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Cleaning your Flash Builder projects

Jul 232010

In training, I frequently create examples on my mac, get them working, tweak them, and then copy them over to my trainees pcs. In doing so, I have come across a few problems that I thought I would share with you, and the solutions (not perfect) that I have used to fix these issues.

What I normally do is create a new Actionscript project on my mac. Create and test the files and get everything ready for the training.

Then I copy the whole project folder onto a training pc, and sometimes I end up with problems. For example… Read more...

Blueprint – a Flash Builder extension

actionscript 3 No Responses »

Jul 102010

Using Flash Builder a lot as I do I am always on the look out for new extensions. Recently I came across a lovely new extension from Adobe. It is called Blueprint.

Blueprint – a Flash Builder Extension, allows you to search the web for examples of code, directly within Flash Builder.

For example, suppose you are tweening and want to see what examples you can find regard the Tween class. Just highlight Tween and press CTL-B (Mac) or Alt – B (PC).

This brings up the Blueprint panel, with the search results.

Testing class for Actionscript 3

actionscript 3, Flash No Responses »

Apr 082010

Frequently when playing around with code I need an object to play around with. So I created a Ball.as class. This testing class for Actionscript 3 is useful because it will just create a ball, with a default size and colour, which I can override if I wish.

I have also given it a bounceEffect() and bounce() public methods.

These will give a bounce effect when it hits a boundary and the latter will make it move and bounce from the boundaries. The boundary at the moment is just stage.stageWidth and stage.stageHeight, but I plan on allowing an object to be sent so that the instance can use its hight and width as the boundaries for bouncing. Read more...

Using Box2DFlash

actionscript 3 No Responses »

Feb 162010

I recently decided to have a play with Box2DFlash. This is a port of a popular 2D physics engine that has been ported to Actionscript 3, Java, C#, etc.

A lot of games use Box2DFlash and so I thought it was about time to play around with it.

Also, i thought it would be a nice idea to blog about my progress. I will be using Flash Builder 4 (beta) to do all my work in, but the files can be used in Flash, or a.n.other development environment.

Firstly you will need to download the files from here… Read more...

Processing – come along for the ride

DreamWeaver, HTML5 1 Response »

Jan 062010

Like a lot of people, I suspect, I tend to buy books, download source files, and squirrel them away somewhere, saying to myself – I will read them, I will go through the files – and, inevitably, you don’t.

However, this being a new year and all, I thought in order to push myself to learn something new, why not blog about it and take everybody along for the ride.

And for this purpose I have chosen to learn Processing – and I have also chosen to start with this book…

The Essential Guide to processing for Flash developers Read more...

Actionscript 3 and particles

actionscript 3 No Responses »

Jan 012010

Happy new year everybody – and in january this year I am in the process of creating a new, advanced, actionscript 3 course – during which I decided to do some particle work.

Here are some particle systems that I came across in the process…

Flint
Pulse
Desuade
Stardust

…the latter is a new system, and I must say that I am impressed.

It is a nice system, easy to use, good documentation, and some lovely demos.

In particular, have a look at this one…

Butterflies

Check Stardust out, you will not be disappointed.

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Actionscript 3 framework – HYPE

Flash No Responses »

Dec 152009

I have just found a new framework called HYPE. It looks to be a lovely actionscript 3 framework for coders and con-coders alike to easily create effects, and i plan to have lots of fun with it

You will need some basic as3 knowledge, but you can quickly get results with a minimal amount of coding, and there are some lovely examples on the HYPE website.

Have a look at it and let me know what you think

hype

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The New Web? HTML5

HTML5 No Responses »

Dec 092009

Again, a new standard, HTML5, being worked on, but not finalised yet. And again, some browsers are starting to use some of the new HTML5 commands.

I have not tried them yet (but I plan to), but here is a short list of browsers/links to help you get started…

Browsers that have started implementing HTMl5

Chrome

Firefox 3.5

Opera

Safari

Useful HTML5 links

w3.org HTML5 spec

safari features

alistapart.com HTML5 article

websites using html5

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The New Web? CSS3

HTML5 No Responses »

Dec 092009

In case you were wondering, you can create rounded corners in web pages now, without graphics.

However it takes CSS3 to do it, and although the standard has not been finalised yet, it doesn’t mean that the browsers are not taking advantage of any new techniques that they like.

Such as rounded corners.

At the moment I have only tested Safari andFirefox with this code – I do not know if it is possible in Chrome, IE, etc – but here is the css code…

Firefox (mozilla)

-moz-border-radius: 5 px [for all corners, circle] Read more...