21 October 2005
Written by
Richard Leggett (
)
Published on October 21st, 2005 @ 03:06:50 pm, using 95 words, 232 views
No doubt some of you have come across this. Just one for the record. It seems Flash doesn't allow certain words for labels to ContextMenuItems. "Delete", "Open" and "Save" for example.
I haven't had time to investigate fully, but the following two snippets of code on a frame will show the problem.
// Doesn't work
var cm:ContextMenu = new ContextMenu();
var cmi:ContextMenuItem = new ContextMenuItem("Delete", handler);
cm.customItems.push(cmi);
menu = cm;
function handler() {}
// Works
var cm:ContextMenu = new ContextMenu();
var cmi:ContextMenuItem = new ContextMenuItem("Delete2", handler);
cm.customItems.push(cmi);
menu = cm;
function handler() {}
20 October 2005
Written by
Richard Leggett (
)
Published on October 20th, 2005 @ 11:46:53 am, using 117 words, 219 views
Another aquisition for the books. I think this snippet sums it up:
Macromedia (Nasdaq: MACR) today announced that it has completed the acquisition of Mobile Innovation, a leading user interface (UI) designer, developer, and integrator for mobile devices. With extensive relationships throughout the mobile industry and an impressive track record of innovation, Mobile Innovation has deep expertise in the world of mobile UI design and implementation
You can read the full press release here.
Congratulations guys, this is the third mobile Flash related aquisition I know of (IndiaGames, Animoi) which shows great dedication to advancing the field and reflects the burgeoning number of mobile users that is growing daily and looking for more content then ever before.
18 October 2005
Written by
Richard Leggett (
)
Published on October 18th, 2005 @ 03:08:01 pm, using 32 words, 295 views
Time for the hype to go up a gear, XBox 360 is out very soon and strange signs have started to appear...
Read and see.
(Let's all remember our base 16 hey - 168 
) Spoiler - link
17 October 2005
Written by
Richard Leggett (
)
Published on October 17th, 2005 @ 12:57:49 pm, using 50 words, 355 views
Today is a day of public alphas and betas! You can now download the Zinc 2 public beta (registered users only). The bit that caught my eye... "The new Help Docs include the new {mdm}Script 2.0 API which is SYNCHRONOUS in execution... on BOTH Windows and Mac OSX!"
Read more here.
11 October 2005
Written by
Richard Leggett (
)
Published on October 11th, 2005 @ 04:59:47 pm, using 164 words, 618 views
Big thanks to David Mannl for pointing this out just now.
I've just signed up for the new ITV Mobizines service (see flash demo here). When you text "MOBILE" to 63330, you receive a link to download the client (if your phone is up to it, mine is an old 7610 and it worked no problems). The client will install the standalone Flash Lite player along with the main application and a skinned media player (just the 2 icons on the main menu, the media player is invoked by the client). When the client is installed via Symbian installer you should see the unmistakeable vector UI and bitmap fonts of Flash Lite 1.1 being used to offer a TV Guide, weather, news and entertainment with the option to download more "Mobizines", or mobile magazines - similar to the channels concept pushed elsewhere. Prime candidate for a FlashCast server hey 
.
More information on the Mobizines service that ITV have used can be found at: http://www.refreshmobile.com/mobizines.htm
Written by
Richard Leggett (
)
Published on October 11th, 2005 @ 04:30:46 pm, using 217 words, 300 views
Gareth Evans is over at the Smartphone Show (Symbian Expo) today in London. This seems to be a quote from a sales rep, and if it is true, this is a huge figure with huge implications.
Here's the full quote from Gareth:
That's the official line, we think it's actually closer to the half a billion mark.
A macromedia representative at 'The Smart Phone Show' also today told a colleague that, although he couldn't divulge which Nokia model will have the Flash Lite player, it will definitely be within the N-series.
Ken Toley (Macromedia Flash Technical Support), recently asked developers with regards to Flash Lite, "...what do you need to help you get there?". Well most of the comments show that it's the supporting handsets that are required, and I believe the rest will follow naturally. With this in mind, the above (speculative) figure of over one third of a billion licenses, when compare with the total sales figures I posted previously, should mean we are about to see our wishes fulfilled.
I'm still waiting on the N70, due to be released on most networks in the UK, this month. fingers are crossed.
Pretty sure Nick Gerig is also over at the show today, so be sure to check out his blog in the days to follow.
06 October 2005
Written by
Richard Leggett (
)
Published on October 6th, 2005 @ 11:56:41 am, using 246 words, 2461 views
From the "why bother?" department, I've created a little app that converts between ASCII text and BitmapData.
Here is a sample .bmp file that I took a screenshot of and imported into my FLA's library.
Now it may look like a miniature Magic Eye, but it does actually have a message hidden in it. To read the message you need the salt which is used in the conversion of ASCII to hex colours, and of course this little Flash 8 app.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Click here to open the app. I'm not sure what to do with source at the moment, possibly submit it for approval to the fantastic IFBIN service if anyone finds this useful and I find time to comment the code fully to bring it up to IFBIN standards.
Also, the reason I put the word Encryption in quotes like that was because a statistical analysis on the bitmap would probably crack any image (of sufficient length) in milliseconds. But the algorithm (which at the moment is a simple multiplication and addition), could be made a lot more complex to prevent this to a certain extent.
Some things to try:
- Reduce the number of letters in the salt to reduce the colour range in the image.
- Use a few upper-case OR lower-case in the salt to alter the hue of the image.
- Paste in your favourite poem and see what a pretty picture it makes
- Adapt the source to allow sharing of bitmap messages via remoting / FCS.
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