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Language APIs, Popular Concepts, Design Patterns, Advanced Techniques In the Browser

AS3: Tracing in Flash/Flex

posted in ActionScript on 2011-08-16   import flash public str function debug movieclip void trace swf class

Inspired by the article of Dru Kepple I decided to share my experience in Debugging processes in flash/flex enviroment.

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AS3: DataGrid with custom ItemRenderers

posted in ActionScript on 2011-08-11   date data rating datafield var row import mx column private function void datagridcolumn

One of the big advantages of Flex framework is that you can use a lot of ready components. The DataGrid is really helpful. Especially when you want to list big amount of data and provide ability to edit the information directly in the grid. These days I finished a test task which uses DataGrid and decided to share my experience.

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AS3: runtime font loading (embedding)

posted in ActionScript on 2011-04-25   font field loader import flash swf public static const format font_export_name string font_file_name class

Flash is wonderful technology and has many advantages. Before a couple of years it was really popuplar to use it for displaying fonts that are not installed on the user's machine. Flash is still powerfull tool for such kind of tasks. These days I worked on a project which had to use a lot of fonts. It wasn't possible to embed all of them so I decided to implement runtime embedding.

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Creating mp3 player with RobotLegs (basics tutorial)

posted in ActionScript on 2011-02-09   import public function event data preloaderevent robotlegs events class

Have you ever wondered how to optimize your ActionScript applications? Have you searched for a nice framework that will save you a lot of time and will organize your structure? If yes then RobotLegs is for you. In this article I'll show you how to use it to create a simple mp3 player which loads a configuration xml file, parse it and play mp3 files.

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How to protect your SWF file

posted in ActionScript on 2010-10-15   function swf protect void check file import flash public ondatafiledtoload onfailed files string

Is there any way to protect your flash work? To be honest the answer is NO. As you probably know everything that is uploaded on a web server and is accessible from a web browser is downloaded to the users' computers and could be found in the temporary directories. Once someone gets your swf file he could use one of the dozen decompilers to reproduce the .fla and .as files. Anyway, there are still some ways to make stealing difficult.

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How to create realistic Earth globe in Flash (AS3, Papervision3D)

posted in ActionScript on 2010-09-16   stage globe var import org papervision3d rotationx rotationy moviematerial sphere stage stageheight stage stagewidth

Papervision3D is a perfect tool for the purpose. As you will see such a task needs only few lines of code. To make the example a little bit more interesting we will add additional code to control the rotation of the globe by the mouse.

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Duplicate loaded images in AS3

posted in ActionScript on 2010-08-30   duplicate target var rect movieclip function bitmap loader import flash display target parent

During the creation of the latest changes in my portfolio site, I needed to duplicate a loaded image that has to be placed as a material in papervison3d's cube. We don't have duplicateMovieClip in AS3, so we have to use another technique.

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How to use Google Maps API in flash

posted in ActionScript on 2010-08-19   import map flash google maps icon private function adding setting mapevent api

Google offers a lot of free tools for us. One of them is really useful and easy to work with - GoogleMaps API. In this article I will show you how to import a map in Flash and place an icon in a specific place.

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Papervision3d: Finding 2D coordinates of a 3D object

posted in ActionScript on 2010-07-25   private var 3d number import org papervision3d addsphereandtooltip item mousey mousex basicview displayobject3d event

Papervision3d is probably the most popular 3D flash engine. There are dozen of applications/sites that use it. These days I also decided to create a 3D effect in my portfolio site. Everything works fine, but I needed a tooltip for each of the 3D objects on my scene. To be able to animate everything I needed 2D coordinates of all my 3D elements.

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Load MySQL data in Flash with AS3

posted in ActionScript on 2010-07-10   text data city import flash ondatafiledtoload php file onloaddata string url

There are some things that I'm doing in almost every project. Loading of data in Flash is actually one of them. In this article I'll show you how to load information from MySQL database. We will use PHP as a junction between the Flash and the database. You need an Apache server like XAMPP or EasyPHP installed or just a hosting account that supports php.

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Customize ComboBox in Flash (AS3)

posted in ActionScript on 2010-06-17   combo tf data import flash dp additem label customcellrenderer function combo textfield setstyle oncombochange cellrenderer movieclip

In my work as a flash developer very often I receive from the client just one photoshop file with the design of the application/site that has to be coded. In the last project the designer made the ComboBox in the style of the site. So I couldn't use the default look of the Flash's drop down component.

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