Posts Tagged ‘actionscript’
The main reason I decided to write this was foxtrot:
The “community” is bringing out so-called enemies of flash. But I think the web is what it is today to a great part because of flash. I hope apple will one day open up and actually make the best web experience possible by putting flash on the iProducts (but seriously doubt Mr Jobs will ever come to his senses). The way I see it, blocking flash on apple products is a business decision (as flash would compete with the cash flow of the app store) cloaked in a technical and sorry excuse and passing the blame onto the very company (Adobe) which has repeatedly tried to work with mac to achieve improvements.
HTML5 killing flash? Flash not dead!
I could write paragraphs about it, I for one am very excited about the new possibilities with html5 and css3 and even cs5! I could go on but I’ll just reference some of the best articles I’ve seen:
//links links links
Author: Evan Mullins | Filed under: review
Tags: actionscript, apple, blog, css, flash, html, open source, review, web design
Flashvars and actionscript 3! Flashvar is a way that in your html embed codes (object tags) you can send variables and values into your swf file. These variables can then be grabbed internally and used your programming! Examples of these could be images that you want to use in your swf but don’t want to import or hardcode them into the flash file or paths to xml or flv files to use as well. Actionscript 3 has a different procedure than as2 did as to how you read these flashvars from the actionscript side. The embed codes and html side of things are still the same, but in case your new to actionscript altogether, I’ll give an example of the html as well.
1
2
3
| <object width="200" height="200" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="flashvars_as3.swf">
<param name="flashvars" value="colors=0x012345,0x123456,0x234567,0x345678,0x456789,0x567890,0x678901,0x789012&delay=.11&loop=true&random=false"/>
</object> |
In actionscript 3 we use the loaderInfo object to access the flashvars. The parameters Object of the loaderInfo will contain all the flashvar variables and values.
1
| this.loaderInfo.parameters |
As an example of something that is visual I’ve created this little app to read some options from flashvars about colors. An app that will read a list of colors and update a box that is on the stage already to those colors with the specified delay. I always have fun with randomness so I threw in the option for random colors as well. This file looks for certain flashvars: color, loop, delay and random. These are the keys or names of the variables and they are followed by the values you want them to hold. Note that flashvars can be set in any order, so you don’t have to start with color and end with random.
In this example I’m looking for 4 flashvars specifically (in any order):
- colors:String – a comma delimited list of hex colors or simply a string “random” for randomly generated colors (the hex for black #000000 needs to be 0×000000 in flash) (default is random)
- loop:Boolean – whether or not to repeat these colors (default is true)
- delay:Number – the delay between colors (in seconds). (default is 1 second)
- random:Boolean – determines whether to cycle through colors in given order or randomize. selecting random overrides the loop to true. (default is false)
This is much more than is required for this example, but I was having fun playing with random colors and timing and options. I figured it diesn’t hurt to show the effect you can have with a couple different variables on one file. Here is an example using the object tags above:
And here are some more (please don’t have a seizure!)
Here’s the full source if you’re interested:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
| /*
circlecube.com
App to demonstrate the process of getting flashvars from embed code to actionscript (as3)
Displays colors specified.
looking for 4 flashvars specifically (in any order):
colors:String - a comma delimited list of hex colors or simply a string "random" for randomly generated colors (the hex for black #000000 needs to be 0x000000) (default is random)
loop:Boolean - wether or not to repeat these colors (default is true)
delay:Number - the delay between colors (in seconds). (default is 1 second)
random:Boolean - determines wether to cycle through colors in given order or randomize. selecting random overrides the loop to true. (default is false)
*/
//initialize vars
var myflashvars:Object = new Object()
var myColors:Array = new Array("random");
var myLoop:Boolean = true;
var myDelay:Number = 1;
var randomOrder:Boolean = false;
var allRandom:Boolean = false;
//read flashvars in actionscript3
//if colors flashvars doesn't exist use these defaults
if (!this.loaderInfo.parameters.colors){
myflashvars = {colors: "random", delay: 1};
}
else{
myflashvars = this.loaderInfo.parameters;
}
//assign flashvars to variables within flash
for (var item:String in myflashvars) {
trace(item + ":\t" + myflashvars[item]);
if (item == "colors"){
myColors = myflashvars[item].split(',');
}
else if(item == "loop"){
myLoop = parseBoolean(myflashvars[item]);
}
else if(item == "delay"){
myDelay = myflashvars[item];
}
else if(item == "random"){
randomOrder = parseBoolean(myflashvars[item]);
}
}
//use my variables!
if (myColors[0] == "random"){
allRandom = true;
}
var counter:Timer = new Timer(myDelay * 1000);
counter.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, nextColor);
trace ("color number: 0", "color hex: "+myColors[0]);
setColor(myBox, myColors[0]);
counter.start();
stop();
function nextColor(e:Event):void{
//cycle through colors
if (!allRandom && !randomOrder){
if (counter.currentCount+2 > myColors.length){
if (myLoop == true || myLoop == "true"){
counter.reset();
counter.start();
}
else{
counter.stop();
}
}
trace ("color number: "+counter.currentCount, "color hex: "+myColors[counter.currentCount]);
setColor(myBox, myColors[counter.currentCount - 1]);
}
//randomly select a color from the myColors array
else if (!allRandom && randomOrder){
var randomColor = Math.floor(Math.random() * myColors.length);
trace ("random number: "+randomColor, "color hex: "+myColors[randomColor]);
setColor(myBox, myColors[randomColor]);
}
//randomly create colors
else{
trace ("number: "+counter.currentCount, "color hex: "+myColors[0]);
setColor(myBox, myColors[0]);
}
}
function setColor(item:DisplayObject, col):void{
if (col == "random"){
setRandomColor(item);
}
else{
setHexColor(item, col);
}
}
function setHexColor(item:DisplayObject, col:Number):void {
var myColor:ColorTransform = item.transform.colorTransform;
//check color bounds
if (col > 16777215) col = 16777215;
else if (col < 0) col = 0;
myColor.color = col;
item.transform.colorTransform = myColor;
}
function setRandomColor(item:DisplayObject):void{
setColor(item, (Math.floor(Math.random() * 16777215)));
}
function parseBoolean(str:String):Boolean
{
switch(str.toLowerCase())
{
// Check for true values
case "1":
case "true":
case "yes":
return true;
// Check for false values
case "0":
case "false":
case "no":
return false;
// If all else fails cast string
default:
return Boolean(str);
}
} |
Author: Evan Mullins | Filed under: tutorial
Tags: actionscript, as2, as3, color, download, experiment, flash, html, open source, tutorial, web design
I’ve written a tutorial which is published over at flash.tutsplus. This tutorial demonstrates how to create a horizontally scrolling image viewer and covers xml parsing, loading and resizing external images, and creating intuitive and responsive scrolling!
You’ll find full source code available for download as well as the demo files and step by step milestones all throughout the tutorial.
Author: Evan Mullins | Filed under: portfolio, review, tutorial
Tags: actionscript, animation, as3, design, download, experiment, flash, interactive, open source, physics, portfolio, review, tutorial, usability, website, xml
Interactive Design project for StomperNet’s tease of the announced reveal on 09/09/09 at 09:09:09!
“Online Marketing Changes Forever!”
Wanted it to be unexpected, and I think we hit it! Check it out live at stomper999.com!
Details:
For this project I used flash, html, css and javascript. Tweener for the fading effects. Found a nice stock flash from flashDen for the countdown and used jquery and the easing and color plugins.
Author: Evan Mullins | Filed under: portfolio
Tags: abstract, actionscript, animation, as3, color, css, flash, flashDen, html, interactive, javascript, open source, physics, stompernet, web design, website, work
Here is a preview of a file I’m writing a tutorial for. It’s nothing groundbreaking, but it deals with many normal tasks and will show my process a bit. This tutorial will show how to create a horizontally scrolling image viewer. It will cover xml loading & parsing, loading & resizing external images to fit into a scrollable container, and creating intuitive and responsive scrolling!
Let me know what you think, and if there’s anything you want specifically mentioned/explained in it I’ll do my best! Or if you have any ideas of how this could be improved.
Update: The article/tutorial has now been published follow the link to theTutorial to Create a Responsive Image Scroller in ActionScript 3.0
Author: Evan Mullins | Filed under: tutorial
Tags: actionscript, animation, download, experiment, flash, interactive, open source, portfolio, tutorial, usability, web design, xml
