FlashGuru Blog

Been having problems writing the MXI files for Macromedia Extensions? Me too(never seems to work), but i found out today that a third party has written an excellent free tool which eases the process and creates them for you. You can download it here. The tool creates MXI files, not MXP files, so you then have to use Macromedia Extension Manager to package your files into an MXP.

The Macromedia Flash Develoment Center has been updated recently with two new articles about Flash MX 2004 Components. Nigel Pegg and Allen Ellison take you through the ropes of building your own Flash MX 2004 Component in “Building and Testing Flash MX 2004 Components”, and a Macromedian - Waleed Anbar, explores the new component architecture in “Exploring Version 2 of the Macromedia Flash MX 200 Component Architecture”. Both of which are great reading material.

Vera Fleischer a member of the Macromedia Flash Team which are based in San Fransisco has written an article for Actionscript.com - “A Day in the Life of a Macromedian”, in there you will find lots of photos of the Macromedia Flash Offices, complete with toys and all. Very interesting insight into the mothership.

A few strangers, and a not so unfamiliar name, have joined forces to put together yet another Flash book, this isnt any old Flash Book though, its Flash Remoting - The Definitive Guide, published by the king of technical book publishers, O-Reilly. The authors: Branden Hall, Tom Muck, Alon Salant and Joel Martinez. Definetley a book worth adding to the bookshelf in the office!

For those of you that didnt already know (i know there are still quite a few, who are wondering), Macromedia have made new versions of the Flash Remoting Components with Actionscript 2 and they are available for download here, free as always!

Macromedia has acknowledged that there are problems with the auto updating help panel and thus have released a Macromedia Extension (.mxp - 4.23mb) for use with Macromedia Extension Manager 1.6 (The latest version, that supports Flash MX 2004), which will update the help panels for you.

Macromedia still havent released the JSFL Reference for Flash MX 2004, but until then you have the next best thing, an unofficial actions panel conversion from XML to HTML, using XSLT, courtesy of Steve Webster. Here is the downloadable html version, and then Bernhard Kotzenberg kindly converted that into PDF document using Acrobat Distiller.

The new Employment Section over at Actionscript.org is now ‘Live and Kicking!’. This is a free service for both freelancers and employers. The freelancers amongst us can now sign up and have ourselves listed
in a searchable database of Flash talent, complete with relevant daily or weekly emails containing new positions sent directly to your inbox. On the other hand, employers can also register and post job vacancies which are then searchable by us, the prospective candidates. Sign up today!

This is getting stupid now, lol, but thank god for news aggregators thats all i will say! Three new flash bloggers joined our blog community within the last week, well four, but one of which i have already posted. You may or may not know these people, but they are flashcoders regulars: Peter Elst, Robin Debreuil and Owen van Dijk.

Ive created my first extension that is of any use, a new Auto Save panel in Flash MX 2004, available at Window > Other Panels > Auto Save.

You can download the source from here (.zip - contains Auto Save.swf and Auto Save.fla)

1. Copy the ’swiff’ Auto Save.swf into the following directory:

C:\Program Files\Macromedia\Flash MX 2004\en\First Run\WindowSWF

2. Restart Flash

Buraks will be releasing Actionscript Viewer 4 in a couple of hours. Actionscript Viewer 4 now has full SWF Version 7 support, which means that it can decompile Actionscript 2. It also implements a new experimental feature ‘Export JSFL Rebuild Data’, which uses JSFL to rebuild a Flash Movie from a .swf file. There are limitations of course, but it can rebuild a timeline complete with import of library items from a .swf etc…. how cool is that?

I have set up a mailing list for discussion related to extending Flash MX 2004. Get all your questions related to JSFL, XML2UI, Commands, Behaviours, Timeline Effects and Tools answered by subscribing to the extendflash mailing list.

Send a message to extendflash-subscribe@flashguru.co.uk to subscribe.

SciTE|Flash is a third party Actionscript Editor which is by far much better than the Actionscript Editor that comes with Flash MX, or Flash MX 2004. It has been around for a while now, but development slowed when other things got in the way. Now Ale Munoz of Bomber Studio’s is asking for support from his product users - which there are a fair few of. If you use SciTE|Flash and would like to see a new release complete with Actionscript 2 and JSFL support, then donate whatever you can spare with paypal, so that Ale can buy a copy of Flash MX 2004 and get the development under go!

Ive done my donation as i use the editor! So please spare a dollar or five.

Keith Peters and Todd Yard have been working on a new flash book, Extending Flash MX 2004 which will be published by Friendsofed. Although the book is not yet available, the official website is now live and kicking, all be it incomplete, but it still contains lots of sample files which will help you learn how to build Commands, Behaviours, Timeline Effects and Tools. Check them out!

The Flash 7 Player has the ability to load, parse and use css syle sheets. You can, as in html redefine any of the supported html tags that textfields will display, but their are also other css properties that can be defined and implemented. What Do I Know has posted, what appears to be a complete list of the currently supported css style properties, here.

Heres a real world example of a custom created tool, using JSFL. Keith peters has added the ability to draw a 3d cube at any angle onto the stage, plus you can change the perspective using the options button in the Properties panel.

Very cool!

Dave Yang of Quantumwave Interactive, known for is OOP related knowledge and sharing it on Flashcoders is yet another blogger to join the flash blog ranks. Check this one out!

Here is a tool i quickly knocked up for you, which adds a rather useless tool, complete with its own space and icon into the Tools panel(Window>Tools). Extract the contents of the zip folder into the Tools directory and then open Flash MX 2004. Select the tool from the Tools panel(You’ll notice the new icon) then Click, hold, move and release on the stage and see what it draws on the stage for you - The lines drawn wont be exported to the .swf as the Flash IDE drawingLayer is simply for displaying artwork at author time ie.(Selection areas). But again, it gives you an insight into how to create your own Tools. You now have yourself an example of a JSFL tool. All you need to do now is combine this knowledge with the knowledge gained from experimentation after reading my previous post about searching through the Flash IDE’s DOM and you have yourself a headtstart with JSFL.