Adobe Community : All Content - All Communities

Keyboard Simulation tutorial and snippets

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 22:45:54 GMT

There are were several developers on the forums who asked various questions about keyboard simulation in Flash.

While waiting for Godot I have posted a quick tutorial with a working example and code for both timeline and class-based app. Just pasted the code on timeline or make class a document class.

http://as3-blog.net/snippets/keyboard.html

Keyboard Simulation tutorial and snippets

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 22:47:42 GMT

There are were several developers on the forums who asked various questions about keyboard simulation in Flash.

While waiting for Godot I have posted a quick tutorial with a working example and code for both timeline and class-based app. Just pasted the code on timeline or make class a document class.

http://as3-blog.net/snippets/keyboard.html

Policy file on rtmp video and BitmapData.draw()

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 16:54:53 GMT

Hi,

I hope there is answer to my dilemma from server side stand point.

I have a video asset that is streamed from rtmp. Say, url is: rtmp://blah.domain.com/directory/anotherone/asset.flv

I need to invoke BitmapData.draw() on this asset.

There is crossdomain.xml file on http://blah.domain.com/crossdomain.xml that allows all the domains.

When is instantiate stream I write:

stream.checkPolicyFile = true;

Also I load crossdomain from http://blah.domain.com/crossdomain.xml and rtmp://blah.domain.com/crossdomain.xml

I tried all the combination of the above.

In all the cases when I try BitmapData.draw() - I am getting:

cannot access rtmp://blah.domain.com/directory/anotherone/. No policy files granted access.
at flash.display::BitmapData/draw()

So, does it mean that each final folder has to have it's own crossdomain.xml? Even though the root directory has one?

Also, it feels that requesting crossdomain.xml from rtmp would be odd.

Is there way around it?

Can anyone try to resolve my confusion please?

Thank you.

Video Player Tutorial :: ActionScript 3

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 13:35:08 GMT

I have posted a 4-part ActionScript 3 Flash Video Player Tutorial here:

http://flashascript.wordpress.com/2010/11/08/flash-custom-video-player-tutorial-part-1/

http://flashascript.wordpress.com/2010/11/08/flash-custom-video-player-tutorial-part-2/

http://flashascript.wordpress.com/2010/11/08/flash-custom-video-player-tutorial-part-3/

http://flashascript.wordpress.com/2010/11/08/flash-custom-video-player-tutorial-part-4/

This tutorial is mainly for developers who never wrote custom players.

Hope it will help someone to jumpstart video player development.

Array Shuffle/Randomization in ActionScript 3

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 18:01:26 GMT

I wrote a new blog post regarding how to shuffle/randomize array. Benchmark results included.

http://as3-blog.net/?p=578

Array Shuffle/Randomization in ActionScript 3

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 17:59:59 GMT

I made a new blog post regarding how to shuffle/randomize array. Benchmark results included.

http://as3-blog.net/?p=578

ASDocs - Preventing style and tags removing from HTML

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 20:01:10 GMT

Hi,

I am using Flex 4 ASDoc

When I write in my comments:

<span class="myClass">whatever</span>

entire tag including text is removed (myClass is present in style.css)

When I write:

<span style="color: #FF0000;">whatever</span>

style attribute is removed.

I have a feeling this has something to do with xslts and other setting. Can someone point me to the files where changes can be made so that custom styles and classes are not processed/removed?

Thank you.

Dragging Object Around Circle in Flash with ActionScript 3

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 20:40:43 GMT

I created a blog post that demonstrates how to make it work:

http://flashascript.wordpress.com/2011/01/01/dragging-object-around-ci rcle-in-flash-with-actionscript-3/

Dragging Object Around Circle in Flash with ActionScript 3

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 20:39:43 GMT

I created a blog post that demonstrates how to make it work:

http://flashascript.wordpress.com/2011/01/01/dragging-object-around-circle-in-flash-with-a ctionscript-3/

Dynamic Positioning of Objects in a Grid (rows and columns) AS3 Tutorial

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 21:26:14 GMT

The topic of a dynamic positioning of objects in a right grid (rows and columns) comes up often so I decided to post an AS3 solution here:

http://flashascript.wordpress.com/2010/12/25/arranging-objects-into-2d-dynamic-grid-with-a ctionscript-3/

Dynamic Positioning of Objects in a Grid (rows and columns) with AS3 Tutorial

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 21:23:08 GMT

The topic of a dynamic positioning of objects in a right grid (rows and columns) comes up often so I decided to post an AS3 solution here:

http://flashascript.wordpress.com/2010/12/25/arranging-objects-into-2d-dynamic-grid-with-a ctionscript-3/

Number Formatting with ActionScript 3

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 18:16:15 GMT

I posted snippets that format numbers by adding commas or periods (dots) (depending on a formatting standard) that precede every three digits:

http://flashascript.wordpress.com/2010/11/13/number-formatting-with-actionscript-3-and-reg exp/

Hope it will help someone.

Number Formatting with ActionScript 3

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 18:18:42 GMT

I posted snippets that format numbers by adding commas or periods (dots) (depending on a formatting standard) that precede every three digits:

http://flashascript.wordpress.com/2010/11/13/number-formatting-with-actionscript-3-and-reg exp/

Hope it will help someone.

Video Player Tutorial :: ActionScript 3

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 13:34:00 GMT

I have posted a 4-part ActionScript 3 Flash Video Player Tutorial here:

http://flashascript.wordpress.com/2010/11/08/flash-custom-video-player-tutorial-part-1/

http://flashascript.wordpress.com/2010/11/08/flash-custom-video-player-tutorial-part-2/

http://flashascript.wordpress.com/2010/11/08/flash-custom-video-player-tutorial-part-3/

http://flashascript.wordpress.com/2010/11/08/flash-custom-video-player-tutorial-part-4/

This tutorial is mainly for developers who never wrote custom players.

Hope it will help someone to jumpstart video player development.

Apple allows iPhone apps generated in Flash.

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 18:35:45 GMT

Just in case someone has missed this news:

http://www.informationweek.com/news/smb/mobile/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=227400048&cid=R SSfeed_IWK_News

Memory Benchmark Test :: MovieClip vs. Sprite vs. Shape

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 19:51:16 GMT

I performed a benchmark test memory consumption by three DisplayObjects - MovieClip, Sprite, and Shape.

Below are results and method used.

I just wanted to create instances. Test with adding instnaces to display list showed a slight difference in terms of memory consumption.

Observations:

Sprite uses from 16 to 22% with average 18% less memory than MoviClip.

Shape uses from 42 to 55% with average of 46% less memory than MovieClip.

Shape uses from 32 to 42% with average of 35% less memory than Sprite.

Results. Numbers in the first row are loop iteration values. Columns show bites consumed by objects and fraction of differences as compared to MovieClip performance.

	50	vs MC	100	vs MC	1000	vs MC	5000	vs MC	10000	vs MC	50000	vs MC	Avg%
MovieClip	36864		69632		614400		3137536		6225920		31121408
Sprite	28672	0.22	53248	0.24	512000	0.17	2650112	0.16	5255168	0.16	26259456	0.16	0.19
Shape	16384	0.56	36864	0.47	335872	0.45	1761280	0.44	3567616	0.43	17358848	0.44	0.47

Shape vs Sprite		0.43		0.31		0.34		0.34		0.32		0.34	0.35

Code:

var tf:TextField = new TextField();
addChild(tf);
var mem:uint = 0;
var i:int = 0;
var arr:Array = [];
var numIterations:int = 1000;
mem = System.totalMemory;
for (i = 0; i < numIterations; i++) 
{
     arr.push(new MovieClip());
}
tf.text = "m " + numIterations + " - " + String(System.totalMemory - mem);

MP3 and FileReference

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 04:31:47 GMT

Hello!

I am having either thought constipation or lack of knowledge or both. Or maybe I want too much.

My application allows user to select an MP3 file from his hard drive and upload it to the server utilizing FileReference class -- they browse, select and upload. Everything works fine except I would like to give them an opportunity to listen to MP3 after they select the file but BEFORE they attempt uploading it. Of course I could just let them upload the thing and then stream it back but I don't like an easy life.

Naturally, loadSound("blah.mp3") doesn't work because I cannot know path to their file (or can I?). In any case I could not find a way to get the path to the selected file, which is fair from the security standpoint.

I hoped that the file accessed through FileReference would be somehow translated as an object into datatype SOUND (FileReference obviously knows that it deals with MP3 – not the MIME though – and it would be nice to write my_sound:Sound = new Sound(); my_sound = my_selected_file; and get over with the issue) -- in which case I would just start playing it. My high expectations did not come true. I guess the shortest rendition of my question is: Is there any way to convert selected MP3 into sound object, which I can manipulate?

I hope I am clear...

Thank you very much!

Full screen video mode preserving objects size

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 23:51:00 GMT

Hi,

My task is to show a video player in a full screen mode. I have no problem doing that but I need it to perform in a such a way that only video scales to the full screen while other objects (player controls) remain unscaled. If I just go to the fullscreen mode - everything on the stage is scaled up naturally.

Playing with the full screen features I could come up with the only solution which is to calculate a scaling factor (based on, say, stage.width and stageWidth) and adjust player controls dimensions and position accordingly.

Is it the best way to preserve objects sizes or there is a better technique?

I hoped that because each display object has it's own stage and I could show full screen only video by doing something like:

_video.stage.fullScreenSourceRect = screenRectangle;
_video.stage.displayState = StageDisplayState.FULL_SCREEN;

but it still expands all the objects.

Thank you very much for sharing you experience (or sources).

Policy file on rtmp video

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 16:52:00 GMT

Hi,

Can someone point me to the right direction please?

I have a video asset that is streamed from rtmp. Say, url is: rtmp://blah.domain.com/directory/anotherone/asset.flv

I need to invoke BitmapData.draw() on this asset.

There is crossdomain.xml file on http://blah.domain.com/crossdomain.xml that allows all the domains.

When is instantiate stream I write:

stream.checkPolicyFile = true;

Also I load crossdomain from http://blah.domain.com/crossdomain.xml and rtmp://blah.domain.com/crossdomain.xml

I tried all the combination of the above.

In all the cases when I try BitmapData.draw() - I am getting:

cannot access rtmp://blah.domain.com/directory/anotherone/. No policy files granted access.
at flash.display::BitmapData/draw()

So, does it mean that each final folder has to have it's own crossdomain.xml? Even though the root directory has one?

Also, it feels that requesting crossdomain.xml from rtmp would be odd.

Is there way around it?

Can anyone try to resolve my confusion please?

Thank you.

Reading video size without onMetaData on live stream.

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 16:10:06 GMT

Hi,

I am a Flash developer and practically know nothing about FMS.

We encountered a situation when our encoder (not Adobe's one) doesn't inject metadata into a live stream. So, there is no onMetaData on the stream. When stream is in 16x9, our players don't resize the stream according to it's ratio and always display it in 4x3.

Is there a way to read width and height of the video even though there is no metsdata? Perhaps a method that can be invoked via responder similar to getStreamLength.

Video is streamed via Akamai.

Interestingly enough when we view the same stream in Akamai player - video is resized to the proper dimensions/ratio AFTER a few seconds. Obviously Akamai has a mechanism to detect video dimensions.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

LocalConnection limitations

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 18:59:48 GMT

Hi,

Did anyone come across the issue of limits to number of SWFs that can establish local connection on MAC?

The architecture is: One Manager ("server") and N number of other SWFs that communicate with the manager.

When I embed more than 8 SWFs (manager + more than 7 dependents) and attempt to establish connection between them - only first 7 dependent swfs are capable to communicate with the manager on MAC (both Safary and FF). The rest are ignored. It doesn't seem to be an issue on PC where I went up to 20 and it worked (with some quirks of course). Is it a native behavior on MAC?

I did not check if number of connections is at stake (as opposed to number of swfs). There are 14 connections all together when 7 dependents are involved.

Are there any tricks to remedy this?

Thank you.

SWF as a stand alone and a loadable app.

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 11:28:59 GMT

Hi,

This is the first time I have to implement this kind of requirement in AS3.

Application I am developing will be used as a stand-alone swf (embedded in html) and as a third party movie clip that will be loaded by clients into other AS3 container on different domains. The app is dynamic and will have to be available for manipulations by the loading movie (as a component).

I would love to hear your experiences, learn about potential caveats that I may encounter and remedies to overcome the common obstacles pertaining to this dualistic nature. I have a vast experience with loading swf that I wrote into other swfs that I wrote too but never dealt with the distributing flash apps.

For instance I already discovered that because of the shift in the stage reference I will have to be careful when to use it (after the app is added to stage, naturally, but this aspect escaped my attention in all the previous developments).

Or, what would be a preferred way for a third party to load my swf and access its application domain (for help instructions)?

I guess, in essence, I would like to have a share of your wisdom on what are the best practices in a Flash application distribution.

I have no intention to bother you with hand handling - just some conceptual advice. I will dig for the rest myself.

Thank you very much for your time.

Code optimization and SWF size.

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 11:17:29 GMT

Hi,

I am facing an issue of minimizing size of the compiled swf. Everything works perfectly - I just need to optimize the code.

This question is theoretical and pertains, I guess, to how flash compiler works.

Here is a hypothetical scenario:

Say, there is an fla called Barn.fla. Document class for the file is Barn.as

Potentially there are several characters in the Barn: chicken, cow, dog, etc.

Each character is represented by a symbol in the library. Each symbol is linked to a corresponding class: Chicken.as, Cow.as, etc. For the simplicity sake they are all in the same package.

Placement of these objects accomplished at AUTHORING time - not loaded at runtime.

The file is a template and is compiled into a different swfs in the future. The difference between these swfs is that some animals are present on the stage, some are not depending on what is needed in the future and there is no way to tell when they will be needed. If they are not needed - they are not only NOT present on the stage - they also are REMOVED from the library.

In the Barn class there is a functionality that depends on what objects are present.

Here I am getting to the core of my question:

I can declare potential objects in the Barn class like this:

private var chicken:Chicken;
private var cow:Cow;
private var dog:Dog;

Then I will check if any of those exist on the stage and do whatever.

If, say, cow is not present on the stage and is not needed but the variable is still declared (but undefined) - will compiler still load entire class Cow because the type of cow is Cow for the future potential use?

Will swf be smaller if I declare variables in this manner:

private var chicken:Object;
private var cow:Object;
private var dog:Object;

and only if the object is cast at compilation time to it's corresponding type the class will be loaded?

I hope I am not all that confusing.

Thank you.

Andrei

How to read browser location/address url from within Flash?

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 22:14:52 GMT

Strangely enough I cannot find any information on how to detect or read an information on the browser that embeds a Flash movie. I need url/location - the one that is showing in the browser address bar - not loaderURL. Would be nice to be able to read type of browser, etc. I need to do it without employing JavaScript.

Does anyone knows where this information resides in Flash 9/AS3?

Thank you.

How to read browser location url from within Flash?

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 22:22:07 GMT

How to read browser location url from within Flash?

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 22:13:49 GMT

SharedObject.getLocal() crashes CS3 IDE on Vista

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 11:01:09 GMT

Hi,

My CS3 IDE crashes when I attempt to use the following code:

var so:SharedObject = SharedObject.getLocal("myDomain")

Sometimes it crashes on the firsts attempt to publish, sometimes - on the second.

If I publish without previewing it - swf doesn't perform at all when displayed in the browser.

I see a lot of posts on the net about it but no solution.

Is it a bug or there is a work around?

Thank you.

How to deal with undefined/undeclared properties?

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 23:35:24 GMT

Hi,

My scenario is: I have classes that are bases for library symbols. Inside these symbols several objects may be present. The thing is that some of them will be there, others will not be depending on the ui design- placement and removing of the objects will be totally up to designers - not programmers although there are limited possibilities.

If the objects are present - I will need to initialize them certain way. The objects will have predefined names per requirements.

Obviously, if an object is not on the stage - compiler will throw an 1120 error once I attempt to reference it. What is the best way to check if the property/variable was declared? I remember reading somewhere about a technique of doing that but cannot find it and my brain is frying because of the project and the weather :-)

Thank you very much.

Andrei

Garbage Collector Question

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 18:08:55 GMT

Hi,

I am still hot sure about how GC works.

Say, I have a parent Sprite and a Sprite that is a child of this parent.

Child sprite has all these listeners, etc. that are not registered with other objects that are outside of the child.

If I remove the parent from the stage and nullify it - are both parent and the child will be marked for GC even if I don't remove listeners from inside the child?

Thank you.

AS Documentation Generator

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Sat, 31 May 2008 17:36:26 GMT

Hi,

Has anyone had an experience with any software that automatically generates documentation for AS-based applications? I mean some sort of program that would read packages and describe the classes, etc.

I believe there are such programs for other languages.

Thank you.

removeChild and Garbage Collector

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 17:02:08 GMT

I am still fuzzy on the Actionscript 3 framework.

If I remove a child from a container, is the removed child automatically eligible for the garbage collection?

If not – what should I do to make it eligible?

If yes – what can be done to prevent it from being permanently deleted should I need it?

container.removeChild(myDisplayObject)

Thank you!

loadSound MP3 Catch

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 11:19:05 GMT

Hey All,

I have a flash MP3 player. Users upload an MP3 file and then it is streamed back.

The file on the server is always saved with the same name no matter what their original file name was. So, when they reload an MP3 they need to hear it, which means that the url for the loadSound is always the same.

The problem is that sound is obviously is in catch and until I close the browser the newly uploaded MP3 doesn’t play -- instead the file that was loaded first is playing. I checked it from different perspectives and made sure that the file on the server is the latest one. Again, once I restart the browser (refresh doesn’t work) – correct file is played.

What would be a technique that would refresh the file that is played if I pass the same URL through loadSound?

Sorry for the redundancies.

Thank you!

loadSound MP3 Catch

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 22:17:15 GMT

MP3 and FileReference

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 20:37:59 GMT

duplicateMovieClip: nested MCs don't duplicate

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 23:23:27 GMT

Hi!

I have an instance to which numerous clips are attached at runtime. When I duplicate this instance, the nested clips are not duplicated. Is it because duplicateMovieClip duplicates instance itself only -- not what was attached at runtime?

The code is simple but, in case I miss something here it is anyway:

var dpl:MovieClip = mc_dropPlacer.duplicateMovieClip("pc",_root.getNextHighestDepth());
dpl._x = 10;
dpl._y = 10;

Thank you.

CF Apache Installation wsconfig.jar

forums_noreply@adobe.com — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 02:11:03 GMT

I am struggling to install CF 6 and 7 with Apache 2.0.54, 2.0.59 on Win XP Home Edition.

I tried to follow the Tek Notes on Adobe. When they talk about extracting wsconfig.jar. I am not sure what it means. I just tried to open this file, which promted me to configure the server. I pointed to both Apache config and .exe. The jar threw the error something like "can not extract ... MBeans'.

The same installation routine worked fine on Win XP pro.

Can someone tell me what is going on? Obviously people have a lot of problems installing CF on Apache.

Where can I download an earlier versions of Apache and CF in case there is no fix?

Thank you.