Software, Fitness, and Gaming – Jesse Warden

Blog

  • Creative Commons is not for Software, I Disagree

    I was irritated there was no attribution style license on Google Code, specifically, no Creative Commons license. So, I joined the Google Code mailing list, found 2 previous posts from people asking for CC being added as a license option, with responses that didn’t make it seem too likely to happen. I posted anyway, and got the response that it pretty much wasn’t going to happen, and that although they do not have the older bsd license that has an attribution aspect, they suggested other code hosting services.

    Further irritated, and thus emboldened, I joined the Creative Commons Developer mailing list. I let them know the situation, asking if there was a way maybe we could use some positive PR to show how it was a good move for Google to support the CC license. This would work well when people use graphics and other design elements for projects, for example in the software projects hosted since a lot of that stuff is CC Attribution nowadays.

    Instead, I’m provided with a link to the Creative Commons FAQ by a CC developer representative. It clearly states that Creative Commons is not designed for software, and they ask you to use other licenses. I was floored. I’ve been using Creative Commons since 2003; that’s almost 4 years, and I had no clue! I started using CC Attribution because:

    So, naturally, I just assumed I would too. This was about the time many Flash Designers were stealing other’s code online to show as their own during interviews for Flash Developer positions. I am a big supporter of sharing code, but I wanted some form of control over how that code was used; specifically, keeping my name associated with what I originally had a hand in writing. This made my career, so Creative Commons set clear expectations of that. Secondly, it made those using my code for commercial projects comfortable in knowing they had legal rights to do so. Share the love, empower the masses, and as an artist you get exposure. A lot of early ActionScript is a lot easier to remix anyway, so it seemed like a match made in heaven.

    Fast forward to yesterday, and me feeling like an idiot.

    For now, I’m stuck with MIT; I briefly read the other licenses (Apache 2, Artistic License/GPLv2, GNU General Public License 2.0, GNU Lesser Public License, Mozilla Public License 1.1, New BSD License) and the MIT one is the only one that is immediately understandable, and appears to jive with my “I wrote this for fun, hope it’s useful to you, just don’t hold me legally liable for it’s use”. I’m sure if I find an open source guy at the next conference I attend, I can get some more layman explanations of my options.

    Anyway, I think the Creative Commons FAQ is wrong. ActionScript is a dynamic language in a wonderful artistically capable runtime engine (the Flash Player) and tool set (Flash & Flex). The sharing & remix culture is what helped ActionScript become so successful and contributed to my career. This is exactly what Creative Commons is built around, and the Attribution 2.5 specifically is aimed at the Flash Developer culture in my opinion. This isn’t a cop-out or excuse to my previous ignorance; I truly believe the statements above.

  • Flash Lite 2: SetInputTextType & Slash Syntax

    Flash Lite 2/2.1 has an fscommand2 called “SetInputTextType”. One of the reasons for its existence is that TextField.restrict is not supported in Flash Lite 2 / 2.1. My guess is, to make it easier for the Flash Lite Player engineers to support some forms of TextField restriction values, they found what was commonly supported on devices, and gave those as options. That way, they don’t have to write crazy parsing routines to translate your restrict values, which are typically just a string of accepted characters in a semi-RegEx like format.

    Instead, you pick from 6 options like “Numeric”, “Alphanumeric”, etc. and make sure your phone actually supports the mode you are using.

    For example, I’m creating a NumericStepper. Normally, one would assume you could go TextField.restrict = “0-9”. If you export for ActionScript 2 or 1, this will allow only numbers to be entered into the TextField by the user. However, as previously stated, it’s not supported in Flash Lite 2 / 2.1.

    The problem with SetInputTextType, though, is that it relys on the Flash 4 targeting syntax which we all love to loathe (even though it made most of our careers). While the docs give an example, it’s on _root, and doesn’t take into account the way variables work in slash syntax vs. dot syntax. As soon as you nest yourTextField into another MovieClip, you need to take this into account.

    Basic steps:

    – give your textfield’s variable property a name with a suffix of “_var”
    – for the 2nd argument of SetInputTextType, go:

    _target + ":" + yourTextField.variable

    The _target property will hold the old slash syntax to get to your component, and the colon is used for accessing variables in slash syntax (vs. a dot like in dot syntax).

    So, in my case:

    __valueField.variable = "__valueField_var";
fscommand2("SetInputTextType", _target + ":" + __valueField.variable, "Numeric");

    I sure hope if they make Flash Lite 3 use ActionScript 3, it also uses the ActionScript 3 clean api mentality of abandoning this slash syntax crud. Currently, it makes all the new fscommand2 calls feel legacy. Slash syntax throws me for a loop every time.

  • Flex 2 States & Transitions Example: Pimp My Login

    I always make these more complicated than they need to be, but it’s so much fun, I can’t help it. Regardless, here is an example of 2 login forms built in Flex 2. One uses simple states to represent the main, logging in, and error states that a typical login form can show. The second one does the exact same thing, based on almost the exact some code, but has the addition of transitions. Where “states” are changes to the component when it is a different circumstance, “transitions” are changes between those states. A Flex component that has states, but no transitions immediately changes from one state to the next visually. If you add transitions, you have control over how a state changes from one to the next.

    Both examples below are simple. If you click submit, it’ll disable the fields, and then go to an error state. After 2 seconds, it’ll reset. If you fill in something for the username and password fields, it’ll go to a success state instead of an error state instead. The top one uses state tags inside an MXML component. The bottom does the same with the addition of transition tags to animate between those states.

    As mentioned, the code base is exactly the same with 3 modifications between Login.mxml, and Login2.mxml.

    1. I removed the setting of the border color to red from the error state tag, and put it in the transition instead since I wanted timing control of when it turned red.
    2. The logging in state in Login2.mxml adds a SWFLoader that loads an animation.
    3. The Login2.mxml doesn’t reset itself 2 seconds after the error state is shown. Instead, I have the ending of the transition call a function to do it instead. This gives the transition enough time to finish before a new state is shown.

    We had to use ViewStacks or destroy & create this stuff manually, with no DisplayList mind you, in Flex 1/1.5. The ability to have the same component represent its state declaratively as well as have control over how those states change is awesome! In an ideal world, you can comment out the transition tags, and the component will still work just fine; it’ll just have abrupt changes. To me, if you get a proper designer / information architect involved, the experience in having appropriate transitions to guide the users attention vs. abrupt GUI changes without them is night and day.

    Why blur things out? Degrade importance, and allow the depth of field effect to allow the user to focus on the most forefront content.

    Why show loading animations? To build the user’s confidence that the application is “doing something” vs. appearing broken.

    There are various proven tested techniques you can implement, none of which I probably show correctly.

    Login Form State & Transitions Example – View Source | ZIP

  • Flex Community Pulse Survey Results

    Being anonymous is l@m3. Besides, cflex.net is getting hammered. lol, 404!

    1. At what stage of technology selection does Flex play in your immediate team?

    – Fully committed

    2. How long have you been using Flex?

    – 2 years+

    3. What would you consider your expertise level?

    – Advanced

    4. Outside of Flex, what have been and continue to be your primary technologies?

    – PHP
    – Flash

    5. Do you use the Flex Data Services (FDS) product?

    – No

    6. When it comes to Flex, what did you used to struggle with, that you no longer have problems with?

    – Dynamic layout. Using declaritive layout in Flex with it’s built-in LayoutManager saves me oodles of time when doing GUI’s. CSS inheritance helps too.

    7. When it comes to Flex, what are you currently struggling with, or wish were improved, made better, had more of, etc…

    – Integration of Flash designs.

    8. How many years have you been programming in general?

    – 6-10 years

    9. How many developers are in your immediate team?

    – n/a – unemployed (if I was, 1-5)

    10. How many employees are at your company?

    – n/a – (if I was employed 101-150)

    11. Has Flex been adopted by your entire company/top level business unit as a primary technology?

    – Yes

    12. What prevents your company from taking things further with Flex?

    – Nothing, we’re 100% Flex or bust!