How do you edit?

This place that I work for currently, has introduced me to the Open Source part of Flash.. It does make sense to me - All these days, I have been tied to Macromedia's products... And now, when there is no more macromedia, I'm out there to explore the world of OS!

I was welcomed by MTASC, SWFMILL, and Eclipse with ASDT. Of the infamous FAMES combo, I was using all but FlashOut. Its really cool to see soo many tools out there, to aid development of swfs...

And quiet after 2 days of work on the 'AMES' combo, I realized that Eclipse, and hence ASDT were really causing troubles. Eclipse is great, no doubt, but the amount of memory it grabs is equally 'great'! Add to the Tomcat server running on my machine, the amount of Virtual Memory that java.exe was grabing was abt 900 MB.. And my production machine with just abt 1 Gig of main memory, was struggling to keep up. So I finally decided to break apart from 'AMES'

Enter SE|PY. To be honest, I've tried SE|PY before. - right when I was with mm, I think... And I did try out SciTE as well. SciTE had been my best pick then.. This time however, I decided to hold on the SE|PY for sometime.

And just as I was cribbing about a bug that was haunting me in SE|PY ( the one around the Find Panel) I thought of searching for an update. The version I had installed was 1.0, in the process found that they have a RC3 build of 1.5.2 available for download.

And I started writing this post as I was waiting for the download to complete...

Oh ya, its complete. Let me go try that out!

Flash Lite 2.0 player available in MM stores now!

I know a lot of people have been waiting for this for sometime now..

Its available in the MM (Adobe) stores now.

I had made a post in a while back about a set of new exciting features of Flash Lite 2.0.

You can access the mobiles and devices home on Macromedia.com here (http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/devices/)

Mozilla Firefox Start Page

If someone asked me about an example of two birds in one shot,  I'd refer to this home page. Just too cool!

Read more at www.google.co.in/firefo...

C# to Flash swf

This thing seems to have been around for a while now.. Wonder how I never heard anyone speak about it till now!

NeoSwiff lets you create a swf out of C# code! If you are a C# developer, You got to write code, just the way you would do to create a C# application, and when you compile, you get a SWF out of it.

This is way too lovely! Take a look at their samples and you'll know why I am soo excited. Their forms sample in particular is sooo very neat!

I thought I would write about it on Monday, but then couldn't control the excitement! Well, I've saved a whole lot of info for Monday's post anyway :)

They also provide a 180 day evaluation version as a free download. This is when I miss not having a laptop! Or I would have had something to play around, for the weekend!

Adobe + Macromedia

http://store.adobe.com/products/bundles/web_bundle.html

I had a kinda 'amused' feeling, when I saw tat..

Looked like some prankster's work to me ! LoL

bye bye Macromedia...

Adobe acqusition of Macromedia was scheduled to close on 3rd of Dec.
I quit macromedia India, on the (supposedly) last working day of macromedia. Joining another place as a Flash Actionscript developer again.

Being a developer had been a much satisfying job. The joy you get when you are able to implement a solution to a problem - it's a really different feeling.. and I felt deprived of it all these days. Wanted to revive that now. Enter Symphony Services India

Being a macromedian had been a great feeling... And I would really cherish the memories of those days, for a long time now.

Hope this change would help me in gettng out of that lazy routine I had been following these days!

Back to programming :)

"#initClip"

Duplicating nested symbols

I'm in the process of writing a JSFL command to duplicate a symbol including the nested symbols in it. As far as I've seen many flash designers (and in fact developers too) find this a issue troubling them, when they duplicate a main symbol-forget to duplicate the internal nested symbols and go on and do changes in the internal symbols, only to find out the damage at a later stage.

Hope I would find some takers for this command. I'm already done with a basic construct. Will post it when its complete.

Editing Flash MX files that use Flash remoting MX, in flash 8

Flash Remoting MX was introduced during the Flash MX days (targeting FP 6). Later when Flash MX 2004 was launched, Macromedia came up with a upgraded version of Flash Remoting as well (Flash Remoting for AS 2.0). This version had the remoting classes ported to AS 2.0, and the installer installed the AS classes, Remoting component, and remoting related panels in the appropriate locations according to AS 2.0.

Now with Flash 8, Macromedia has released a new installer for using Flash Remoting with Flash 8. This installer will install the Flash remoting components, AS classes and panels in the appropriate locations with respect to Flash 8 installation. This installer will cater editing the .fla files created using Flash MX 2004 as well. But with .fla files created with Flash MX, we don’t have this luxury. If you open a Fla file that has AS 1.0 code written to use Flash remoting MX, Flash 8 will not be able to compile these .fla files. Because, Flash 8 will not be able to resolve the location of the AS files that are included in the code. (The usual missing files are “DataGlue.as”, “NetDebug.as” and “NetServices.as”).

Here is what you can do to make these files work:

If you have Flash MX 2004 installed in your machine, and you had Flash remoting MX installed over it, you will be able to reach the Program Files\Macromedia\Flash MX 2004\en\Configuration\Include folder. This folder is where the remoting installer installs all the AS files that are included to implement remoting. The following files should be available in this folder:

• DataGlue.as
• NetDebug.as
• NetDebugConfig.as
• NetDebugEvents.as
• NetDebugHelpers.as
• NetDebugImpl.as
• NetDebugLocalConnection.as
• NetDebugNetConnection.as
• NetServices.as
• RecordSet.as
• RsDataProviderClass.as

Copy all the AS files form this location, to the same folder as your .fla file which uses Flash remoting MX. Compile the .fla file, and it should work now!

And if you want the remoting related panels (netconnection debugger and the Service Browser) as well, copy the NetConnection Debugger.swf and Service Browser.swf from Program Files\Macromedia\Flash MX 2004\en\First Run\WindowSWF folder and add them to Program Files\Macromedia\Flash 8\en\First Run\WindowSWF folder.

CFS - Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Guess, something like that has crept in!

Is there any other syndrome which talks is about laziness? What ever it is, its all over me!!

Yahoo maps 4.0 using Macromedia Flex!

Yesterday, Macromedia received one of the strongest endorsements of the Flash Platform. Yahoo! launched a brand new version of Yahoo! Maps, built using Macromedia Flex, on the flash platform.
Check it out here

Flash lite 2.0 preview

I personally have had a few of people asking me - "when is Flash lite 2.0 gonna be out?" Well, Am not gonna answer that here, but it has been previewed in the MAX 2005. Here is an article Jonathan Duran has written about the new features in Flash lite 2.0.

Just jotting down the titles from his article:

Flash 7 Code Base and ActionScript 2.0 Support

Video Playback

Parsing External XML

Local Persistent Data

External Images and Sound

Exciting?

Macromedia Labs

A new site from Macromedia in Kevin Lynch's words - to "provide early look at emerging technologies" -

You can get a alpha download of Flex 2, read about AS3, and lot more.

Check it out : http://labs.macromedia.com

After iteration::two, its mobile innovations now

As its next step to establish itself in the consulting market of Europe, Macromedia has acquired mobile Innovations a "leader user interface designer, product integrator and software developer for smartphones and communicators." This acquisition comes within 15 days from macromedia's previous acquisition of iteration::two, a leading software consultancy in Europe.

This is what is said in the press release:

"Macromedia, Inc. (Nasdaq: MACR) has acquired Mobile Innovations, a leading user interface (UI) designer, developer, and integrator for mobile devices. This acquisition will create a mobile consulting practice for Macromedia that will form part of the Macromedia Consulting team in EMEA. Matt Millar, Mobile Innovations co-founder and CTO, will lead Macromedia's Mobile and Devices practice in EMEA.

With extensive relationships throughout the mobile industry and an impressive track record of innovation, Mobile Innovations has a deep expertise in the world of mobile UI design and implementation. By acquiring Mobile Innovations, Macromedia will further its ability to innovate in the mobile domain, providing customers and partners with customizable world-class solutions for delivery of mobile applications and content built on the Flash Platform."

video iPod, is out, for real!

There have been rumours that Apple is working on a new version of iPod which would play video files. Its true now. The new video enabled iPods are available in apple stores now.

Applying Erase blend mode in Flash Professional 8

One of the most compelling designer oriented features in Flash Professional 8 is the ability to add graphic filters (drop shadow, glow, bevel, etc...), and blend modes (Darken, Multiply, Overlay, Invert, erase, etc.). These features lift the graphics capabilities of Flash to a new level. With previous versions of Flash, designers had to depend on graphics editing software like Photoshop or Fireworks to apply these effects to bitmaps, and then used to import them into Flash. This work flow had a major impact on the file size of the resulting swf.

Enter Flash Professional 8 – The filter and blend mode graphic effects are rendered at the client end, by the new Flash Player 8! And the result, the generated SWF just has instructions to tell the player to apply filters and blend modes, and they are rendered on the particular graphic, at runtime – freeing the SWF of the additional file size – and what’s more? These effects can be changed dynamically, using actionscript code!

What do they mean by blend modes?

“You can achieve a variety of compositing effects by using blend modes to change the way the image of one object on the Stage is combined with the images of any objects beneath it.
Read more about blend modes on Macromedia LiveDocs here <http://livedocs.macromedia.com/flash/8/main/00000605.html>

There are various blend modes available with Flash Professional 8 (for more details click here). Adding blend modes is a simple task with Flash Professional 8. Just select the symbol (movieclip / button) on top, and select the appropriate blend mode, in the blend modes dropdown list. You'll be done – Erase blend mode is an exception. And this post is just about that.

Erase blend mode is used to erase (reduce alpha to 0) the portion of the background graphic, based on the shape and position of the symbol above it. To do this, the normal tendency is to create a symbol above the background graphic, and select the erase blend mode. As a user you may expect this to work. But you would see that the symbol to which the blend mode was applied disappears, rather than erasing the background graphic. To make this work, do the following:

1. Select erase blend mode to the symbol on top of the background graphic.
2. Select the symbol and the background graphics, and combine them into a movieclip.
3. On this parent movieclip, apply “Layer” blend mode.

Done!!

9 / 14/ 2005 - I just checked Tinic Uro's blog, and he has given a great explanation about blend modes in Flash.(If you didnt know, he is the developer who implemented blend modes in Flash Player). You can read his post here.

Macromedia Studio 8 is available in Macromedia online stores now!!!

Flash Professional 8, and of course, the entire studio 8 suite (Flash Professional 8, Dreamweaver 8, Fireworks 8, Contribute 3, and Flash Paper 2) was released to the world of developer and designers last night.

You can download a 30 day trial version of Flash, by clicking here.
If you want to go ahead and buy a copy this is where you need to go.

the whole of Flash team is pretty excited, about what users are going to be building with the new capablities of Flash 8, and the Flash player 8!

Cheers everybody!

Macromedia Studio 8 launch at bangalore

Tomorrow is the studio 8 launch event at bangalore.
Details : Bangalore – Tuesday, Sept 6, 8.30 – 11.30AM, Le Meridien Hotel
Seems Jim Guerard, Jen Taylor and Mike Downey are gonna be there.

Will come up with a detailed coverage, after i come back from the function :)


see you there!

Google talk.. its finally here!

http://www.google.com/talk/

Light weight, simple, and has voice too :)

I feature in the About Flash dialog now.

Am honored. Really. Some 3 yrs back, I never even dreamt about anything like that. And now, I feature in the about page of Flash - The software I always loved. Listed along with the likes of the legends who literally created revolutions( be it RIAs, light weight video on the web - high Quality vector graphics on the web) - Its overwhelming.

As I said before.. Am really feeling honored. And let me borrow a punch line from Mc Donalds :

"Am Loving it!"

Studio 8 - The announcement has been made :)

- Studio: http://www.macromedia.com/software/studio/
- Dreamweaver: http://www.macromedia.com/software/dreamweaver/
- Flash: http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/flashpro/
- Fireworks: http://www.macromedia.com/software/fireworks/

Studio 8 announcement to be out at 8 AM on 8 / 8 SF Time

Watch out, today is the announcement day! Macromedia is making its public announcement of the next Studio today. Check out a detailed news item on MacWorld.com

This release of Studio, Studio 8, will include Flash Professional 8, Dreamweaver 8, Fireworks 8, Contribute 3 and FlashPaper 2. As a change from the previous Studio suite, this release will not ship any new version of FreeHand, but adds Contribute and FlashPaper.

The page on MacWorld also has links to their reviews on the Flash Professional 8, Dreamweaver 8 and Fireworks 8.

Watch this space for more news ...

Bangalore Youth Choir

For a friend:

The bangalore Youth Choir, a leading Indian choral music institution, invites fresh, young voices to join the choir on the occasion of its 20th anniversary celebrations. The Choir is the first and one of the few authentic non-religious choral music groups in the state of Karnataka. Interested members may contact the choir director, Mrs. Kaveri Sridhar on 9845569043/08023595808.

Flash player 8 public beta is out.

Am late in posting this by a day. Click here to go to the download page.

There was an article about this release in CNET about it yesterday. You can find it here.


Had a 3 week trip to Macromedia HQ at San Francisco, CA, and just returned 2 days back. Things are slowly falling back in place... Getting back to the normal schedule :)

Will write more about the trip later. Now got to get back to work.

Macromedia and... Breeze 5

2 weeks back, there was this mail from Stephen Elop, our CEO, regarding Adobe acquiring Macromedia.. And the subject line read 'Macromedia and Adobe'

And today we get a mail from him again, which reads ' Macromedia and .... Breeze 5"

My heart did skip a beat, and I rushed to read the end of the line... Aaaah.. relieved, I was. It was about the release of Breeze 5.

for basic information on breeze, go to the URL below:

http://www.macromedia.com/software/breeze/

Breeze 5 - high-impact online communications everyone can access instantly. Test drive Breeze 5 today!

flash - sparkle, Flex - ADML , now PDF - Metro

Microsoft aims "Metro" at Adobe
(article on computerworld.com.au)

The next version of Windows will include a new document format, code-named "Metro," to print and share documents, Microsoft said Monday. Metro appears to rival Adobe Systems's PostScript and PDF (portable document format) technologies.

Metro was demonstrated during Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates' keynote at the start of the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) on Monday in Seattle.

The format, based on XML (extensible markup language), will be licensed royalty free and users will be able to open Metro files without a special client. In the demonstration, a Metro file was opened and printed from Internet Explorer, Microsoft's Web browser.

Read the complete article here

Flashy site names on the web:


timeline.com
stage.com
tooltips.com
onclipevent.com
onrelease.com
onconnect.com
ondata.com
onload.com
localtoglobal.com
globaltoLocal.com
onenterframe.com
gotoandstop.com
gotoandplay.com
stop.com
play.com
netconnection.com
netstream.com
getbytesloaded.com
fscommand.com
extends.com
untitled.com
untitled-1.com
nextframe.com
currentframe.com
geturl.com
sharedobject.com

I'm sure there are tonnes more like that, I couldn't spare more time into that. You people can add to this list, by commenting on this post. :-)

Adobe and Macromedia - its final now

For a long time now, there has been speculations about a possible merger between Macromedia and Adobe. And it’s final now.

Abobe has arrived at an agreement to acquire Macromedia.

www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/invrelations/adobeandmacromedia.html

stay tuned, for more news.

Am listed in Flash MX certified devs list at last!!

http://www.macromedia.com/v1/handlers/index.cfm?ID=24175#M

Vishu

Am going home, this weekend. Applied for a leave on Friday, and extended(!) this weekend by a day.

Btw, tomorrow is 'Vishu' in kerala, and 'Tamil new year day' in tamil nadu.

In karnataka, 'ugadi' was celebrated last weekend. And a friend who works at Dubai, had blogged about missing ugadi celebrations back home. I started commenting on her post, and that comment went on to become big enough to qualify to be a post by ifself :-) I thought I'll copy it in here.

This is how it goes.

....Well, in kerala the equivalent of Ugadi is called 'Vishu' and in tamil nadu, its just tamil new year day. And they both fall on the same date - April 14th.

We do have all these poojas and stuffs there too, but the coolest part is, I was not supposed to wake up (rather open my eyes), until my mom wakes up, arranges lot of fruits and jewellery and money and many more things in the pooja room, and finally comes to wake me up, and blindfold me with her hands, to take me to the pooja room.

We were supposed to see the most prosperous things when we open our eyes on this special day. (poor thing, no one does that to my mom!)

And as a kid there was much more fun on that day.. We, me and my sisters, were given 5 / 10 Rs on the morning of Vishu, by my parents, and were let out to all the other elders in the family. And we used to compete, over who collects the most money from others. EOD, I used to collect like, some 25- 30 Rs.

And as I grew up, my role slowly changed, from being a observerer of all this fun, to being a part of the organizer.. I had to buy my mom all the fruts, get her that special yellow flower she would arrange in the pooja room, get my dad a lot of change in form of Re. 1 coins to give over to kids coming home the next day, and late at night, helping my mom arrange stuffs in the room. And finally when my mom comes to wake me up on Vishu day morning, I would fake to be asleep, just get feel the fun.

This time my collection would go up to as high as a 100Rs!

Later, things changed.. somehow I started drifting away from all this...

Last year I was home, for Vishu, and I had a chance to give over money to my dad, mom and sisters. I gave them all 500 each. Man, I did feel proud to that, though I had to wash out my bank balance :-)))

And this year, I am planning to be there, the next day, after Vishu..

Life sometimes, is too unfair.. It is..

And I do remember all those 'sweet chapathis' or 'obattu' tat you used to bring.. It was for Ugadi right ?

Hmm.. sweet old memories!

---------------------------------------

Well, this year, I am gonna miss all that fun. I almost know how I am going to welcome this new year; by sleeping off at 12 or 1 - waking up late at abt 9 AM tomorrow - forgettiing everything about Vishu - rushing to office.

Thats the way life is.

Google Maps

Came across google maps. They have added a new feature, which uses satellite images to show maps. Hell good!

I see Google is full of technologically the best people. My only concern is, why dont these people start using Flash! And if they start using Flash for their initiatives, We would have some of the best applications done in Flash, on the web.

should I change my blog's name ?

There is something troubling me for a while now..

My blog's name... Its "Flash AS and Me" but I see that I havent made much (in fact no**) posts yet on Flash or AS(ActionScript). It just reminds me of some old piece of writing, where the author talks about people having names that dont necessarily match who they are. Like 'Kannayiram' (means 'thousand eyes' in Tamil) being the name of a blind man; 'kodeeswaran' (means 'millionaire' in Tamil) being the name of a beggar, and so on...

Now I think, I got 2 options. Either I change the name of this blog, which is fairly an easy option, or start blogging something about Flash - Well, thats the tough option. a little bit of 'idealistic' thought tells me, I should start blogging something about Flash. After all, thats the technology that has helped me reach where I am today :-)

So, viewers of this blog **(are there any :o)** will get to see a few Flash articles / posts in here occasionally.

After all, I am a 'Flash'er!

Advice to Computer Science students

There has been a very few of my juniors enquiring, about how to approach the IT industry. I was just having a casual browsing session and came across this article, which gives some advice to people graduating in computer science. Thought it might help someone.

Credits to Joel

Gmail mailbox has grown to 2GB!!

Prepared to face the threat from Yahoo! about increasing their mail box sizes to 1 GB, Gmail has increased their email box size to 2 GB.

And, ultimately the customers the king :-)

What more, WE have rich text formatting in gmail now. Woohoo!

Yahoo to expand user mailboxes to 1 GB

Trying to keep up with the growing competition with gmail, yahoo has decided to increase the mailbox sizes.click here for a detailed story.

And yahoo is up to lift up its user interface too. And how do they do that ? Yet another buy! They have bought a email provider oddPost

Seems yahoo is up for a tight competition with Google. And the popular question out there seems to be, "whats Microsoft going to do now?". I still have just 2 MB in hotmail!!! shame on MS!

Flickr now shouts Yahoo!

Flickr is now Yahoo!'s property.

Yahoo seems to have finalized an agreement with LudiCorp to acquire the company, including flickr

Must be yet another attempt from yahoo to catch up with the search giant google.

Google has picasa under its belt, and so yahoo went for flickr

by the way, did I mention flickr in dutch means "gay" ?

;o)

at MAX 2005: Day 2. The right most if Bill Perry and the lady next to him is Nanda Chawla. 

Second day at MAX 2005

Had some insights about the way Flash Lite player can work. Bill Perry showed some of the samples developed for mobiles. Was cool. Got an idea. will have to do some thinking about it over the weekend and try doing something. May be KP will lend his phone to test the stuff.

GoogleX

Seems Google Labs had something called googleX.. Poor me, I dint have a chance to see that first hand. Read about it only after they removed it. Seems Apple had plans to move over it legally, so Google just took it off. But the idea seemed to be cool :-) And I desperately wanted to know, if they had done the genie effect in google using Flash :-)

Here is the story about it:
http://news.com.com/Googles+X+files+vanish/2100-1032_3-5621247.html?part=rss&tag=5621247&subj=news

And here is a lucky soul who had first hand look at GoogleX, and was nice enough to post about it!

http://javedmandary.blogspot.com/2005/03/googlex.html

Would have loved to see that.. Wish I get to see it sometime...

MAX 2005

Attended MAX 2005 today at Le Meridean. There were soo many differences this time..

Last year, when I attended MAX, I was still with EI DESIGN. I was sent to MAX as a representative of EI DESIGN. And just about a month after the MAX, I came out, to join Ascendum. That time I was soo excited to talk to see people there.. I got Brajeshwar's card, talked to him for a while, tried to talk to Mike Downey, but couldnt get a chance... And was completely pissed off when I paid 750 bucks and they dint give me a T shirt!! Besides all that I felt soo proud to have seen people live.. James Talbot, Mike Downey.. I just went back to EI D and boasted off a lot about seeing all those people!

Come MAX 2005, things have changed soo much!! I feel even more prouder this time :-) When people were saying all that "shits" and "wows" seeing each feature, It made me feel soo cool, being one of the very few, to actually work with the same features for weeks :-) And besides all that, I did have a chit chat with James Talbot, Greg, and Bill.. the MM jacket made me that valuable :-D

It seems people are very excited with the sneak peeks they had today, about the next version of Flash (I am not revealing the code name:-))) ) is going to be a huge hit, for sure!

Hail Flash nxt version (aah haa... I'm not going to tell the code name:-) )

Off topic - Operation Valentine

Its again that season of the year, with lots of love in the air.. People making up their minds to disclose their love for their loved ones.. Roses.. High business for greeting cards and gifts companies.. and as usual time for people to argue about the need for a special day to express love.. the ones who fight that all days are as good, and the others who fight that this is a day that will spoil all the 'cultural and traditional values' of the young people around.

Macromedia has taken this a step forward from a day of just fun with our loved ones, to a day of making others happy. And thats Operation Valentine. Here is what Macromedia has to say about Operation Valentine:
"Macromedia is sponsoring a special event the week of Valentine's Day: Operation Valentine.

In conjunction with the US Army, we are enabling the members of a brigade stationed in Mosul, Iraq, to communicate with their loved ones back home. As many as 4000 soldiers will use Breeze Live to have two-way audio/video meetings with their families and sweethearts."

For people who dont have any idea of what macromedia Breeze is, its a product from Macromedia, which enables audio / video communication through the internet, in a much efficient way. For more information on Breeze, you can click http://www.macromedia.com/software/breeze

And for people who dont know macromedia, click http://www.macromedia.com

And for folks who dont know my connection with Macromedia, Well, I work for Macromedia R & D India Ltd. :-)

So, there you go!

Enjoy your valentines day, with your Valentine :-)

I'm a Macromedia certified Flash Developer

Its been quite some time since I started thinking about a certification. The only purpose I expected it to accomplish was to help me in my career. And the deadline I had set for myself was December 2004. And thats when all the 'unexpected' turn arounds happened and I found myself in Macromedia.

I took my certification on 5th Feb, and cleared it. So here I am, a MMCP :-)

The Indian Shankar Drum Ganesh Machine

Except for the name, I found the stuff cool.

http://www.zanorg.com/prodperso/indian.htm

a mixer for Indian Music ... A nice idea.. May be someone will do it in a big scale one day and may be it will be used professionally. I passed this link to a friend and in just 4-5 minutes she was like playing a cool stuff on it!

Nice work.

Revamp

This is me, Arul Prasad as a Flash developer.