With the release of Acrobat 9 comes the new Acrobat.com website where you can upload and share documents online. One cool new feature is the ability to embed a PDF file on your website using the PDF Widget. It is basically a SWF movie that works like FlashPaper used to. Thanks to Lori DeFurio for making me aware of this and providing an explanation of how to create one yourself .
Below is an example of the PDF Widget, displaying the ‘Programming ActionScript 3.0 ‘ document from Adobe .
Posted in ActionScript 3.0 , Adobe | No Comments »
I love you WP-SpamFree !
For ages I was getting tons of spam in my WordPress comments (email notifications that the comments were ready for moderation and approval). I was getting dozens and dozens of emails a day telling me that I had more and more comments ready to approve. It was driving me crazy.
So I tried installing the Akismet WordPress plugin after obtaining an API key (though had a bit of a problem for a while and was getting an error message ). Eventually I got it to work, but a lot of spam was still getting through. Grrrrrr….
Then I came across the WP-SpamFree plugin. I installed it and almost immediately the spam stopped. I’ve had it installed now for several weeks and I don’t think I have had a single spam comment since (touch wood ).
If your WordPress blog is suffering from excessive comment spam I highly recommend you install it.
Go get it now from either the developer’s website or the official WordPress plugin directory .
Posted in WordPress | 2 Comments »
I was looking around for a simple example of using SWFAddress 2.1 with SWFObject 2.1 and Flash CS3 (ActionScript 3.0) and came across this blog post by Rachel . She has kindly put a simple demo online and made the source code available.
There are a few things that I have updated and am making available here (at the bottom of this post) …
Updated SWFAddress from v2.0 to v2.1
Updated SWFObject from v1.5 to v2.1
Reorganised the folder structure (see below)
Download the updated source files here …
SWFAddress2.1_SWFObject2.1_AS3.zip (583 KB)
UPDATE 20/04/09: Lee Brimlow has a good tutorial on using SWFAddress 2.2 on his gotoandlearn() website. I suggest you check it out .
Posted in ActionScript 3.0 , Sample Code | 15 Comments »
Here is a round up of some of the most popular ActionScript 3.0 (AS3) libraries out there to use. Let me know if I have missed an important one off.
NOTE: This list was originally for my personal use (that I thought I would share), it is not intended to compete with or replace the list maintained by OSFlash .
Update 29/10/08: Ted Patrick has put together a list of ActionScript Cloud/Service APIs that he going to highlight during his Adobe MAX 2008 keynote presentation.
Update 28/11/08: I have just come across the Actionscript Classes website . A very handy resource.
Update 11/01/09: Rich Tretola has a small list of AS3 Libs on his blog EverythingFlex .
Update 12/01/09: The Flashchemist has compiled a similar list on his blog.
Update 27/02/09: Check out Spark Project which includes the FLARToolkit for Augmented Reality
Update 11/08/09: I just stumbled across this (old) list of projects .
Update 19/12/09: Sean “theflexguy” Moore has just written a blog entry called ‘List of 34 More ActionScript 3.0 APIs ‘. This is a follow-up to his original post ‘List of 22 ActionScript 3.0 API’s ‘.
Update 22/12/09: “30+ ‘Must Try’ Open Source Actionscript 3 Libraries ” and “30 MORE Awesome Open Source AS3 Libraries ”
Update 28/01/10: “30 Classes AS3 bem úteis!”
Update 29/01/10: “15 Awesome ActionScript 3 Frameworks To Inspire Your Next Project”
Update 24/02/10: Emanuele Feronato has a good list of Isometric Engines on his blog
Update 19/03/10: Tom Krcha has posted a list of Flash Gaming Engines, plus a few others that were new to me
Update 09/07/10: FluxDb has a huge list of AS3 Libraries
3D Engines
3D Game Engines
2D Game Engines
Isometric Engines
3D Animation Framework
3D Physics Engines
Augmented Reality
Animation Tweening Engines
2D Physics Engines
Security
Audio Libraries
Particle Systems
Data Visualization
Loading Kits
OOP Frameworks
Other APIs and libraries
facebook-actionscript-api - Actionscript API for the Facebook platform.http://code.google.com/p/facebook-actionscript-api/ as3facebooklib - ActionScript 3.0 API for Facebook.http://code.google.com/p/as3facebooklib/ Yahoo Maps API http://developer.yahoo.com/flash/maps/ corelib - ActionScript 3.0 library for several basic utilities (JPEG Encoding, MD5 Hashing, JSON Serialization).http://code.google.com/p/as3corelib/ as3flexunitlib - ActionScript 3.0 framework for unit testing.http://code.google.com/p/as3flexunitlib/ as3flickrlib - ActionScript 3.0 API for Flickr.http://code.google.com/p/as3flickrlib/ as3mapprlib - ActionScript 3.0 API for Mappr.http://code.google.com/p/as3mapprlib/ as3syndicationlib - ActionScript 3.0 library for handling syndication feeds.http://code.google.com/p/as3syndicationlib/ as3odeolib - ActionScript 3.0 API for Odeo.http://code.google.com/p/as3odeolib/ as3youtubelib - ActionScript 3.0 API for YouTube.http://code.google.com/p/as3youtubelib/ as3ebaylib - ActionScript 3.0 API for eBay.http://code.google.com/p/as3ebaylib/ as3awss3lib - ActionScript 3.0 library for interacting with Amazon S3.http://code.google.com/p/as3awss3lib/ as3soundeditorlib - Actionscript 3.0 library for sound playback, spectrum display, and cue point display.http://code.google.com/p/as3soundeditorlib/ as3ds - AS3 Data Structures For Game Developers.http://code.google.com/p/as3ds/ as3notificationlib - A notification framework written in AS3 for the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR).http://code.google.com/p/as3notificationlib/ as3preferenceslib - An AIR library for storing preferences.http://code.google.com/p/as3preferenceslib/ as3nativealertlib - An AIR alert that appears in a native window.http://code.google.com/p/as3nativealertlib/ ASCOLLADA - actionscript library for parsing Collada files.http://code.google.com/p/ascollada/ FZip - An Actionscript 3 class library to load, modify and create standard ZIP archives.http://codeazur.com.br/lab/fzip/ AS3 Zip Library - An ActionScript 3 based library for reading and writing zip files.http://nochump.com/blog/?p=15 lastfm-as3 - Actionscript 3.0 API to access the Last.fm web services.http://code.google.com/p/lastfm-as3/ MapQuest http://company.mapquest.com/mqbs/4a.html Modest Maps - A display and interaction library for tile-based maps in Flash.http://www.modestmaps.com/ as3cards - An ActionScript 3.0 card engine and example games.http://code.google.com/p/as3cards/ flexircclient - ActionScript 3 based IRC library.http://code.google.com/p/flexircclient/ AsWing - A GUI framework and library that allows programmers to make their flash application(or RIA) UI easily.http://www.aswing.org/ as3httpclient - ActionScript 3 utils/classes to extend HTTP/HTTPS APIs in Flash Player 9 (onwards).http://code.google.com/p/as3httpclient/ DistortionTweener http://evolve.reintroducing.com/2007/11/18/as3/as3-distortiontweener/ ascanvas - An adapter of HTML Canvas and fl.display.Graphicshttp://code.google.com/p/ascanvas/ dopplr-as3 - actionscript 3 code for accessing data from dopplr.com’s api.http://code.google.com/p/dopplr-as3/ FC64 - an Open-Source Commodore 64 Emulator.https://mirror1.cvsdude.com/trac/osflash/fc64/ Google Maps API http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/flash/intro.html gmaps-utility-library-flash - Google Maps API for Flash Utility Library.http://code.google.com/p/gmaps-utility-library-flash/ FVNC - VNC Client for Flash Player 9 and above.http://osflash.org/fvnc AS3 Parametric Curve Library http://www.algorithmist.net/as3pc.html AWI - AMFPHP-WordPress Integration.http://www.klr20mg.com/awi/ (in Spanish)as3webservice - Open-source Webservice class implementation in AS3 for Flash CS3 IDE.http://code.google.com/p/as3webservice/ as3jayrock - AS3 wrapper for Jayrock communication.http://code.google.com/p/as3jayrock/ ASAP Library - A library for the development of maintainable, multi-movie, interactive applications.http://asaplibrary.org/ Wordpress XML-RPC API http://blog.absentdesign.com/?page_id=22 as3maillib - An ActionScript 3 email library.http://code.google.com/p/as3maillib/ AlivePDF - ActionScript 3 Open-Source PDF Library – 100% client side PDF generation.http://alivepdf.bytearray.org/ purepdf - Flash/Actionscript library for creating PDF files.http://code.google.com/p/purepdf/ SWFAddress - Deep linking for Flash.http://www.asual.com/swfaddress/ Flash Camouflage - Skinning framework for AS3.http://code.google.com/p/flash-camouflage/ Flexlib - Open Source Flex Component Library.http://code.google.com/p/flexlib/ Yahoo Astra Flash Components http://developer.yahoo.com/flash/astra-flash/ as3-fullscreen-lib - A small lib used for scalling content to the full size of the browser.http://code.google.com/p/as3-fullscreen-lib/ coordy - An Actionscript 3 Layout Framework.http://code.google.com/p/coordy/ vectorvision - Vectors in papervision3D.http://code.google.com/p/vectorvision/ WiiFlash - Communication between the Wiimote and Flash.http://code.google.com/p/wiiflash/ Stats - A simple info box that will help you monitor your code performance.http://code.google.com/p/mrdoob/wiki/stats Flash-Optimizing-Tools - APIs that can help optimize a Flash applicationhttp://github.com/EladElrom/Flash-Optimizing-Tools/ twitterscript - Twitter API in ActionScripthttp://code.google.com/p/twitterscript/ oauth-as3 - OAuth Actionscript library (useful for Twitter clients).http://code.google.com/p/oauth-as3/ OAuth - AS3/Flex OAuth Library (useful for Twitter clients).http://github.com/srohde/OAuth/tree/master NabaztagAPI - Nabaztag API wrapper for Actionscript 3.http://www.iotashan.com/NabaztagExplorer/ SWFObject - Standards-friendly method to embed Flash content using one JavaScript file.http://code.google.com/p/swfobject/ tweetr - AS3 Twitter APIhttp://code.google.com/p/tweetr/ myLib - A powerful open source framework designed for advanced components programming with Adobe Flash AS3 projects.http://mylib.samystudio.net/ as3scribdlib - ActionScript 3.0 API for Scribdhttp://code.google.com/p/as3scribdlib/ FDOT - A collection of ActionScript 3 classes that make hard things easier.http://onflash.org/ted/2009/08/fdot-making-hard-things-easier.php xpath-as3 - An XPath implementation for ActionScript 3.0http://code.google.com/p/xpath-as3/ DirectorAS3 - Library for SlideShowPro Directorhttp://www.tuftandco.net/DirectorAS3/ SWX - The Native Data Format for Adobe Flashhttp://code.google.com/p/swx-format/ openplatform-flash - AS3 client library for The Guardian Open Platformhttp://code.google.com/p/openplatform-flash/ ARTionscript - An AS3 ‘Generative Art’ Frameworkhttp://artionscript.com/ ffffound-as3-api - FFFFOUND! (unofficial) AS3 APIhttp://toki-woki.net/blog/p336-ffffound-as3-api colormunch - Actionscript (AS3) library for the Adobe Kuler APIhttp://code.google.com/p/colormunch/ GpxAS3 - A library for parsing and manipulating GPX (GPS Exchange Format) files.http://github.com/ryanstewart/GpxAS3/tree gaforflash - Google Analytics Tracking For Adobe Flashhttp://code.google.com/p/gaforflash/ minimalcomps - Minimal ActionScript 3.0 code only UI components (Keith Peters)http://code.google.com/p/minimalcomps/ HYPE Framework - A collaborative visual framework (Branden Hall and Joshua Davis)http://hype.joshuadavis.com/ TempoLite - A small, efficient media libraryhttp://blog.coursevector.com/tempolite SoundManager - Makes adding sounds to your projects super simplehttp://evolve.reintroducing.com/2008/07/15/news/as3-soundmanager/ TextFlowPro - Enables you to flow a series of textfields together so that they act as a single text containerhttp://www.gskinner.com/blog/archives/2009/01/editable_multif.html AnimatedBitmap - Provides functionality for Bitmap objects that are animated by using a series of still imageshttp://blog.hexagonstar.com/animatedbitmapclass/ Active Window Blur http://blog.onebyonedesign.com/?p=81 SWFsize - Works with SWFObject and provides control over the swf’s container metricshttp://chargedweb.com/swfsize/ as3-signals - Signals is a new approach for AS3 events, inspired by C# events and signals/slots in Qthttp://wiki.github.com/robertpenner/as3-signals/ swffit - Not an AS3 library, but a JavaScript file that adds scrollbars to the browser when smaller than a specified sizehttp://swffit.millermedeiros.com/ libscorm http://code.google.com/p/libscorm/ pipwerks.SCORM - Adding basic SCORM functionality to an existing Flash filehttp://pipwerks.com/2008/04/27/how-to-add-basic-scorm-code-to-a-flash-movie/ custom-context-menu - Capture right-click events in Flash / Flex (AS 3)http://code.google.com/p/custom-context-menu/ Library & LibraryManager - For using external assets in your flash projects.http://www.tink.ws/blog/library-librarymanager/ DataStructures - HaXe/AS3 library for game developershttp://code.google.com/p/polygonal/ miditoflash - Receive midi events in Flash from any midi device through Java and JavaScripthttp://code.google.com/p/miditoflash/ ASBlender - Actionscript 3 library for reading Blender .blend fileshttp://wiki.github.com/timknip/asblender/ OpenPyro - An Open Source ActionScript 3 framework built for creating Rich Internet Applicationshttp://www.openpyro.org/ TurboSignals - A library implementing the signals and slots design patternhttp://jacksondunstan.com/turbosignals evoTinyEngine - Demo scene enginehttp://www.simppa.fi/blog/opensource-demo-engine-evotinyengine/ FlashSURF - SURF (Speeded Up Robust Features) feature extraction library written in Flash using Alchemyhttp://code.google.com/p/in-spirit/wiki/FlashSurf XML-RPC - Easy way to get Flash to transfer data with an XML-RPC endpointhttp://danielmclaren.net/2007/08/03/xmlrpc-for-actionscript-30-free-library as3-rpclib http://code.google.com/p/as3-rpclib/ as3swf - Low level Actionscript 3 library to parse, create, modify and publish SWF files.http://github.com/claus/as3swf BrowserCanvas - The World’s Easiest Way to Dynamically Resize Flashhttp://www.dncompute.com/blog/2008/06/23/browsercanvas-the-worlds-easiest-way-to-dynamically-resize-flash.html Chain - Delayed function callinghttp://blog.stroep.nl/2009/11/delayed-function-calling-chain/ App Analytics - Complete analyrics solution for Adobe AIR applicationshttp://www.appanalyticshq.com/ governor - A multithreading script enginehttp://code.google.com/p/governor/ mojocolors - An Actionscript 3 color library inspired by the great Nodebox Colors libraryhttp://code.google.com/p/mojocolors/ flashdraw3d - A very lightweight 3d drawing API for Flashhttp://code.google.com/p/flashdraw3d/ Sprouts - An open-source, cross-platform project generation and configuration toolhttp://projectsprouts.org/ ZaaIL - 40+ Image format support for Flashhttp://www.zaalabs.com/2010/04/introducing-zaail-40-image-format-support-for-flash/ MouseWheelTrap - A fix for unwanted simultaneous Flash and browser scrolling behaviour in AS3http://code.google.com/p/mousewheeltrap/ FLVSlicer - A simple FLV slicer and mergerhttp://code.google.com/p/flvslicer/ Fluxus - AS3/Flex library registry similar to Ruby Gemshttp://fluxusproject.org/ EventController - Event Management made easyhttp://fla.as/ec/ as3-jaws - Just Another (AS3) Web Service Client (for .NET web service)http://code.google.com/p/as3-jaws/ CJSignals - ActionScript 3.0 Observer Framework (a new approach for ActionScript 3.0 events)http://code.google.com/p/cjsignals/ Reflex - A light weight component framework being built for the Flash Platformhttp://reflex.io/ Merapi - A bridge between AIR and Javahttp://www.merapiproject.net/ AS3-P2P-LIB - ActionScript 3 Lib for the new P2P API in Flash Player 10http://github.com/devboy/AS3-P2P-LIB dropbox-as3 - ActionScript 3 Dropbox APIhttp://code.google.com/p/dropbox-as3/ TransformManager (AS3) – Interactively Scale/Rotate/Move DisplayObjects (Commerical)http://www.greensock.com/transformmanageras3/
Posted in AIR , ActionScript 3.0 , Augmented Reality , Flash , Flex , Papervision 3D , Tweening | 84 Comments »
A free on-day Flex conference has been announced, called FlexCamp - London 08 . It will be held on Thursday 28th August 2008 at Conway Hall in London. The nearest tube is Holborn. Sign up now by visiting the Flex London User Group (FLUG) Meetup website .
The sessions will run from 2pm - 8pm and include Building your 1st Flex application, Styling, skinning, designer/developer workflow, Flex and Flash, Flex and ColdFusion, Flex and Java, Who you need on your Flex team, Application development best practices, Introduction to Cairngorm and Flex component development.
Visit the official FlexCamp website for more details.
Posted in Adobe , Conferences and Events , Flex | 2 Comments »
Wow! Flash CS3 just gave me a useful and clear warning message. It even suggests a fix.
Basically I forgot to put two equals signs in an ‘if’ statement. The compiler was then kind enough spot this and suggests …
Did you mean == instead of =?
Congratulations Adobe, in the next release can we please have more user friendly messages like this, instead of the cryptic ones that are currently displayed?
Posted in ActionScript 3.0 , Flash | No Comments »
This morning I came across this beautiful Flash website . It is for a company called Checkland Kindleysides , who are a design agency based in Leicestershire, UK. It is such a simple yet beautiful website. The animations of the paper cut-outs are gorgeous.
Posted in Flash , Websites | No Comments »
August 22nd, 2008 by 
Adrian Parr 
No Comments »
