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Ok, I had no idea you were supposed to do this. Or maybe I came through the backdoor and read the instructions in the wrong order. At any rate, it seems that DataProvider (mx.controls.listclasses.DataProvider) has a method called addItemAt. If you try to add an item to an index that is greater than the array’s length, it won’t add the value. Now, Flash will do this just fine for you. If you have an array that is empty:

cow = [];

And you decide to add something to position 10, you can:

cow[10] = "moo";

What’s jacked, is DataProvider won’t. So… I guess the trend now is to dimensionalize your array’s length so that method will work properly?

mx.controls.listclasses.DataProvider.Initialize(Array);

cow = [];
cow.addItemAt(9, "moo");
// Cannot add an item past the end of the DataProvider
trace(cow[9]); // undefined
cow.length = 10;
cow.addItemAt(9, "moo");
trace(cow[9]); // moo

It works when I do some tests here… it just seems so… VB’ish.

What event engine is right for you? Read on to find out! Careful, she’s a long one…

*** Update, it appears Macromedia already had a mechinism in place for you to set this… but left it out for some reason!? See the comments in this entry (exactly 1 year later… whack yo!). I guess advertisers would get pissed if you could easily turn this off.

The property to see if Flash Player has windowless mode off (meaning, you are blocking floating Flash ads) is:

System.capabilities.windowlessDisable

Naturally, it’s false by default. If you save the mms.cfg file with the steps below, it’ll trace out true… even in the IDE.

***

Via ASVGuy & Gregg Wygonik

Gregg found some documentation in the Flex LiveDocs on how to disable the Flash Player’s auto update feature. This is helpful for IT Admins.

Burak KALAYCI(ASVGuy) dug a little deeper, and explained a little bit about the mms.cfg file and how it works for those admins. He ended on the property responsible for allowing the playback of Flash movies that have their wmode (window mode) properties set to transparent or opaque. The former is what allows the Flash adds to appear over web pages.

As a Flash developer, I’d prefer you not installing Flash blocking software, so below is how you do it. This may cause other problems with existing, legitmate Flash applications, so make a shortcut to this file so you can easily turn it off again. Opaque Flash movies, as Gregg said, will appear as a black square. I do not know, currently, if this works only for the Flash 7 player in Internet Explorer, but it’s a start.

1. Find your required folder:

Windows NT, 2K C:/WINNT/System32

Windows XP C:/WINDOWS/System32

Windows 95, 98, or ME C:/Windows/System

Macintosh /Application Support/Macromedia

2. Make a text file in the folder called “mms.cfg”

3. Put this text in it, and save it

WindowlessDisable=1

Tested here, and it appears to work for both opaque and transparent Flash movies. Just to help Google out, here are some other keywords as they are also called “floating flash ads”, “flying flash ads”, and my favorite “those damn Flash ads!”.