FlashLoaded
HotFlashVideo Component

Adding to their already extensive array of Flash components, Flashloaded have just released their new hotFlashVideo component.
In a nutshell, this new plug-in allows developers to create custom-shaped, invisible, clickable areas on top of FLV video that users can interact with while the video plays. These clickable areas can be animated to follow movement within the video and can have actions assigned to them just like any normal button.

The component installs simply as an extension, providing an extra panel within the Flash IDE and is accompanied by a comprehensive package of support files, including an installation guide, example source files and a link to an online user guide. It’s pretty obvious that the guys at FlashLoaded have put some time and effort into this one as, in addition to the support files, there is the option of a Flash 8 installer that utilises the Flash 8 video importer.

Using it for the first time can be a bit of an unsettling experience if you’re not used to seeing automated JSFL (flash javascript) scripts running, as this component relies heavily on creating library items, frames, timelines and even the document itself via JSFL. On the other hand though, it is great to just sit back and watch the script doing all the hard work. In fact all you have to do is draw shapes on the provided timelines to fill in where and when you want your hotspots.

On successfull creation of your project file, you are presented with the option to ‘Edit Hotspots’ and a button click takes you directly to the hotspot editor, freshly created with three empty layers (for your first three hotspots) and sitting above a locked preview layer of your FLV.
Using this editor, it is extremely simple to fill in the blank layers with your hotspots – each of which must exist on it’s own, individual layer – and tracking motion within your video is as straight forward as creating a shape tween and ensuring that its movement corresponds to the movement in the FLV’s preview layer.

One of the nice features of creating the hotspot timelines this way is that they are synched to the FLV as it plays, so even if the FLV is streamed from Flash Communication Server (or Flash Media Server as its successor is now called) and suffers from slow bandwidth, forcing it to stop and re-buffer, your hotspot layer will always remain in-step with the video playback.

Assigning actions to your hotspots is also a breeze, as this is also taken care of via FlashLoaded’s custom JSFL. On installing the component, a number of Commands are also installed, giving you basic interactions to add to your hotspots. These interactions are named “Display Captions”, “Launch URL”, “Load External SWF” and “Movieclip Loader”. To add one of these interactions to a hotspot, select a frame on the appropriate hotspot layer that you wish to have the interaction and choose the command from Flash’s Commands menu. Adding your own interactions is just a case of defining your own button actions in the appropriate frames.

All in all, any developer wanting to add hotspots to a video would save themselves a huge amount of time and effort by using this component in a project. FlashLoaded have made the effort to make the creation process as simple and streamlined as possible and this really comes to light when re-opening a project for editing.
Clicking the ‘Generate’ button completely re-renders all of your hotspot layers and their movement/interactions all ready to be re-published and uploaded.

A great timesaver.

www.xk72.com/charles/

As soon as we leave the IDE behind and begin real-world testing in the browser, one of the hardest aspects of debugging Flash RIAs, their data traffic and external asset requests is actually seeing what’s being requested and/or returned to Flash.

JPGs,SWFs and XML files that are loaded at run-time may have malformed URLs or point to incorrect, missing or misspelled folders. Data loaded from server-side scripts or web services may have typos in the parameter names or return unexpected results and our only option, for the most part, is to work out a solution by way of prior experience, guesswork and altering our app to include time consuming debug code or remote debugging (and losing half the app or half you hair whilst waiting for the debugger to update the MovieClip tree in real time).

This is where Charles steps in.

Charles is an debugging tool that acts as a middle man between the internet and the developer’s machine. Anything being sent or received over HTTP will be monitored and can be viewed or analysed without changing a single line of Actionscript. This includes data or asset requests and all of them are logged in either an easy-to-navigate folder structure, organised by domain or by order of request.
Each item is listed with its requesting HTTP headers, the server response (headers,data and/or image) and a sumary of url, filesize, response type and download time. If the response is an image, it is viewable and if it’s XML data, then it can be displayed in either ASCII (plain text format) or in navigable, browser style XML formatting. This means that we can see the exact data returned into either our XML or LoadVars objects and pick up any bugs or typos immediately, without having to second-guess ourselves.

When it comes to speed issues and really seeing how our application handles different connection speeds and streaming media, Charles also gives us the option to throttle bandwidth and force slower download speeds. This can be invaluable when optimising sites for dialup or low bandwidth users. It means that we can actually view the site from a real user’s perspective and actively deal with the implications of the longer download times.
In addition, we can disable all caching without having to touch any browser settings or putting time values on urls, etc. so that we can reliably retrieve the latest versions of swfs and images and bypass the whole “why hasn’t my content changed” issue that plagues all of us from time to time.

Getting Charles running really is as simple as just installing it. Charles can automatically alter the proxy settings of Internet Explorer to redirect requests and original settings are restored when Charles is closed. Other browers such as Firefox take a little more knowledge to configure, but this is no more than opening the browser’s preferences panel and entering new proxy server and port settings (remembering of course to change them back after you’re finished debugging).
Instructions on how to configure most popular browsers are also in the readme file in the installation folder or on the author’s website.
With shortcut keys set up to easily enable/disbable throttling, caching and some of the more advanced tools, the ability to export a session’s summarised data in CSV format for reporting and comparison (a truly excellent feature) – and a single user licence for only US$50, this app is a budget solution that sits very comfortably in amongst high-end development applications and will quickly become an essential and frequently used tool.

In fact the only really confusing thing about this application is why on earth the start up logo is a jug of flowers…

Get it here

http://www.sothink.com/flashdecompiler/

From SWF to fully editable FLA in seconds. This is a powerful tool.
Sothink’s latest installment in the SWF Decompiler series is just that. Keeping pace with the latest features of Flash, it offers developers the means to re-create (not completely faithfully, but nigh on) their work back into FLA format.
The big new feature in this version is the Actionscript 2.0 support. AS2 classes are exported and written into .as files, preserving their package structure and a complete Flash Project file is created containing all the exported files.
In addition to that, embedded assets can be exported to their native formats; sounds can be saved as MP3 or WAV (using the packaged LAME MP3 encoder), videos as FLV, images as BMP or JPG and actionscripts from selected frames can be saved individually to text files.

When recreating the FLA, SWF Decompiler actually does a really good job of rebuilding. Labels, scripts and frames are replaced true to the original and the end result is that you have a good, solid representation of your lost work that, with minor amendments, you can continue to develop.
The flip side is that your code will be different. Variable names are renamed (maintaining functionality, but not readability) and labels are often on different layers, albeit in the correct place in the timeline. Any formatting in your library won’t survive and library items’ names are reduced to “Symbol 1″,”Symbol 2″, etc..

Other features of this package include the Sothink SWF Catcher. Installing this alongside SWF Decompiler will give an extra right-click option whilst browsing web pages that, when selected, displays details of all the flash content in the current browser window and options to save the item(s) to your computer or send them straight to the decompiler to have a good poke around.

To be fair, if you deleted your source file, then you need source control, tape backups or just a little more care and this product will save you an awful lot of re-development, headaches and possibly your job! For under $80USD that’s a pretty good deal.

Price: $79.99
Buy it now

https://store.beamjive.com/products_offbeat.php

Following the success of their Flash MX2004 component sets, including charting, UI and control suites, the Finnish software group, Beam Jive Consulting, have ventured into new territory, turning their expertise towards server technologies and released the Offbeat Server.

Essentially, this is a Java XML Socket Server and as such, offers developers streamlined connectivity between your data source, Java backend and presentation layer via an XML based communication protocol. Simply put, it provides the ability to slash the overhead of bandwith heavy server polling in favour of live updates as and when the data is available and does this in a very plug-and-play manner.

The most common uses for this technology would be multi-user chat, live message boards or real-time system/device monitoring applications, but the server also makes for a good base for many other types of data driven projects.

“The response times are very fast when there is no latency of creating the connection for each request. A typical round-trip time (send request -> process request -> receive response) for an Offbeat request is only a few milliseconds. The fastest round-trip times in the tests were as small as one millisecond. This means that the client may send up to 1000 requests in one second.
(depends on the hardware and the application design).”

The Server itself has also been designed with ease of use in mind, handling database connection pooling, object pooling, internal logging, error handling and application variables to mention a few of its many features. The Java Client libraries are also available in addition to the Flash Component and comprehensive manuals, separated into Flash and Java development make excellent reference and give step by step instructions to getting connected and exchanging data with the server.

A healthy starter selection of sample applications greets you upon installation (full source included) and the Offbeat MX 2004 Client Component makes is extremely simple to connect, send and receive data and monitor connections to the Offbeat Server though Flash. As with Flash’s LoadVars object, the client allows for multiple variables to be sent concurrently, allowing you to collect all the data to be sent and sending the object as a whole. In reply, an XML object is received, containing the response, the data accessible via Flash’s standard XML object methods.

While bearing in mind your connection limitations (listed above), it is important to note that it is possible to run multiple applications simultaneously – a real benefit for any solutions providers looking to offer the server as a service.