I came accross this API diagram  showing all the intrinsic classes, methods and properties available in AS3. It could be of some use to some of us flash dev’s. Enjoy.

AS3 API Diagram

Also some others I found…

PHP Cheetsheet

mySQL Cheetsheet

CSS Cheetsheet

I recently came across an issue with disabling buttons in ActionScript 3 without removing the MouseEvent listeners. In AS2 its simple if you just set the enabled property on the button/movieclip to false. In AS3 you have to do a little more than that. You need to set the mouseEnabled property on the button/movieclip to false but I also found that the MOUSE_OUT event will get triggered when that occurs so you need to do some custom code to disable that functionality.

In AS2

buttonClip.onRelease = function() { this.enabled = false; }
buttonClip.onRollOver = function() { // do something }
buttonClip.onRollOut = function() { // do something }

In AS3

buttonClip.addEventListener( MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN, buttonClick );
buttonClip.addEventListener( MouseEvent.MOUSE_OVER, buttonOver );
buttonClip.addEventListener( MouseEvent.MOUSE_OUT, buttonOut );
 
function buttonClick(_e:Object) {
    _e.target.mouseEnabled = false;
}
function buttonOver(_e:Object) { // do something }
function buttonOut(_e:Object) {
    if(_e.target.mouseEnabled == false) return;
    // do something
}

You’ll  notice in AS3 how you need to check if the mouseEnabled property is set to false before you handle the mouse out functionality. In my project I was changing the button color on mouse over and changing it back on mouse out. When they clicked on the button, I set the mouseEnabled to false but the buttonOut function was getting triggered automatically, so this workaround fixed the issue. It’s not too much extra code but was annoying to figure out what was going on.

This will likely be of interest to most Flash Developers fortunate enough to be working on a Mac.

Since I recently stopped using Firefox due to its ever increasing size and annoyance of download requests every time I opened it, I chose to switch over to a much slimmer Safari. The only thing I really missed with Firefox was the Flash Tracer extension, which allowed me to see what was going on in the flash files loaded into Safari. So why not come up with a widget to make that happen. So I decided to download the new xcode development tools provided by Apple. It comes with a handy graphical tool for making osx dashboard widgets. After a few evenings of tinkering with the program I came up with my first widget, it is similar to Firefox’s Flash Tracer extension but will allow you to use any browser you want and has a few more features. It uses Ajax to load the flashlog.txt file generated by the flash player (debug version) and parses the data for displaying properly. Pretty strait forward but very useful for any flash developer I would think. All I do is hit the corner hot-spot that loads my dashboard and the flash tracer widget appears showing me all the guts of my flash files that are running in my browser.
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I was fortunate enough to be able to partner with Veer on an extremely interactive project showcasing their creativity and stock photography/font product lines. The website has more animation in it than probably any other project I’ve ever worked on. I was able to work closely with Veer’s creative teem in order create the animations they were wanting and also develope the mini-site according to their specs. Take a look and see what hidden gems you can find.

Click here and then click on the ‘Rest Stop’ image.

I recently had a client ask me to make them a flash video player that would stream video. I wasn’t really sure how to do that so I did some research and found some interesting information on it. Firstly, I think the internet community is a bit confused about the ‘Streaming’ term at the current time. Even Macromedia was at the Flash 6 stage. If you do a search for streaming video in google you get all sorts of responses. However, their are two main technologies that are at work in the online video world, that is, Progressive Download and Streaming.

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I just finished a project for ‘The Art & Technique of the American Commercial‘. It is an interactive flash site that showcases all the award winning commercials since 1992. It loads all the commercial details into flash via php/mySQL and also has a pretty unique filtering system. Which commercial is your favorite?

I’ve spent the past few weeks developing a new section (New Rolex Creations) for the new Rolex site. It was a site showcasing Rolex’s newest breed of watches (apparently they haven’t had any new watches for about 50 years). So it was a tightly guarded project which I was sworn to secrecy for the duration of the project. The section I worked on features some amazing photography, animation and design. It runs on the most advanced CMS I’ve ever worked with and runs in 5 different languages.

You can view the section here.

I’ve always had to come up with hacked math using additional variables in order to tile movieclips properly. By tiling I mean, positioning movieclips so their are a certain number in each line with each additional line being placed below the previous one, etc. So I finally decided to spend the time to figure out how to do it properly. Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t know if I even need to explain why I don’t use the Flash IDE but I will for reasons I don’t know. I think Macromedia/Adobe had just given up on improving the Flash Actionscript Panel because there were so many AS editors out there that most people were using that they just figured people would use them instead. These AS editors that are out their are basically their to just make our lives a little easier. And they do it well. I’m sure when Flash CS3 comes out they will likely combine some of the new dreamweaver coding stuff but thats about it. Not enough to lure back most of us F9 haters.

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What? Is he crazy, you ask. How can a developer say such a thing. Their are umpteen reasons why I think design is important. Here are a few… Do you know any top agencies that have bad design? Do you want ugly work in your portfolio? Would apple be as successful as it is if it weren’t for those crafty designers they hire? Am I getting my point accross yet? Read the rest of this entry »