Category: Flash

Originally posted by <a href=”http://flash.granato.org/”>Granato</a>, <a href=”http://www.theory7.com/”>Theory 7</a> has just opened up a new store for Flash developers.

Now, some hate the RIA term, others love it. Regardless of your bent (gross) this is a great example, to me, of what an RIA can be. One page that acts as a store with a lot of great user feedback as to what’s going on. The cons are that it goes fullscreen without asking for permission, fonts are small as shiote, and there doesn’t appear to be a cookie-trail or any easy way to bookmark a section. Still, these types of sites make Flash developers look yummy to the industry. Spread the word.

Finished working on my new article for <a href=”http://www.communitymx.com”>Community MX</a>. I had modified some loops for use in the article, so figured I’d update the one I have currently here as well as add the new one. They’re off to the left under Downloads on the “Custom Classes” header.

Process uses a custom class thrown on _global that uses setInterval to emulate for loops so you can write more efficient Flash apps. The Safe Process is a component that does much the same thing, except it uses onEnterFrame to give you almost 100% protection from that bloody “Script is running too slow” error.

Both have examples in the comments of their respective files. Process.as can work via <code>#include “Process.as”</code> on the main timeline while SafeProcess.as needs to be put into a movie clip with a linkageID of “SafeProcessSymbol”.

<a href=”http://psychlonex.dyndns.org/”>John Robinson</a> made a good point last night while talking over email during my breaks from writing. He said that it seems most Flash developers prefer using #include in their code to dropping custom component classes in their library (usually ActionScript that does stuff with little or no visual content). I almost never use #includes. Is this true for you?

Read the other day about Branden Hall and Samuel Wan’s Decorator/Observer/Composition pattern. Can’t remember which one, but it was from their book, Object Orienated Programming in Flash, which I’m still reading… I’m a slow reader. Granted, this may be an old topic for some peeps all awash and bored of patterns, but some of us are still trying to build a better model, build a better view, and build a better presenter. Here is my attempt at extending the DataProvider for the Model side of things.

Since I focus on the application “appearing” to work well by informing the user as such and not trying to hog the machine’s resources (even though I claim I never focus on efficiency), I found a good script to help me time things accordingly. The use of callbacks in Flash only goes so far because since it’s single threaded, the Flash movie will not wait to process events in enough time to show the user what is going on… unless you force it too. Read on, but scroll to the bottom if you just want the code.