Winess the destruction of Mesh’s site, JD’s new blog pets, the Goog’s frying power, and part of my site sinking.
Via her majesty, Rich Site Graffiti courtesy of Netdisaster.com.
Blog
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JSFL: JPEG Compression Settings
This extension will allow you to select bitmaps in the library, and when you run this command, you can change their JPEG compression values to a single value. Useful for those of you who import JPEG’s into your Flash movie from AfterEffects, or other video programs, set your Flash movie to a global compression value, and only set certain groups of bitmaps to higher JPEG values.
Although allow smoothing is there, for some reason Flash doesn’t update the value; must be a bug.*** Update: Fixed bug, will now set allow smoothing to selected value, v 1.0.1.
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Fireworks: Draw Guide Grid Command
It’s 1:15 am, do you know where your cow is?
So, I wanted to draw a bunch of guides and slice guides, right? But, I was lazy, so I learned how to use the Fireworks JavaScript API (again). It’s cooler than Flash MX 2004’s, it has a waiting dialogue box that you can even cancel!
Anyway, yeah, this’ll draw a grid using guides based on the width and height you pass in. If you like graph paper, and don’t feel like going to View > Grid > Edit Grid…, this command is for you!
…careful, my router may block your website, it’s dangeours like that.
Draw Guide Grid Command – JSF
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Flash v2 Framework: Bit Off More Than I Can Chew
I had an idea I’d do Captivate tutorials on every class in the Flash MX 2004 framework. I had gotten a lot of praise for my past component tutorials, and many people have emailed me constantly to do more.
…the problem is, there are a LOT of classes in there, each with their own intracacies. Describing each would take a book of documentation (which Flash MX 2004 now has). Not to mention the fact, I’ll have to do it again in Januray of 2006 for the 8ball framework (assuming there is one) since I figure if one does in fact come out later this year, that’ll be how long I need to feel confident in my ability to describe it to others effectively.
However, a quick run-down, verbally spoken with some of the functions shown while spoken too, helps me understand what is going on under the covers. When I read the classes to learn them, say mx.managers.DepthManager for instance, I’ll read some of the properties and functions aloud to myself to garner a better understanding of what it’s doing, and how it plays with the rest of the framework.
In practice, this UIObject tutorial is taking way to long to complete. I did these last Sunday night, and just now realized I’m not even 25% of the way done with the class. I guess I’m really trying to guage what people want to know about the framework, without sacrificing important details.
For example, I think a complete rundown of the entire framework is needed, not just certain classes. I know that’s a little non-pragmatic, but the framework has a lot of tightly, inter-woven functionality, and it’s important to understand those connections to get the most out of the framework AND to keep yourself out of trouble when using it.
So, doing Captivate tutorials for each class will not work, I don’t have the time to do them all. I’m not opposed to a Podcast, but I really think the lack of visually showing the class will sacrifice a lot the understanding and retention.
Maybe talking about each class in 2 minutes or less? Curious what the community thinks is best.