, 2006

iLike - Music social networking with Flash

If you're using iTunes and like music as much as I do (even half as much), you should check out iLike, a new music-centric social networking site by the people who brought you Garageband.com.

iLike has used Flash to integrate a 'sidebar' into iTunes (Mac and Windows), and let you share your recently-played tracks with both your direct friends and the larger music community. Implemented in Flash as a direct extension to iTunes (right now that's the only 'jukebox' app supported), the iLike sidebar helps link you to your iLike account, and both see what your friends are listening to as well as other artists similar to your own tastes as you rock out in iTunes on your local machine. Awesome.

But best of all- it helps find similar independent artists on Garageband.com based on your musical preferences. I've been growing more and more dissatisfied with the major labels' choices these days, and have really been getting into the indie scene more- this is a great way to 'music-surf' some great unknown acts and 'local heros' you might not otherwise notice sticking to the corpo-airwaves. ;-)

I've been really enjoying iLike the last month or so of it's private beta, but as it's now opened up to public beta this last week- you can jump in and start music-surfing and discovering new artists and tunes yourselves. Check out their FAQ here, and if you decide to hook up, make sure to ping me at my profile page here and hop on my buddy list. The more the merrier, I say.

(IMHO - since it's such a cool, integrated use of Flash outside the great features, you should just give it a whirl on general principle... ;-)

Posted by sfegette at 09:22 AM | Comments (1)

August 22, 2006

Gucci's redesign, and passing the 'Skip Intro' torch

With great power comes great responsibility... ;-)

I just read Ajaxian's review of the new Gucci website, which is using script.aculo.us to build out a very slick, 'Flash-esque' user experience. Great job, too. I like what they've done with the site, it's very aesthetically pleasing but also easy to navigate and browse.

But I have to chuckle a bit as I read the 'skip intro' barb in the first comment on Ajaxian - a portend of hauntings to come with script.aculo.us and other visual widgets realized in Javascript? Although Flash took many direct punches on the chin over the 'skip intro' sites, back then Flash was also the only real game in town for rich, interactive online experiences (as well as gratuitous animation). Now that Javascript can be abused with equal ease and aplomb for visual experiences, can we finally just agree as a community that it's *designers and engineers* who are responsible the decisions to weigh down an experience with excessive visual flair/cruft/elements, and not the underlying technologies that enable them?

I suspect you won't hear that 'Javascript/Ajax is 99% Bad' anytime soon, alas. Personally I think that any technology, if abused or overused, can become '99% bad'. But that's just me (and my biased opinion)... and given Javascript's recent emergence in this arena, I suspect there's a lot more to be said on the subject in coming months and years.

Welcome to the 'skip intro' club, script.aculo.us! ;-)

Posted by sfegette at 12:57 PM | Comments (3)

August 10, 2006

Ted vs. SEO - Flex Templating (FXT)

Ted Patrick's FXT (Flex Templating) post and sample code also addresses common RIA concerns such as back-button support, RESTful URLs, it's a very flexible way to allow the HTML container of a Flex app to provide the data model for the Flex 2 SWF-based view/controller in a way that allows spiders to easily crawl and index the content - one of the most common complaints I hear about Flex/Flash applications today. Chafic feels that this could be a step towards Flex replacing HTML - and I'd have to agree that although that may be quite a while off, FXT is definitely a HUGE step moving Flex apps in the right direction. Ted gave me a quick laptop demo of FXT yesterday while we were both down in the San Jose offices, and I've been hard-pressed to get it off my mind ever since. I'm really glad Ted announced FXT today, so I can purge my driving need to talk about it postehaste. :)

If you haven't checked out FXT yet, definitely visit Ted's blog, download/check out the source and give it a spin. This could have you thinking entirely differently about Flex applications as replacements or even adjuncts to your current content models. Very cool stuff!

Posted by sfegette at 10:17 AM | Comments (0)

June 28, 2006

Flash 9/AS 3 Preview Live on Labs

That's right- the preview release of Flash Professional 9 (with Actionscript 3 support) is live on Labs. If you're a Flash 8 loyalist who's been keeping a distant eye on Flex 2 (formerly in beta, but which just released officially today) to see how Actionscript 3 develops, now you can start tweaking with it in Flash, too.

The Flash Professional 9 Actionscript 3 Preview release will be the only preview release before the final version ships in '07, but it's well worth the download if you've been itching to get started with AS3 (and the also-newly-released Flash Player 9). In this release you can set publish targets for AS3/Player 9, as well as assign a class to the master Timeline. There are more cool AS3-specific features planned for the final release, but you'll just have to wait for those surprises, sorry. ;-)

If you haven't started downloading the preview release yet... what are you waiting for?

Posted by sfegette at 08:35 AM | Comments (8)

June 22, 2006

3D Flash Menu Hotness

A quickie for today- this being one very slick 3D-space menu implemented in Flash, the inbound link courtesy of Jacob at Sony Online Entertainment. Very sweet.

Posted by sfegette at 01:22 PM | Comments (19)

May 23, 2006

iPod + Nike + Flash = A Runner's Dream

Nike and Apple have apparently teamed up on Nike+, a hardware/software solution for Nike footwear and the iPod nano that lets you both record and sync your workout data to a Flash application on the Nike+ website (and of course, your local computer).

By way of a small sensor placed in your Nike+ shoe and an equally-small reciever that clicks into the dock connector of your iPod Nano, you can track your distance/speed/calories, compare it with your history as well as that of other runners worldwide, get real-time voice feedback during your run, challenge other runners to a 'virtual, online race', and subscribe to custom workout mixes and podcasts- among other cool features.

I'm normally a pretty cynical guy in regards to workout gear (my philosophy: the simpler the solution, the better), but this is quite eyebrow-raising for the tech-geek side of me. Since I'm in the market for some new running shoes, I may have to pimp up my Nano in short order. Imagine if they could have also squeezed in a heart-rate monitor... nice. ;-)

(Nice use of Flash video on the site too, FYI.)

Posted by sfegette at 01:00 PM | Comments (5)

May 21, 2006

Shaving with Flash Video

Philips/Norelco has a HILARIOUS Flash video piece up for their new 'Bodygroom' razor at shaveeverywhere.com- one of the funniest spots I've seen in a LONG time, and well put together. It's work-safe, but just barely- strongly recommended for your Sunday surfing, unless you're easily offended by not-so-subtle innuendo... ;-)

Dig it!

Posted by sfegette at 09:54 AM | Comments (2)

May 15, 2006

Odeo releases new Flash embedded players

Ev notes that Odeo just launched a few new designs of their embedded Flash players, allowing you to embed Odeo-syndicated content in your blog/site/etc. Cool! I have nothing against the pink/blue color theme of the Odeo site, but the flat-black player is welcome for the conflicting color schemes on my own site(s)... ;-)

Posted by sfegette at 12:19 PM | Comments (0)

April 19, 2006

Flash 8 and Active Content

I've heard a lot of questions lately about the Internet Explorer 'Active Content' update, from creative Flashers who don't care to implement the code-based solution suggested at the Adobe Active Content Developer Center in their HTML files, and want to publish directly - with the fix in place - right from Flash 8. Surprise- that's already an option!
(although the code route is dead easy, should you decide to rethink that decision and give it a shot... ;-)

The Flash (Basic & Pro) 8 Active Content Update was also linked from the Dev Center recently. You can find more information on it in this technote, too. This MXP extension will give you two new HTML templates in the Publish Settings > HTML tab, which will allow you to directly apply the fix to your published SWF/HTML projects. You can find specifics on the process you'll follow here (and it'll be very familiar, just two new HTML publish templates and then applying the new 'Apply Active Content Update' Command to the publish folder before uploading your files).

So if you're skeptical of the MSIE update's effect on your content and equally so of working around it in code, rest easy, download and install this update, and get back to creating those sweet Flash projects.

Posted by sfegette at 04:26 PM | Comments (4)

April 02, 2006

Sweet Bass tones + Flash Video

I busted up my vintage Octavia stompbox at a recent gig, so was poking around online at the latest & greatest hardware this morning to pick up a replacement. Lo and behold, the new Bass Pod XT Live has an utterly delicious FLV-powered product demo online! Now I'm not one who's easily marketed to online, but have to admit between their Flash-delivered tone samples they have online and the afore-linked video tour, Line 6 just made a compelling argument for this admittedly analog-heavy bassist to consider adding a digital-heavy Bass Pod XT Live to my main SWR stage rig. The inner skeptic in me will still run down to the Guitar Center to verify it's structural integrity in person, of course (I can get rather animated onstage)- but I must admit this is one time where a Flash shopping experience just 'had me at hello'. Simple implementation, but VERY effective. Nice job!

Posted by sfegette at 11:43 AM | Comments (3)

March 16, 2006

London Bridge Studios - new Flash site

Seattle's famous London Bridge Studios just got a change of owners, and are opening up to the public after 13 years of private ownership- launching a new Flash-based site to give a virtual peek inside.

If the name doesn't ring familiar to you, I first heard London Bridge's trademark tones during the Seattle 'revolution' in the early 90s, with artists like Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains and Mother Love Bone recording their most popular albums there. An amazingly warm, ambient room for rhythm sections - sure wish I'd had the chance to lay down tracks at LBS back when I was slinging a bass for a living myself. Enjoy!

Posted by sfegette at 01:31 PM | Comments (1)

GoToAndLearn Forums launched

Another link I missed while on the road last week or so- Lee Brimelow's awesome Flash tutorial site GoToAndLearn() just launched new companion forums for discussion of all the great educational content Lee's been ripping out. Definitely worth a visit, and if you haven't had the opportunity of diving into Lee's site before now, drop everything and click this link now. Seriously. Great stuff.

Posted by sfegette at 12:30 PM | Comments (5)

Sony Online - new PSP/PS3/Flash 8 sites

Two great new sites for Sony platform-gamers from Sony Online Entertainment/Station launched recently, that PSP freaks and PS3-hopefuls will find very interesting. (Did I mention they both leverage tons of Flash 8-specific features, too?)

First up- Untold Legends - Dark Kingdom, a PS3 game based on the popular Untold Legends series (I really enjoyed the PSP-based title, Untold Legends - Brotherhood of the Blade and am looking forward to ripping into it's sequel). Real-world physics are a big part of the game - and the website - this should be a really fun one.

Next, the Gods and Heros: Rome Rising website- an online RPG based in the world and mythos of ancient Rome, designed by Stieg Hedlund (lead designer of Diablo II, a personal fave), and co-published between Sony and Perpetual Entertainment. Although I usually avoid MMORPGs simply due to the amount of time they consume (can you say time sponge?), this looks like a really well-done game. I've heard really good things about the innovative combat system and squad-based development in the game, and must admit their teaser site (linked earlier) has me pretty curious.

Check 'em out!

Posted by sfegette at 12:08 PM | Comments (2)

LA Flash UG Portal Redesign

Just got a ping that the LA Flash User Group website just got a MAJOR upgrade- with RSS feeds and Flash-specific content aggregations, iCal support for their event schedules, it certainly looks like Fingerprint Media has been working overtime the last few weeks to put a new face on one of my more regularly-visited UG sites- nice job!

You can check out the new LA Flash site/portal here.

Posted by sfegette at 11:38 AM | Comments (3)

March 07, 2006

Flex/Ajax Bridge - now on Adobe Labs

Want to leverage the communications and rich-media capabilities of Flex alongside the rich, browser-centric goodness of AJaXian applications? Then check out the Flex AJAX Bridge project- now live on Adobe Labs for immediate download - (to quote developer Ely Greenfield) "a small, unobtrusive library of code that you can insert into a Flex application, a Flex component, or even an empty SWF file to expose it to scripting in the browser". If you've been watching the Developer Center closely this afternoon, you may have already caught it slipping out.

In a nutshell, this is the Flash/Javascript Integration kit++.
(if you don't know what I'm talking about, click here.)

Incredibly cool (and a bit of a surprise, even for myself)! So go get your mitts on the bits ASAP, and make sure to check out the sample application here to see examples of the Flex/AJAX Bridge in full effect (note- this sample app requires Flash Player 8.5, which you can also get from Adobe Labs - but you've already downloaded the Flex 2 Beta, haven't you? ;-)

Posted by sfegette at 05:22 PM | Comments (2)

March 02, 2006

Flex 1.5 hot fix available for MSIE update

Both a hot fix and tech note for Flex 1.5 were issued today, addressing recent updates to the way active content is accessed in Microsoft Internet Explorer. An excerpt from the technote (links to the hot fix downloads can be found within the full technote, of course):

"Microsoft's update to Internet Explorer was published on February 28, 2006. This update changes how Internet Explorer handles some web pages that use ActiveX controls. Certain web pages, including the default Flex wrapper page for Flash Player, may require users to manually activate ActiveX controls by clicking on the control or using the TAB key and ENTER key.

More information on this update can be obtained from Microsoft at:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/912945.

Posted by sfegette at 09:36 AM | Comments (0)

February 22, 2006

TEACHnow, with Flash Video

From where will the next wave of new schoolteachers for our children emerge? For a real-world perspective of the manpower challenges the US educational system faces, check out TEACH, a 35-minute FLV-based film/teacher recruitment piece directed by Davis Guggenheim, which chronicles four new schoolteachers' first year in some of the toughest schools in the country. TEACH is a followup to Guggenheim's Peabody-winning documentary "The First Year", on the same subject. Delivered via streaming Flash Video, developers Robert Reinhardt and Snow Dowd of [theMAKERS] took great pains to assure the video playback was a smooth and consistent experience- fantastic use of the format (and a great documentary/subject). Enjoy!

Posted by sfegette at 02:25 PM | Comments (1)

February 16, 2006

Flash Media Server 2.0.1 - Update Available

That's right, you heard it right- Flash Media Server 2.0.1 (Dynamo) is now available for download. According to Steven Wolkoff, Flash Media Server product manager, along with configurable license profiles (a much requested and hotly-debated change to FMS 2), a number of key fixes were also added into this free update for current FMS 2 customers.

You can read more details about the updater and what's included in the FMS 2.0.1 Release Notes here, and get your hands on the update itself from the download center. Enjoy!

Posted by sfegette at 02:58 PM | Comments (2)

January 13, 2006

Flashforward '06 Early Bird Pricing

Interested in attending Flashforward 2006 in Seattle this year? Then the information below from our events team is right up your alley- early bird pricing discounts for the conference will end in 7 days! Read on for more details and a link to the Flashforward 2006 registration site:

"Register now for Flashforward 2006 by January 20 and get special early bird pricing. For the first time ever Flashforward will be held in Seattle, Washington and will feature tracks on After Effects, Video, Open Source, and more in addition to covering the newest release of Flash, Flash Professional 8 and the Flash platform. If you register before January 20 you can save $300 on a three day conference pass or almost $400 on a four day conference pass."

You can register for Flashforward 2006 at the following URL:
http://www.flashforwardconference.com/register

Posted by sfegette at 09:51 AM | Comments (0)

January 02, 2006

Flash Lite 2 - Authoring Update available on Labs

It's official- the Flash Lite 2 Update for Flash Professional 8 preview release is now available for download on the Adobe (formerly Macromedia) Labs website. This updater will add Flash Lite 2-specific authoring features to your Flash Professional 8 installation so you can start getting busy right now. If you were watching before the holidays, the Flash Lite 2.0 mobile player itself was quietly added to the Macromedia.com online store, this adds the missing authoring piece to pull it all together. Have fun!

Posted by sfegette at 06:22 PM | Comments (2)

December 09, 2005

Iokio CameraFinder

One of the most popular early RIA examples used in Macromedia demos was the CameraFinder application created by software vendors Iokio- using their FeatureFinder product which helps you to build RIAs quickly and easily. And the CameraFinder demo is still online- you can check it out here, along with more information on FeatureFinder here (should you be a bit more code-averse to approaching projects like this). Good stuff from some early RIA pioneers- check it out!

Posted by sfegette at 03:01 PM | Comments (11)

Gtalkr API

Brian at Solution Watch notes that Gtalkr, a Flash-based front end web application for the popular Google Talk, has an extension API available- also now listed in the API database at ProgrammableWeb. Hacking may commence immediately...

Posted by sfegette at 02:54 PM | Comments (0)

December 07, 2005

Pandora, your Flash-based jukebox

I've been listening to Pandora a lot lately- it's a really cool front-end to the Music Genome Project, letting you choose a favorite artist or song, and then letting Pandora create a custom 'station' for you- streaming the music down to your browser/Flash Player. Nice way to explore musicspace on your own terms- check it out!

Posted by sfegette at 03:10 PM | Comments (7)

November 30, 2005

Dev Center Update - Synchronized Flash Video

A common question I heard during my Flash Video sessions at the 2005 MAX conferences around the world was how you could leverage cue points in Flash 8 to both trigger events and provide 'jump points'. If you've got similar questions, check out Dan Carr's new Developer Center tutorial on synchronizing Flash 8 graphics with a talking head/spokesperson FLV video. If you're having trouble getting started with cue points and synchronization in your FLV projects- this should help kick things off well.

Posted by sfegette at 12:53 PM | Comments (0)

Gtalkr - Flash UI for Google Talk

Gtalkr appears to be a cool third-party Flash/browser-based front-end for the Google Talk instant messaging service, letting you get to your IM network and messages from any Flash-enabled browser, anywhere. I'll admit I haven't used it in extreme depth yet, but it looks really nicely done so far and covers all the Google Talk features I need. If you've been using Gtalkr as an IM client alternative, post a comment and let me know your thoughts!

The Gtalkr URL:
http://www.gtalkr.com/
The Gtalkr weblog:
http://gtalkr.wordpress.com/
Om Malik reviews Gtalkr:
http://gigaom.com/2005/11/29/gtalkr-web-based-gtalk-client/

Posted by sfegette at 11:39 AM | Comments (4)

November 29, 2005

Flash - making the skies safer

Great story in the Sydney Morning Herald on Studio developer Richard Turner-Jones' RIA project for his employer, Airservices Australia- Flying Around- an interactive application developed and provided to help pilots down under get familiar with the incredibly busy airspace around Sydney, helping cut down the number of accidents and incidents for all. Built entirely in Flash, the application (and Richard) took home a MAX award from Anaheim this year, and is one amazing RIA. Check it out!

Also- if this piques your interest in how a project like this gets tackled, you may want to get into Richard's session this coming March at the Sydney WebDU conference (the conference formerly known as MXDU)- he'll be breaking down the Flying Around project, which should be a very interesting - if not eye-opening - presentation.

Congrats on all the attention lately, Richard! Well deserved, I say.

Posted by sfegette at 10:00 AM | Comments (0)

November 14, 2005

Kevin Lynch @ Spark Amsterdam - Live Webcast

Just got wind of this and wanted to pass it along- you can catch Kevin Lynch's Thursday keynote at SPARK (http://www.sparkeurope.com/), Europe's premier Flash event in Amsterdam. I sure wish I could be in two places at once- but this sure helps!

The details:

When - Thursday, November 17th @ 7pm CET (Central European time)
Where - http://spark.fabchannel.com (includes time zone info)
What - Live keynote broadcast by Fabchannel.com. The SPARK REMIX party (right after) and other show sessions will be posted as well.

Fabchannel.com is one of the biggest online concert archives in the world. During this event they'll also be launching their new website using Flash 8 and Flash Media Server 2.

Posted by sfegette at 01:47 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

October 31, 2005

Studio 8 Case Studies - Got Content?

Have you been using the Studio 8 products to create your online content? Got some interesting work to show? Not averse to being featured in a case study and getting tons of exposure? If your answers to the last three questions are a resounding "yes" (and you missed Mike's post earlier this evening), the Studio product marketing folks are currently looking for some reference customers, and would be interested in checking out your work. Should you (or even someone you know) fit the bill, please drop a comment on this post with some details (or email me directly at sfegette AT macromedia DOT com) and I'll be sure to pass your info along for consideration.

Posted by sfegette at 07:33 PM | Comments (2)

October 28, 2005

Darron Schall - Flash-based VNC

I'm admittedly late to the blogrush on this story, but mad props are due regardless. Darron Schall has apparently been working on a VNC client for Flash Player 8.5, which is currently blowing my mind. Essentially a remote desktop application, there have been many implementations of VNC clients in both native code and Java, but I'm really blown away at how cool apps like this will be for enterprise and even home automation applications. Binary socket connection to a TightVNC server, DES encryption, this is awesome stuff- and really starting to get me excited at the inevitability of more amazing apps and projects like this to come.

Awesome.

Posted by sfegette at 12:45 PM | Comments (3)

October 16, 2005

Macromedia Labs is Live

Well, the cat's out of the bag- the project I've been working on for the last few weeks is now live... Macromedia Labs. Featuring the public alpha of the Flex 2 product line, Macromedia Labs includes a wiki, source repository, and plenty of initial content to get you up to speed and running with the new bits, as quickly as possible.

Make sure to watch the video tutorials, particularly Sho Kuwamoto's 15-minute Flex application video, which should drive home how easy it is to rapidly develop RIAs in Flex Builder 2. Mark Anders also provides overviews of creating a new project and compiling, and building a constraint-based layout in Flex Builder 2. But that's just a highlight or two, there's a boatload of information, tips and samples lurking within the nether regions of the Labs site and wiki to be discovered, and more on the way.

I wrote up a more official overview of Macromedia Labs for the Developer Center giving all the whys and what-fors, but I suspect you'll get the most mileage out of downloading the new bits and trying them out for yourself. After all, that's the point! So what are you waiting for? Get on with the downloading, and have some fun with the Flex 2 alpha.

Posted by sfegette at 11:59 PM | Comments (2)

Prince of Persia in Flash

Just caught this on Digg.com, one of my old favorite side-scroller gams - Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time - has been recreated in Flash. Check it out- a fun diversion for your MAX Sunday!

Posted by sfegette at 01:41 PM | Comments (5)

September 27, 2005

Scion F8 Contest (USA)

In case you missed the blog-rush on this yesterday, automakers Scion have a Flash 8 contest/competition running right now that will dish out a new car to the grand prize winner. As long as your site/application is exported to Flash 8 and compatible with both Windows XP and Mac OS X, includes at least 2 Scion creative assets (from a library made available after registering), is less than 2 minutes runtime and 10 megs size, and your own work- you can enter to win your choice of a swanky, new Scion xA, XB, or tC car. (side note, the contest is only open for permanent legal residents of the continental US.)

Contest judges include MXNA (and Flash) stalwarts like Guy Watson, Grant Skinner and Eric Dolecki- who'll be doling out up to 50 points respectively for both artistic vision (your expression of the Scion personality), and technical merit (your mastery of the Flash 8 toolset). If this sounds interesting (or you're sorely in need of a new set of wheels), check the contest rules and judging criteria, grab the official assets, roll up your sleeves and get cracking on your next F8 masterpiece.

Posted by sfegette at 01:29 PM | Comments (0)

September 21, 2005

Flash 8 - Updated Remoting Components

In case you haven't noticed already, the Flash Remoting component was updated yesterday to Flash 8 compatibility- and is now on the Macromedia web site for immediate download/installation. Make sure to read the release notes for specifics, of course. Alongside the Remoting connector itself, the installer will also include the NetConnection Debugger, support and help files for Flash 8 (i.e. updates to the Help panel in Flash 8), as well as AS2 API class source code. If you were wondering where the Remoting component was in the default Flash 8 install... wonder no more. :)

Posted by sfegette at 01:41 PM | Comments (2)

September 08, 2005

FOTD 23: Flash 8 - Flash Video Playback

In recent FOTDs I've covered encoding videos in Flash, both individually and in batch via the standalone encoder, but today we're going to actually do something with your FLV file- using the new FLV Playback component in Flash 8. If you've been holding out on integrating video assets into your sites and RIAs, then you really owe it to yourself to explore the possibilities with Studio 8. It's just too darn easy to ignore now.

I'm going to assume that we're starting this FOTD with a FLV file created either via the Flash 8 Video Import Wizard or Batch Encoder, or directly exported from an NLE/compositing application. Either way, I've got this 'talking head' video on hand I want to integrate quickly into a Flash movie. Let's look both at how you can quickly do this with the new FLV Playback component in Flash 8, as well as a very basic implementation with custom UI components and ActionScript- to give you an idea as to how much 'work' is really involved to get a FLV file playing in Flash 8.

First up- let's use the FLV playback component to embed a video clip into our Flash movie. Open up the Components panel ("Windows > Components" menu, FYI), open up the "FLV Playback - Player 8" category, and witness the shiny new FLVPlayback component. We'll just drag it to the stage, and rename the instance to 'myVideo' in the Property Inspector.

Now- just switch to the 'Parameters' tab of the Property Inspector, scroll down to the 'contentPath' parameter, and click the magnifying glass icon to point the Playback component to your FLV file as so:

... you can also scroll down to the 'skin' parameter and click the magnifying glass icon to choose one of the available preset controller 'skins' in the component's Parameters (complete with preview):

And after all that really hard work, just hit "Test Movie" - or publish your SWF - and you're done. One drag/drop of a component, two parameter updates, publish a SWF... that's all it takes to include FLV video clips in your Flash movies!

(FYI, that's our very own Team Macromedia member Tom Green waxing philosophic about Dreamweaver 8's new features...)

Now what if you want to create your own interface for the playback controls- for example if you were embedding this video into a larger multimedia piece? The FLV Playback component doesn't require the preset skins- as it's nearly as easy to bind custom playback controls to match your layout/design as well. You'll find the custom UI components in the Component panel as well- under the "FLV Playback Custom UI" component category:

To use them, just set up the FLV Playback component as described above, but leave out the step where you specify a player skin in the Property Inspector (after all, you'll be creating your own now). Then, drag out the components you need to the stage - where you want them to appear - and make sure to name each instance uniquely (and somewhat logically) in the Property Inspector so they can be accessed via ActionScript. Here's a basic layout using a Seek Bar, Play/Pause Button, Forward Button, Back Button, and Volume Bar:

... and the only coding required to bind these 5 custom UI components to the Playback component are these 5 lines of ActionScript:

The 'myVideo' parameter, as you'll recall, is the FLV Playback component we started with, and I'm simply assigning each of my new UI controls (by their instance name) to the myVideo component's respective functions. Place the playback component and point it at an FLV file, position the UI controls on the stage, bind them to the playback component, hit "Publish"- and you're done. Even the custom UI route is dead simple.

And there you have it- two easy ways to embed Flash video into your Flash 8 projects with varying degrees of control (and there's even more, should you dive into the ActionScript side of the equation). Best get your video clips ready for Flash 8 ASAP- and don't forget to swing back by tomorrow for FOTD 24!

Posted by sfegette at 04:07 PM | Comments (32)

September 02, 2005

FOTD 20: Flash 8 - Mobile Emulator

If you haven't noticed a significant focus towards development on alternate phones/devices with Macromedia products lately, exactly how is the weather these days under your rock? ;-)
Seriously- Flash 8 includes a LOT of workflow improvements related to mobile development, and building on yesterday's FOTD covering the Style Rendering Toolbar in Dreamweaver, proofing and debugging your mobile applications with Flash 8 will also get easier. Today I'm going to step through a Flash 8 mobile workflow to show you just how easy it'll be to get into mobile development- once you get your hands on Studio 8, of course.

As with Flash MX 2004, when selecting 'File > New...' and creating a new Flash document, you can choose from a variety of template projects, including not just traditional document types, but specific templates for the various mobile device platforms you may want to target.

The default mobile development templates available in Flash 8 (by device category) include:

Global Phones
These templates are for full-screen development on supported, Symbian-based handsets.

• Flash Lite 1.1 - Symbian Series 60 Phones


• Flash Lite 1.1 - Symbial UIQ Phones

Japanese Phones
(Note: these templates may require resizing your stage, based on the specific handsets you're developing for.)

• Flash Lite 1.0 - Browser


• Flash Lite 1.0 - Ringtones


• Flash Lite 1.1 - Browser


• Flash Lite 1.1 - Ringtones


• Flash Lite 1.1 - Screensaver


• Flash Lite 1.1 - Wallpaper

PDAs
These templates cover development to PDAs in at least 2 modes (both full screen, and with the soft input panel opened), and an in-browser display size for Windows Mobile devices.

• Motorola A92X


• Nokia 7710


• Sony CLIE NX70 - Full Screen


• Sony CLIE NX70 - Soft Input Panel open


• Sony CLIE NZ90 - Full Screen


• Sony CLIE NZ90 - Soft Input Panel open


• Sony CLIE UX50 - Full Screen


• Sony CLIE UX50 - Soft Input Panel open


• Windows Mobile - Browser


• Windows Mobile - Full Screen


• Windows Mobile - Soft Input Panel open

Since I'm using a Series 60 phone (the painfully-spartan Nokia 6620), I'll choose the Series 60 template from the Global Phones category, and create a new document based on that profile- which pops up preconfigured for Flash Lite 1.1 development at the 176 x 208 screen dimensions for my phone. Nice! Now there are a few other little changes to Flash 8 you'll note, starting with the Property Inspector.

Property Inspector
The Property Inspector in Flash 8 has been updated to give quick access to your project defaults:

First, the PI now includes a Device 'Settings...' button that will let you review and change the list of supported devices (based on the templates currently available) in the new Device Settings dialog - which we'll cover in a second. You'll note that as we specified a Symbian Series 60 device template, the PI reflects that our target is the standalone Flash Lite 1.1 player. First up, let's see what the Device Settings lets you specify.

Device Settings
The Device Settings dialog lets you specify the handsets you'll target with your Flash Lite movie/application.

The first menu lets you set the content type you'll be building (although I'm targeting the basic standalone Flash Lite 1.1 player, some phones support other types of Flash resources such as ringtones, animated wallpaper and screensavers, and much more), and the current stage size is also displayed so you can verify aspect ratio/dimensions with your target device(s).

The left combo box allows you to browse the available handsets for the type of project you've selected (in our case, again- Series 60 Flash Lite 1.1 standalone player movies/applications). Blue entries are available for your current target, 'ghosted' or 'dimmed' selections are not- this helps you quickly scan the list of available devices for just the ones you're interested in, that support the target content/platform you've selected.

The right combo box is the set of test devices you have access to from within the Mobile emulator (more on that shortly- no worries!). You can of course add additional handsets/devices from the left-hand combo box and remove them from the right-hand combo box to get just the set of devices you're concerned with (make sure the stage size still matches up correctly, though- if it's not in the right-hand list to begin with it could very well be a different screen resolution). Pretty straightforward! Let's close this dialog and move on.

Publish Settings
Now that we've configured the devices we want to develop for, click the Publish 'Settings...' button in the Property Inspector, and you'll see a mobile-specific setting here, too:

First- note that (in the 'Flash' tab of the dialog) Flash Lite 1.0 and 1.1 are now available as Player versions in the first drop-down menu. The ActionScript version menu is also conveniently ghosted out, as only ActionScript 1.0 is supported in Flash Lite 1.1. The 'Formats' tab (where you specify which files are exported when publishing your movie/application) hasn't really changed, so we won't spend much time there. I'm just going to concentrate on developing my widget application from here, using my freshly-resharpened Flash 5 skills (!). I open the Actions panel...

... and immediately note that there's a line of AS already pre-entered for me- the fscommand2() function call that sets my movie to full-screen mode at startup - and that you can filter the left-hand browser based on ActionScript version- including Flash Lite 1.0 and 1.1, along with ActionScript 1.0/2.0 for standard development. Nice! So back to development, I place my assets, write my AS code as expected - but once I'm ready to test the movie, things get really interesting.

Mobile Emulator
So I've got my quickie Flash Lite 1.1 application sussed out in the Stage, Timeline and Actions panel- and hit Command/Control-Return to test the movie- and am immediately greeted by the plush new Mobile Emulator:

You can select from any of the devices you'd previously configured in the Device Settings 'chooser' (they'll be in the Test Device pull-down menu), confirm the dimensions and file size of your SWF, and choose whether or not you'll want to see trace information, general information (as to the system features the currently-selected handset supports), and/or warnings in the Output panel:

These device profiles are managed via a collection of XML 'property definitions' in your Flash 8 configuration folder (defining the characteristics/system feature support for each particular device), and a series of related PNG files that both define the visual 'skin' as well as the button functions/regions for that particular device- so that you can use the visual onscreen representation of your device and the soft/hard keys Flash Lite (or the Flash Player) can access directly are all clickable. Sweet!

With the new emulator, you now have an easy (and very flexible) way to proof your SWFs in context on the device of choice and make sure your key mappings are working as expected, without having to go through the Flash MX 2004 workflow of publishing the SWF, moving it to your phone, testing on the physical hardware- and then repeating the process (n) times until everything's tight and ready to roll. Trust me, that was a painful process indeed. You can even switch to different handsets within the emulator to test multiple devices in one fell swoop- which makes developing for carrier-specific handset groups or even personal/family handsets very easy to manage.

So... whaddaya think?

My take- outside of writing your AS code, configuring back-end data services and building your visual assets for you, Flash 8 will cover all the other nitpicky details and workflow snafus for your mobile projects in fine fashion, a very welcome set of features for new and old mobile developers alike. And if you've been hesitating to get started with mobile development due to complex or convoluted workflows and unclear deployment processes, you won't have much of an excuse anymore after Flash 8 launches.

A quick heads-up- I won't be posting a FOTD this coming Monday due to the US Labor Day holiday- so I hope you all have a fantastic 3-day weekend! I'll make up for the missing FOTD next week with some additional posts/surprises, no worries- just keep reading, I'll keep writing. :)

Posted by sfegette at 01:02 PM | Comments (24)

August 26, 2005

FOTD 15: Flash 8 - Enhanced Gradients

In Tuesday's FOTD we looked at some key updates to strokes in Flash 8, and today we're going to look at some similar (and equally helpful) updates to gradients that will give you a lot more options in your fills. Let's dive a little deeper.

First up, when applying a gradient you'll have much more onscreen control in Flash 8 over it's placement. After applying a gradient fill and selecting the Gradient Transform tool (formerly referred-to as the Fill Transformation tool), here's what the new onscreen controls look like for both a linear, and radial gradient:

For both linear and radial gradients, you can scale the gradient (i.e. effect the width of the gradient area within the fill of the selected object), rotate the gradient, and move the center point of the gradient to a new location inside the fill.

For radial gradients, there are a few extra controls to bear in mind.

First, the focal point of the radial gradient can be changed by clicking and dragging its triangle-shaped slider control. This focal point 'handle' will move along the central axis of the radial gradient and stay centered on that axis as you move it, up to the circular boundary defining the gradient. Rotating the gradient (via the rotation handle) will allow you to place the focal point at any point within the radial gradient area. To reset the focal point to center, you simply double-click the control.

Secondly, you can stretch or squeeze the radial gradient by moving the appropriate control (see diagram above). This feature is very handy for adding 'pseudo-perspective' to radial gradient fills- useful for highlight variations to spheric shapes and skewed objects, for example.

You also now have control over how colors are applied past the boundaries of your selected gradient (assuming there is more real-estate in the object's fill area to show the overflow, of course). When either the "Linear" or "Radial" gradient fill type is selected, a popup menu will be available in the Color Mixer offering three different overflow modes:

Here's a diagram illustrating how those overflow modes actually work out in practice:

A bit more description for the overflow mode examples above:

• Extend
  This is how overflow was handled in previous versions of Flash- extending the final color of the gradient beyond the gradient's boundaries.
  
  
• Reflect
  Reflect the gradient as it extends beyond the gradient boundaries.
  
  
• Repeat
  Repeat the gradient as it extends beyond the gradient boundaries.
  

This - along with the default number of gradient colors being increased from 8 colors to 16 colors, will afford you far more control, flexibility and options when using gradient fills. Now along with these updates, there's a bit more to note with the gradient handling in Flash 8.

Linear RGB
An additional interpolation mode will be supported- Linear RGB (closer to the SVG interpolation model). A check box to turn on Linear RGB interpolation is displayed in the color mixer when a gradient fill type is selected.

Color Picker Enhancements
Although this isn't specific to gradients- you'll note the size of the individual color swatches within the Color Picker has been increased to enable much easier picking. You'll also note there's now the option to specify alpha for the selected color, putting more of the options you'll need in one handy location:

Animation
What good is it to have finer control over your gradient's focal point if you can't animate it? Not a lot- so it's fortunate that you can now animate the focal point of gradients in Flash 8. Gradient style, interpolation mode, spread mode or changes in the number of colors are not animatable, however.

Gradients on Strokes
Did I mention you can apply gradients as strokes? That should open up some out-of-the ordinary options for you, as well.

I hope you've found this overview of the new gradient handling interesting- yet another 'expressive' feature of Flash 8 that should help make your creative workflow more robust. See you next Monday for FOTD 16- and have a great weekend!

Posted by sfegette at 02:58 PM | Comments (3)

August 23, 2005

FOTD 12: Flash 8 - Enhanced Strokes

Flash has made some significant strides to become more expressive with version 8, and both today and Friday's FOTD will look at two specific features in this category- todays focus on updates to Strokes that should make Flash 8 much more flexible in the design department.
(Note- these enhanced stroke features are only available when publishing to Flash Player 8.)

The first little enhancement is called 'stroke hinting' which means, in a nutshell, you won't see blurry vertical or horizontal lines anymore, as Flash now does a much better job of seeing when an anchor point is positioned at a subpixel level and adjusting for it accordingly. Just check this feature 'on' in the Property Inspector for your selected stroke (if you're publishing to Flash Player 8), and it'll take care of the rest.

You can also now control how your strokes scale via a popup menu in the Property Inspector- there are certainly cases when you wouldn't want a stroke to scale relatively when the container movie clip is scaled (for example, a user interface that, when expanded, needs to grow horizontally but keep a consistent height vertically). Flash 8 supports 4 different modes to control how and when your strokes are resized:

• Normal
  Scales vertically/horizontally with your movie clip.
• Horizontal
  Scales horizontally as your movie clip is resized, but not vertically.
• Vertical
  Scales vertically as your movie clip is resized, but not horizontally.
• None
  Stroke does not resize with the container movie clip.

Joins
Along with the default round join available in Flash MX 2004 and earlier, you can now specify bevelled and mitered joins in your Flash 8 strokes. Also, you can specify the miter size to further customize stroke corners. Sharp corners - something you couldn't really achieve without trickery in previous versions of Flash - are now available. Here's a visual example of the differences between the join styles:

Caps
Round caps, Square caps (as well as No caps) are available for your stroke ends in Flash 8- which will make stroke (and more importantly, dashed stroke) endpoints look a whole lot better. Here's how these styles differ visually:

You can access these features within the Properties Inspector, for any selected stroke- the settings are located over on the right:

The combined result of these updates is significant, affording you far more control over strokes in your Flash movies and applications than ever before. And they represent just one of many 'expressive' features in Flash 8 that will help you get a lot more work done directly in the Flash authoring environment, without needing to downshift to external illustration applications. Enjoy!

Posted by sfegette at 11:54 AM | Comments (36)

August 22, 2005

FOTD 11: Dreamweaver & Flash 8 - Mac Tabs

This will definitely be a quicker FOTD post than Friday's- but for those on the Mac platform, quite likely a long-awaited one. Tabbed documents are now available on OS X, in both Dreamweaver 8 and Flash 8! That's right- it's not a Windows-only UI convention anymore- and should help out immensely in managing your Dreamweaver and Flash workspaces.

Here's a trimmed, scaled screenshot of the top of the document windows in both Dreamweaver 8 and Flash 8, showing the new Document Tabs prominently:

Let's highlight a few specifics of this feature so you can really dive into it when your copy of Studio 8 ships. First up, Command + ` will cycle left-to-right through your currently-open tabs (for those of you, like myself, who don't always have your hand on a mouse). To reverse direction (right-to-left), just use Command + Shift + ` - the combination of the two provides a very simple way to jump back and forth between documents like, say your (X)HTML docs and the related CSS stylesheet without multiple windows cluttering your screen.

If you have more tabs open than the width of your window will support, an 'overflow' menu will appear at the right of the tab bar, allowing you to select any of the tabs that are offscreen. You can also use the keyboard shortcut noted above to navigate through these, as well.

Joining the 'Cascade' and 'Tile' functions in the 'Windows' menu (which will 'explode' a tabbed view into the old 'multiple-window' views accordingly) is a new menu item - 'Combine as Tabs'. If you've 'exploded' your documents into separate windows with either 'Cascade' or 'Tile' (or don't have your preferences set to display tabs at all), this simply combines them all your open document windows into a single window, with tabs for each document. You can specify whether you want to use tabs at all in the 'General' section of each application's Preferences panel- Flash also provides the option to open the test player in a tab, as an additional bonus.

I can't imagine browsing without tabs in Firefox and Safari, and pretty soon you'll be feeling the same way about document windows in Dreamweaver and Flash. In my opinion it's just a far better way to manage my workflow and workspace- and now it's a universal experience, no matter which platform you're working on. Sorry for the Mac-specific focus today- but in the interest of parity between the two platforms, this was an important update to note. See you again for tomorrow's Feature of the Day (which will definitely be a cross-platform one).

Posted by sfegette at 11:09 AM | Comments (12)

August 19, 2005

FOTD 10: Flash 8 - Custom Easing

This feature of Flash 8 is a personal favorite of mine- as I've never been a fan of 'percentage-based' easing when animating in Flash, and always wished I had a more control than just a '10% ease-out' or a '5% ease-in' in Flash MX 2004 and earlier. Patience pays off, however- Flash 8 features a new Custom Easing panel that, to be quite blunt, rocks quite hard indeed.

I'll cop to it- my biases here are based on prior experience in 3D applications such as Maya and Lightwave, which all use some form of function curve editor to support very precise, bezier curve-based motion paths without an undue amount of keyframe-wrangling. And the Custom Easing in Flash 8 delivers the goods for me here. You can still use the quickie, percentage-based eases in Flash 8 - but the real fun happens when you select a range of keyframes and click that big ol' Edit button in the Property Inspector next to the Easing controls and bring up the new Custom Easing panel.

(quickie disclaimer- the example SWF files in this FOTD are published to v6.0.0 to avoid having to add detection to this blog entry- let me know if you have problems viewing them.)

At first glance (particularly if you've not used F-curve editors before), the Custom Easing panel can appear a bit daunting- but it's surprisingly simple once you've learned the basics. Your tween's frame range is displayed horizontally across the X axis, and velocity (easing percentages, translating the old terminology) is displayed vertically across the Y axis. The 'curve' at this point is a straight line going from the bottom left corner to the upper right corner of the graph. What this means, in animator's terms, is that the velocity of the object does not change from frame to frame, and it moves linearly from 0% of the tween (starting point) to 100% of the tween (ending point) at a constant velocity. Exactly what you'd expect in a default motion tween, in fact.

Now let's tweak that basic tween out. By clicking on the Custom Ease curve itself, you can add control points at various stages, and control the velocity of your animation at any point by both moving the control points and their bezier 'handles' appropriately to affect the velocity of your object. For example, I want to move a simple object across the stage, easing in AND out, but pausing for a second in the middle (accomplished by flattening the curve - i.e. the frames keep moving forward, but the velocity/motion becomes a constant value). In Flash MX 2004 and earlier, this required breaking the animation into multiple tweens with separate easing percentages for each, and if you wanted to edit the animation after the fact, you were stuck with cutting/pasting keyframes and manually 'reconstructing' the animation - quite painful. The Custom Easing dialog lets you do it all in one step with the following curve:

For visualization's sake, here's an 'ease-in' (velocity starting out flat, then curving up to an even velocity thru the end of the tween range):

The reverse of that curve, as you'd expect, is an 'ease-out':

And if you want to get complex, you can take this to many extremes (having the curve go negative - i.e. curve downwards going left-to-right - will even reverse the motion along the tweened path) such as this example:

But that's not all- position is only one type of motion that can be tweened, by unchecking the 'Use one setting for all properties' checkbox, you can then use the 'Filters' menu to choose and specify different velocity curves for Position, Rotation, Scaling, Color and Filters (no examples for all these due to time constraints, but I'm sure your mind is churning on the possibilities by now!). Add this to the power of the curve editing alone, and you've got unprecedented control over the characteristics and expressiveness of your animations. And you'll find yourself spending much less time cutting/pasting keyframes and retweening- much of those tasks can be performed right here in the Custom Ease interface instead of the Timeline in Flash 8.

Now on the subject of increased control, there are some custom keyboard shortcuts you'll want to be aware of while using the new Custom Ease interface:

• Left, Right, Up and Down Arrows
  Move the selected control point and it's 2 tangent points one pixel in the respective direction. Holding down the shift key as a modifier will make each key press move the control point 10 pixels.
• Delete
  Removes the selected control point from the curve.
• Command (Control) + Z, Command (Control) + R
  Undo/Redo the last edit to the current curve.
  (Note: the undo history is cleared if a different property is selected in the 'Filters' menu).
• X key
  Temporarily turns off snapping while dragging points in the editor (holding the 'x' key down).
• Option/Alt Key
  Clicking on a control point with the Option (Mac) or Alt (Windows) key down will delete the control point.
• F5
  Play the animation.
• Command (Control) + C, Command (Control) + V
  Copy/Paste. Copy saves the current curve, Paste copies the saved curve to the current curve. Very handy for 'sharing' curves between filters/properties.

The other controls in the Custom Ease dialog include Start and Stop 'VCR-style' buttons in the lower left to let you preview the animation before confirming your curve edits, and of course the expected 'OK', 'Cancel' and 'Reset' options. All things told, Custom Easing is a very flexible and powerful addition to Flash 8- you can now perform a healthy chunk of your animating right here in this panel, without breaking up sections of a complex tween, or juggling keyframes unnecessarily.

I can't wait to see how animators take the ball and run with this feature once it releases!

Posted by sfegette at 01:51 PM | Comments (8)

Flash Lite - Online Seminars

If you're interested in learning more about mobile Flash development with the Flash Lite 1.1 CDK and the new mobile authoring features in Flash Professional 8, then you'll want to catch this online seminars Wednesday (8/24) from either 9AM - 10:30AM EST, or 9PM - 10:30PM EST. All attendees will have the chance to win a free copy of Flash Professional 8, so run - don't walk, they're filling up fast - to the registration URL and get a seat:

http://www.macromedia.com/cfusion/event/index.cfm?event=detail&id=127144

The 90-minute seminar(s) will be held via Breeze live, so you'll only need a computer with a current browser and the Flash Player installed, and a live network connection to attend. Voice will be provided via VoIP (thru Breeze), or an alternate phone connection for the bandwidth-challenged. ;-)

Posted by sfegette at 10:49 AM | Comments (1)

August 16, 2005

Flash 8's Undo behavior

I know I already posted a FOTD today- so consider this a bonus. Simply put- in Flash 8 you can select, as a global preference, either document-level undo (introduced in MX 2004) as well as good 'ol object-level undo. If you preferred the old Flash MX (and earlier) style, where there was an undo queue maintained for each symbol, well- it's back (object-level undo). If you got comfortable with the newer Flash MX 2004 style of document-level undos - well, it's still there too. Preferences > General Tab is where the pref is located now- pick one and run, y'all. Tres cool.

Posted by sfegette at 05:12 PM | Comments (5)

Upcoming Macrochats - CF/Verity and Flash Video

If you've got some free time to sharpen your skillsets a bit, there are two free public Macrochats on Verity in ColdFusion MX 7 (tomorrow) and Flash Video bandwidth detection and scaling (next Tuesday) coming up you might want to catch. Note: pre-registration is required for both, links to follow.

• Verity for Fast Searching
  Wednesday, August 17, 2005 - TOMORROW!
  12:00 PM - 1:00 PM US/Eastern
  Ray Camden of Mindseye, Inc. will talk you through the updates to the Verity search engine in ColdFusion MX 7, and ways you can leverage it on your own content. Read up on the docs ahead of time here (as this Macrochat assumes a baseline knowledge of Verity), and when you're ready, hit this link to register.
  
  
• Flash Video Bandwidth Detection and Scaling
  Tuesday, August 23, 2005
  5:00 PM - 6:00 PM US/Eastern
  New Toronto Group's Kevin Towes will show you how to detect a user's bandwidth using the Macromedia Flash Video Streaming Service, and both scale bandwidth during playback and switch to alternate video encoding. Interested? Then bang your mouse here to register.

If you'd like to browse the archive of previously-recorded Macrochats, make sure to bookmark this URL for future reference, too:
http://www.macromedia.com/community/macrochats.html

Posted by sfegette at 02:52 PM | Comments (1)

FOTD 07: Flash 8 - Object Drawing Mode

Although Flash old-timers have undoubtedly become comfortable with the way Flash handles object drawing on the stage - strokes and fills as separate entities, having objects ‘cut away’ from one another when drawing overlapping shapes, etc - Flash 8 now supports both the traditional Flash object drawing mode (now dubbed 'Merge' mode) and a more Freehand/Illustrator behavior familiar to vector designers ('Object' mode) that treats objects more like traditional vector applications- fill and stroke acting as a single object when moving or transforming, and no ‘cutting out’ of objects behind other objects on the same layer.

Now I really love this- as I grew up in vector applications like FreeHand where objects were really independent objects- they didn't cut each other out by default when drawing over each other. Admittedly, as I got more comfortable with Flash, there were definitely some benefits to its default 'Merge' mode- particularly when creating complex shapes. But I always secretly wished that Flash would work both ways. And now it does!

First, note the all-important Object Drawing mode toggle key- 'J'. Just hit J when you've got any of the drawing tools up (Pencil, Line, Polygon, Pen, Brush, Oval and Rectangle tools, for the nitpicky), and you'll toggle in and out of Object Drawing Mode. For the icon-lovers, you've also got a new little icon in the Toolbar to toggle Object/Merge modes, as shown here:

The basics are pretty self-explanatory- when drawing an oval atop another oval on the same layer in good 'ol Merge mode - and then selecting/moving the second shape away, you essentially cut the overlapping areas out of the lower (first) object. Good if that's what you want, but sometimes annoying if you don't. It looks like so, if you're not painfully familiar with the basics here:

Pretty straightforward! Now as opposed to stroke and fill showing their selected state separately with that old familiar 'stippled' background selection state (and being separate objects) in Merge Mode- in Object Mode, a blue 'selected' rectangle shows up around the entire object, allowing you to move stroke and fill as a complete entity, without affecting other objects on the layer. Nice, eh?

If you want to perform boolean operations (unions, intersects, crops, punches) on the new Objects, there's a new "Modify > Combine Shapes..." menu that allows for all of those operations to be performed as well. Note that if you add other types of objects (for example, text objects) into an Object shape, it will try to group them and give you a warning dialog as so:

When selecting objects in Object mode, you don’t need to marquee the entire object to select both stroke and fill anymore- much more intuitive to vector illustrators. You can select your drawing mode as a preference as well (or just hit ‘J’ to switch to Object mode on the fly), so moving between the two modes should present no problem whatsoever if you prefer one or the other for specific tasks. And on a side note- there are also several new API calls that allow access to both deleting envelopes and the boolean functions (union, intersect, punch, crop) mentioned earlier, developers- show us what you can do with 'em!

So that's pretty much it- Object Drawing Mode is really that simple, as you'll notice when you start using it yourselves. It's a small update that really makes a big difference, in my opinion- another great 'expressive' feature of Flash 8 that makes it a much more flexible and approachable toolset for creative pros. As a result- old school vector-heads picking up Flash 8 for the first time should become productive much, much faster than ever before, and veteran FLAnimators have a new way to work- win/win situation all the way around. Enjoy it, y'all- and I'll see you tomorrow, for the next Fireworks feature of the day.

Posted by sfegette at 10:49 AM | Comments (4)

August 12, 2005

FOTD 05: Flash 8 - Script Assist

In Flash MX 2004, the 'Normal' mode for Actionscript was removed in favor of behaviors, and the Flash community arose to let the Flash team know how exactly much it was missed. And they listened. Now, I can’t say that Normal Mode is back, per se- but I can say that Flash 8's Script Assist feature is a logical evolution of Normal Mode (in my opinion) you'll find welcome if you missed the functionality last time around.

Now what’s the difference between Normal Mode and Flash 8's new "Script Assist" feature, you say?

On opening the Flash 8 Actions panel, there’s a new button in the upper right labelled (as you'd guess) ‘Script Assist’- which when clicked, actually looks an awful lot like the old tried-and-true Normal mode. When entering Script Assist mode, your code will be compiled- and unless there are pre-existing bugs in your code, you should be presented with the Script Assist user interface.

Tip: you can also enter Script Assist mode by the keyboard shortcut control-shift-E (Win) or command-shift-E (Mac).

Now you may be thinking this could be the shortest Feature of the Day, given the familiarity of that screenshot to Flash MX (and earlier) veterans- but there are a few slight changes and updates between Flash MX Normal Mode and Flash 8 Script Assist to note. First, editing your AS code does not generate the familiar “Your script will be reformatted�? dialog box that Normal mode AS used to.

Secondly (and in my opinion, far more importantly), parameters now have their own edit fields (no more entering parameters as a comma-delimited list into a single input field!), which will greatly help less technical scripters get things right the first time. Note in the screenshot above that the loadSound() method is highlighted, and there are edit fields for both the 'URL' and 'isStreaming' parameters. Far more intuitive an experience for those who don't have the Actionscript Dictionary imprinted on their cerebral cortexes, or care to.

Although error messages/highlighting were removed, the bottom ‘status bar’ area of the UI will now show errors and/or player version mismatches quite clearly as so:

For those who love to modify their experience- method/AS editing dialogs, which were fixed and static in the old Normal Mode, are now driven by an XML file, so developers can create custom method editing UIs as necessary. This lets you tweak the UI as you like- as noted earlier, no more comma-delimited parameters in a single entry box. You can provide a separate entry field for each method/parameter and cut down on the probability of annoying bugs based on incorrectly ordered params, etc. Handy AND flexible- definitely two qualities of a feature I love to see. :)

So yes- this may just be the shortest Feature of the Day I post, as if you're one of those folks who've been missing Normal Mode during Flash MX 2004's reign then most of what you'll find in Script Assist will take little explanation. It’s true - Normal Mode Actionscript isn’t just back in it's old form, Script Assist is Normal Mode and then some. Hope you find it even more useful than before! And as always, make sure to check Greg Rewis' blog today for a Captivate simulation of this feature, to provide some audiovisual depth to my text-and-image ramblings here. See you again on Monday for Studio 8 Feature of the Day #5!

Enjoy!

Posted by sfegette at 10:23 AM | Comments (5)

August 09, 2005

FOTD 02 - Flash 8: Video Import Wizard

In Flash MX 2004, you had few options for importing Flash Video with fine control - unless you were already working in a third-party video editor or compositing tool that could take advantage of the direct export functionality from those applications. And for those new to video in general, not to mention Flash Video- understanding all the embedding/streaming/progressive download options and their repercussions to a project were even more daunting. Well, in Flash 8- FLV import (and conversion) just got a whole lot easier. I’ll step you through it in text/image form (and for a richer Captivate walkthru- make sure to check out Greg Rewis' simulation here as well)- and let us know what you think!

First, simply choose ‘File > Import > Import Video...’, and you’ll be presented with the “Select Video�? interface:

... which, quite simply, allows you to select the video source file to be converted and/or imported, and it’s location (local/network). Easy enough! So you simply point at the right file, and click ‘Next...’- and then should be greeted by the “Deployment�? step of the wizard:

The Deployment step, as you may have guessed, allows you to specify how you’d like to deploy your video- progressive download, streaming, embedded in the SWF timeline, a bundled video for devices, or as a linked QuickTime movie. (If you don't have access to a FlashCom or FVSS server, you'll probably want to choose progressive download.) If you're not sure- just click through the options and let the 'help text' on the right of the wizard fill you in on the specifics and help you make the right choice for your project.

Clicking ‘Next...’ after doing so brings you to the next step in the Wizard, either "Skinning" (if you haven't chosen Embedded Video), or if you've chosen Embedded Video, the “Embedding�? step. We'll start with the Embedding step, then move to Skinning.

In the Embedding step (again, only displayed if you're creating embedded video as opposed to progressive/streaming video), you’ll specify how the video should be embedded in your FLA file. Just tell the Wizard what type of symbol to use, how to handle the audio and video in your video file, and how the stage and timeline should be handled (should the video clip be placed automatically on the stage? Should the timeline be expanded to show the full duration of the clip?). Clicking "Next" from here takes you to the next step of the wizard- Skinning.

In the Skinning step of the wizard you can choose the visual design of the playback controls presented to users. There are a whole slew of presets, or if you like, you can create your own in Flash as well. Choose a skin, preview it in the window, and move on by clicking "Next" again. (If you’ve chosen to split your video - i.e. cut it into chunks, you’ll be presented with a wizard to support that before moving to the next step, “Encoding�?- I won't cover that step here specifically however).

The Encoding step lets you choose a compression profile (including the ability to change any settings within, and create new profiles), and review all the settings associated to that profile. A profile simply encapsulates all the different encoding settings you’ve chosen - the video codec, size, bitrate and framerate along with audio codec and bitrate. If you’re not comfortable choosing all those advanced settings, you can just choose a preset - for example ‘Flash 8 - High Quality’, and let Flash 8 worry about the specifics.

The screenshot above, however, shows the 'Advanced Options' toggled open. You'll notice two additional tabs beyond the Encoding settings- 'Cue Points' and 'Crop and Trim'. Cue Points is a great feature that allows you to set exactly that- cue points within your video file to be used within Flash to jump directly to a location. For example, you may want to provide 'chapter markers', or perhaps jump directly to a particular quote within an interview clip. Very handy. The Crop and Trim tab allows you to crop your video, or trim a specific section within to be encoded (i.e. letting you trim off the excess). Considering these are features usually leveraged within your video editing or compositing package, it's a very handy step to have them here, directly within the import process.

As with the rest of the wizard steps, when you've gotten all these powerful settings right where you need them, hit "Next" to move on to the last step, the 'Finish Import' screen:

The 'Finish Import' step simply summarizes all the settings you’ve specified in all the previous steps before starting the process of conversion, and then - assuming everything is set as you expected - processes your video accordingly when you click the 'Next' button.

So... if the settings look good, just click 'Next', and that's it! You're up and running with a newly-encoded Flash Video file. All things considered, the new Import Wizard is a very painless process- and certainly easier than video import/conversion has been in prior versions of Flash. So - if you’re not a video pro but want to get your work done in one application - Flash - instead of bouncing to a dedicated video editing or compositing applications to encode your video source with fine-grained control, Flash 8 should fit the bill nicely. Time to break out those home movies and get to work!

Posted by sfegette at 10:39 AM | Comments (7)

August 07, 2005

Studio 8 - It's Official

That's right- Studio 8 has just been announced and I, for one, am really excited to see this release get out the door and into everyone's hands shortly. It's a big update, so I'd recommend kicking off your infosurfing at the Studio 8 product site (http://www.macromedia.com/software/studio/), and then following the links from there to more detail in the respective Studio 8 product sections (Flash 8, Dreamweaver 8, Fireworks 8, Contribute 3 and Flash Paper 2).

Now once you've read through all the shiny new features and updates- you'll want to get the official dirt on Studio 8 and it's development process right from the source- each of the Studio product managers have published articles on the new features in their respective products, with a peek into the overall development process courtesy of Jim Guerard, our VP of product management/marketing for Studio.

• Jim Guerard : Putting the Customer First with Studio 8
• Mike Downey : Flash Professional 8
• Jennifer Taylor : Dreamweaver 8
• Maureen Keating : Fireworks 8
• Lucian Beebe : Flex 1.5 and Flash Player 8

Also, to help shine some light on some of the new and updated functionality you can expect in Studio 8, I'll start publishing a single Studio product feature each weekday here on my weblog, counting down to the day Studio 8 starts shipping out. The first of these 'featurelets' will go out later today, so keep posted...

Posted by sfegette at 08:50 PM | Comments (3)

July 01, 2005

The JXL Chasm

Quick 24-hour rewind- JD and I were chuckling over this graphic from a recent corporate blogging survey published by Backbone Media yesterday in the MACR lunchroom, and JD 'blogged our initial reactions shortly thereafter, lamenting a lack of witty captions to add to said graphic. Flash meister Jesse Warden picked up that fleeting comment in record time and ran with it - check out his remix of said graphic here. Classic! Thanks for those 4 hours, Jester- made my Friday. ;-)

Posted by sfegette at 01:44 PM | Comments (0)

June 15, 2005

Applebee's Dunktank

Alex Schleifer of Netymology just pointed me at a cool little Flash-based viral marketing piece he recently worked on for Applebee's called the Dunktank. Upload an image of your face, crop and rotate it into a virtual dunkee, and let your friends and coworkers splash you down. You can even dunk me right here, I won't take it personally- love to swim in fact. And for the record, no, that's not my real hair. :)

Posted by sfegette at 02:30 PM | Comments (2)

June 13, 2005

4 new phones from Nokia

Nokia launched 4 new Series 40 handsets of the 'slider' form factor today- all of which support Flash Lite out of the box, as well as a swank new polished-up UI for the Series 40 devices as a whole (nice to hear- that upgrade is long overdue). All four are scheduled for release in the last quarter of 2005, so you've still got time to start brushing up on your Flash Lite kung-fu, grasshopper...

Posted by sfegette at 11:03 AM | Comments (0)

June 06, 2005

Big News Monday

Happy Monday- Flash is a platform, open source IDEs are cool, and we've all got some reading to do. The Flash Platform was announced earlier this morning (actually late last evening), putting larger context around the ecosystem surrounding the Flash Player and it's assorted technologies. Make sure to read Kevin Lynch's Flash Platform white paper (pdf, 1.55mb) for the straight story, as well as two press releases on how the mobile ecosystem and broadband telecom providers will leverage the Flash Platform.

To follow up, Macromedia also announced joining the Eclipse Foundation- while announcing a new RIA/Flex application development environment (code-named 'Zorn') built on the popular Eclipse IDE's architecture. Make sure to check out the Zorn FAQ points hidden down in the Flex FAQ on Macromedia.com, too. I see this as a very positive move for Macromedia developers in general, many of whom have already adopted the platform due to it's robust support, most notably CFEclipse. For the scores of enterprise RIA developers out there, Eclipse support spells a far more standard development environment across the technology they support. Good stuff.

And all this on a day where everyone seems to be talking about what chip the Mac OS will end up running on. Don't worry, the WWDC keynote is coming soon enough with the definitive answer to that question.

Posted by sfegette at 08:13 AM | Comments (13)

May 31, 2005

Macrochat - Advanced Flash Video

If you're online in roughly two hours, don't miss Kevin Towes' Flash Video Macrochat (registration required) at 4pm PST/7pm EST. Learn all about building custom video progress/seek bars, transitions, masking and effects, synchronizing cue points with Flash events), creating a thumbnail viewer, and tips on converting, scaling and optimizing your video for various target bandwidths. Looks like some good stuff- bang that link and register! Did I mention that it's free? ;-)

Posted by sfegette at 01:54 PM | Comments (2)

May 25, 2005

Flash Lite Macrochat tomorrow

Great Macrochat tomorrow on the fundamentals of Flash Lite development by Giorgio Natili, manager of the Actionscript.it Macromedia User Group. The session starts at 1pm EST/10am PST, just bang the link to pre-register in advance (limit is 200 attendees, however). The focus of Giorgio's Macrochat will be around FL development fundamentals and mobile application usability issues, more specifics to be found at the registration link of course. Enjoy!

Posted by sfegette at 01:48 PM | Comments (0)

May 20, 2005

FlashLite 1.1 Reference Sheet

Nice freebie for mobile Flash developers by Scott Janousek- the unofficial FlashLite 1.1 Reference Sheet. A handy PDF-based aggregation of syntax reference, best practices, links of worth, tips and tricks, et al for the FlashLite developer- it prints out into a handy 'onesheet' format for keeping alongside your workstation. Nice!

Posted by sfegette at 10:34 AM | Comments (0)

April 28, 2005

MXNA 2.0 - Flash Remix

Tmeister has a slick Flash client for the recently-launched MXNA 2 news aggregator. Using a beta version of AMFPHP 1.0 and the MXNA 2 Web service API to drive the data, it's a rather impressive remix of a new favorite... ;)

Posted by sfegette at 04:43 PM | Comments (0)

March 14, 2005

Montage-a-Google

Classic random Flash app for a Monday evening diversion- Grant Robinson's Montage-a-google allows you to enter a few keywords, and have a random collage made for you from the resulting Google Images search. Try a few names (or even cooler- phrases), you may be surprised at what comes back! And check out the rest of Grant's site while you're there- he's got some really interesting explorations of code and design lurking within.
(props to Sean Corfield for the forward)

Posted by sfegette at 06:49 PM | Comments (0)

March 07, 2005

Giant Steps - Flash Style

Jazz fan? Flash fan? Both? Then check out "Giant Steps" by Michal Levy, a very, very sweet Flash 3D short film set to the classic John Coltrane tune of the same name. Nice.

Posted by sfegette at 12:36 PM | Comments (3)

February 28, 2005

CMX hits 1000

A bit of publishing history was made today- Community MX released their 1000th article. Kudos! That's a lot of ASCII.... :)

Posted by sfegette at 08:56 PM | Comments (0)

February 16, 2005

Silk Mobile and Flash Lite

Great news coming from the 3GSM conference in Cannes- Silk Mobile Ltd. has developed both connection management and local file access applications for Flash Lite developers. Their partnership with Macromedia will also include Flash design services and further development to 'enhance and support' Flash applications in the mobile arena. This looks like some great news for Flash Lite developers (discovered by way of the Flashlite mailing list, FYI)!

Posted by sfegette at 12:46 PM | Comments (3)

February 11, 2005

Nokia and Flash

Nice! Hot off the presses, Nokia signs a licensing agreement with Macromedia to integrate Macromedia Flash technology into it's Series 60 platform phones and other software platforms. With 1.8 million registered developers in Nokia's 'Forum Nokia' program, that's a lot of potential Flash developers. Collaboration in development tools, support and technical documentation is also planned- all very positive signs for current and future mobile developers looking to leverage the platform.

Given this news, I'm feeling pretty justified in switching to a Flash Lite-ready Nokia 6600 last week... :)