Flash Image Gallery Widget

Widget-like image gallery is still work in progress, but functionality is now good enough. File is most suitable for blog sidebar. Code is small, only 60 lines and only 3 functions: move(), adjust() and setToStage().

If you would like to have this gallery for free (with your images, off course) on your blog, email me at flanture [at] gmail. You can have as many images as you like. Colors and links customized.

Next, I will do is stop and resume rotation functions, scale images on sides, info button. Later on I'll try to make xml driven component from it.

Cool AIR applications

What can you do with Adobe AIR? Here are examples.

Simple Event Mechanism Flash Tutorial

This tutorial will teach you how to create simple event mechanism.

First, create MovieClip ball, place instance on Stage and name that instance mc_ball. Then, enter next code in first and only frame on main Timeline and test your movie.

Function doIt() is activated when some event happens. In this case, when ball x coordinate is smaller than 25. Function doIt() places ball on right side of Stage. Point is that doIt() executes only once but it is placed on onEnterFrame for instance. In this way you can create very complex movements and reactions.

For example, you can write event2, …, event3, etc and every event reacts on different occasion. Also, you can use different actions and function when event1 AND event2 are true, but something else when only event1 has values true. You can also put within onEnterFrame function for root, doIt() function inside for or while loop for multiple executions. Simple code, but useful.

Howto: Flash content on Blogger's blog

Few days ago I wrote about how simple is to put flash content on your Blogger's blog because it uses only embed tag. Tim e-mailed me for details, so here they are.

How to put flash content on your Blogger's blog? Just use code shown on picture.


code explanation:

1 - Change "{swf url}" with url of your swf, hosted on PhotoBucket or wherever.
2 - Color for background.
4 - Here you can change width and height according to your flash file sizes.
6 - You can use "adobe" instead of "macromedia" if you like.

That's all, actually. Feel free to ask anything about this subject. Thanks.
I apologize for poor image quality, but you can download it for better view.

Favorite AS version - part II

Few weeks ago I posted about favorite AS version.I was trying to answer the question what is most used version among programmers. My first conclusion was that over 95% of people are using AS2. I was using number of threads on forums as representative number.

However, one of readers, known as 5566 said that this idea can't really show this relation because AS2 threads exists much longer on forums and this is true. I tried to compare number of threads from date AS3 has appeared, but it was impossible for me to do that on Kirupa forum.

How about my poll? Well, My poll shows different story. Here are the results:

1. ActionScript 2.0 (10 votes) 66%
2. ActionScript 3.0 (5 votes) 33%
3. ActionScript 1.0 (0 votes) 0%

Representative sample is too small for right conclusion, but I can say that favorite ActionScript version between programmers is ActionScript 2.0 for sure. Numbers are approximately: 60 % - 80 % uses AS2, rest is learning AS3.

I'm sure this relation for AS2 and AS3 will change in near future as more and more people learn AS3, but I'm not convinced that AS2 will be forgotten so fast as ActionScript1.0 is.

How To Start Online Business

Is it hard to start your own online business? What does it takes to be a success and what kind of differences are bringing new technologies?

These are tough questions and I can only guess how many of you have that PERFECT idea right now. I don't know the answer, not yet. But I can see some things that can give me an idea about how things will change, in what direction. I'm talking about MixBook. This is where Flex becomes not only interesting technology for geeks, but you can see how simple Flex application becomes backbone for a company.

Create your own book, share it and get it's printed version delivered to your door. Prices are from $12.99 for 20 pages to $44.99 for 100 pages book and more. And when you see how those books pages turn so nicely within Flex application on website, you will be thrilled for sure.

Simple idea, available technology and people with ambition. Maybe this is the answer to my question.

Flash on Blogger

I have been reading a little bit about how to place Flash content on your Blogger's blog. It is actually very easy. Technique uses only embed tag. Flash swf file can be placed anywhere you want, one of those places is PhotoBucket. Yes, I didn't know that they can host flash file along with images.

I have made small widget-like image gallery, but this is very work-in-progress version and have many bugs. But, yes it works ok. You can see it at the bottom of 3dmaps blog sidebar. You can control rotation speed of images with mouse movement.

Rotation is not perfect, because code is just stupid. I wanted to see if it will work. I will make corrections, so widget will be independent from number of images. Also I will improve looks, maybe add some nice effect etc.