today for the first time I saw this, and I really loved it.
it’s about time users stop using their mouse if it’s not necessary.
did you ever happen to be with somebody that wants to show you stuff on a site
making it the slowest operation ever?
start using shortcuts (and learning them)
make your surf experience something other than a waste of time.
Popularity: 1% [?]
I was asked to build a page flip effect for a microsite that will represent a book.
Of course there’s so much similar stuff that around, that it’s pretty pointless making one from scratch.
But is there any good one?
A very nice tutorial to understand the process and what’s behind it is hosted on O’Reilly’s Web DevCenter, and it’s pretty cool.
It explains the mechanics of the process and how to achieve the result in a very clean way.
I wanted something more complete…
I kept on searching google for it and found IparoGrafika.
The site is in Hungarian (I could have known seeing the .hu tld), but some info is in english.
You can download a full FLA of the page flip application.
It works very well and is fully customizable.
I managed to set a timer that flips the first page (HARD COVER) after a few seconds of inactivity.
It’s simple, nice, powerful.
Transparencies, page tearing off, bla bla bla.
download it and check
[resources mentioned]
O’Reilly Web DEVCENTER tutorial about page flip
Popularity: 16% [?]
I’ve always been fascinated by the power of mobile communication, and even more power that lies behind it.
It’s a bit hard, though, to unleash such a power, or at least it is for “common” people who don’t have huge amounts of money to spend on experiments with new media.
The bad thing about it, is that it’s just lately being discovered by most, and it’s slowly coming out of the closet.
Think about it…
How many developers do actually know how it works?
More…
Popularity: 10% [?]
There was a time, when we needed mouse pads to avoid our mouse track balls (please don’t laugh) to collect all the (not always invisible) dirt our desk was covered with.
I remember hating that piece of rubber/fabric/vynil, whatever.
The pads covered in fabric, usually lost the thin layer after a while.
Think that slightly everybody abandoned the old mate.
but now???
Well…
WE ALL use an optical mouse.
The one with an LED and a sensor that captures the movement and blah-blah-blah.
But my question is:
does everybody have a tiger-textured desk?
These little nice toys (especially Apple’s ones) need a surface pattern variation to function.
My desk is white, and I can’t use my mouse properly without a mousepad.
Then…
Why is there a point-less shortage of mouse pads?
Why do you go to a shop and a young guy tells you
“it’s long time we don’t sell those anymore”
Well…
just a frustrated comment from someone who needed a mouse pad
Popularity: 1% [?]
Having seen a few users getting into trouble with this obscure, hard to master, tecnique,
and having already tried to explain via email to somebody how to achieve success,
I decided that a quick note about the argument was necessary.
Take into account that it’s 3.12 am, I’m on a deadline, and I’m dead tired myself.
My editor for english (Yes, I have one: Angela) will probably have some work to do tomorrow.
We’re gonna use Aral Balkan’s article as a starting point;
Adding fonts to your SWF with FAMES
you’re going to need the sources for this project, since it’s too late to retype code or else.
these files are nothing but Aral’s ones with changes to the XML and one single change to the FontTest.as file.
I removed the reference to FlashOut, since you might want to be able to compile this using just SWFMill and MTASC (as the title of this little article says).
so let’s start.
I have to say that Aral’s example never worked for me from the beginning.
After a few minutes worrying (well… let’s be honest… a few hours), I decided to hack the thing and try to solve the issue.
From my experience with the Flash IDE, multi-lingual flash projects, dynamic sites etc,
I learned that the only way to have a font successfully usable through ActionScript, you need to:
once all the steps are taken, there’s no way for the process to fail.
Now let’s get back to Aral’s example xml file
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>>
<movie width="200" height="70" framerate="30">>
<background color="#ffffff"/>>
<frame>>
<font
id="kharon"
import="library/kharon.ttf"
glyphs="Helo,Wrd!"
/>>
</frame>>
</movie>>
this XML file doesn’t define any linkage for the font, plus it’s missing the node.
that’s why it didn’t work for me.
so after investigating on how to export a symbol for actionscript using SWFMill, I found out that you simply have to use an EXPORT directive, hence, define an EXPORT node containing a list of library objects to export.
then Aral’s XML became mine
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<movie width="200" height="70" framerate="30">
<background color="#ffffff"/>
<library>
<font id="kharon" import="library/kharon.ttf"/>
</library>
<Export>
<symbols>
<Symbol objectID="1" name="kharon"/>
</symbols>
</Export>
<frame/>
</movie>
now, be sure that both mtasc and swfmill are in your system’s PATH, so you don’t have to provide a full path to the binaries, follow these steps
swfmill simple FontTest.xml FontTest.swf
mtasc -main FontTest.as -swf FontTest.swf
have fun with it
Popularity: 4% [?]
So…
for you folks who want to start playing with Flash Player 8 (after others have done it for a while), here comes the public beta of the new Macromedia Player.
More interesting, though, is this little app that allows you (with “you” I mean PC users, or I would have said “we”) to switch between player versions.
It’s called Flash Plugin Switcher and proves very useful for developers to test the player and keep delivering stuff safely, testing every product with the current one (6/7).
The tip comes from Pablo Costantini of LuminicBox and was posted on the OS Flash Mailing List.
So, waiting for somebody to produce a mac version or do something similar, have fun with this tool.
[resources mentioned]
Macromedia Flash Player 8 public beta
Flash Plugin Switcher
LuminicBox
OS Flash
Popularity: 1% [?]
I’ve been struggling for a while to find a way to quit Dashboard.
I’m a registered user of konfabulator since it started, and I prefer Konfabulator widgets over Apple’s ones.
then…
How to disable the dashboard?
Googling I found this little app, and it works.
It’s a pref panel that installs in the system preferences.
I remember people pointing the finger at MicroSoft because it didn’t allow to uninstall Explorer from the OS…
We like to have control over our systems, don’t we?
Popularity: 1% [?]
A great new yesterday from Sephiroth.
SE|PY for Mac Os X 10.4 is out.
He says there’s still some issues, but he successfully compiled and solved most of the platform related bugs.
I sent him an email some time ago to know about the status of the Mac version of SE|PY,
and he told me that not having a mac is really slowing him down.
Finally a few days ago he bought one, but I wasn’t expecting a mac version of the IDE to come out this fast.
Congratulations Alessandro, and keep it up.
[resources mentioned]
SE|PY for Mac OS X 10.4
Sephiroth buys a mac
Popularity: 1% [?]
Being a mac user and a Flash® developer, I might be entitled to say that the two worlds don’t go together.
Mac Flash developers share the frustration of an ‘out of control’ multi-window IDE that is so different from its Windows counterpart.
Why this?
Only Macromedia might have an answer.
The hard to use environment, didn’t lead me to switch (back) to Windows, but pushed me towards the Open Source Flash development.
I’ve been using the Eclipse IDE connected to some other stuff to build a FAMES environment.
If the acronymous doesn’t sound familiar to you, just read about it on OS Flash.
Flash on Mac is highly unstable when dealing with network operations (sockets, loading of external resources like jpg’s and swf’s or mp3′s).
The test player becomes unstable and often causes the whole IDE to crash and close.
Now you have to agree that this is not a pleasant situation.
Does Macromedia know that the only way not to have crashes is testing in a browser?
Are they aware of the fact that many users rely on the trace() function to track operations, rather then on a debugger that is everything but reliable/usable?
If only they would have updated the standalone player as they did for the web player (always talking about Mac), probably the issue could have been resolved.
The actual test player (updated a long time ago) is 7.0.19, while the web player is at version 7.0.24.
I don’t think it would cost them much effort to compile and release an updated player.
By the way… the problem is solved, because I’m actually trying to definitely move to FAMES, and during the transition I have a good partner for tracing purposes:
LuminicBox Flash Inspector
This little application released by Pablo Costantini is a little myracle that proves really helpful when testing from inside a browser (and not only).
It allows to filter the type of messages in different categories (triggering, of course, a different behavior in the inspector, that causes it to simply print or show the content of an object hierarchy etc).
so, guys…
have a look at this little app and start using it.
[in spanish]
LuminicBox website
Flash Inspector page
[resources mentioned]
OS Flash
Popularity: 1% [?]
I’ve been an MSN messenger for quite a few years now.
I started my chat career on IRC, but then moved to instant messengers,
because they’re easy, friends use them and so on.
It was Icq in the beginning, and I’ve used it for so long, until somebody told me
“why don’t you install messenger so we can easily chat?”.
I’ve been pretty happy with it, being at that time (until 2 years ago) a PC-windows user.
Switching to mac put me in a different situation.
Probably not everybody knows that MSN Messenger for Mac is still at version 4.01,
and it’s everything but flawless [proper Microsoft style].
By the way it was usable, until Tiger was installed on my G5 (one of the 5 macs on my network).
What did happen with Tiger?
More…
Popularity: unranked [?]
today I received a nice present from Lordh of WSC [perugia],
an italian graffiti crew with a couple of members living in Amsterdam (rocking it).
the guys are pretty good at that stuff, I invite you to check their work
I haven’t said what the present was, though;
well…
it’s a canvas, and this is it
click to open popups
why I do love it?
first: It’s green, and lately I’m very much into green…
second: it’s really nice to see
third: it fits perfect with my new studio environment.
thanx Lordh!
Popularity: 1% [?]
Yes, it is.
It just took me a while to post this “news item”.
As of june 13th 2005 twodotone is registered as a dutch company.
It’s a big step for me, and I’m really proud.
Now I just need to redesign the site (twodotone.com) as a company site and I’m done (easier said than done).
Popularity: 1% [?]