I just need to get my parents on board now. There are literally 5 different numbers to call between the 2 of them.

More on the Google Voice Features page.

I wish this didn’t matter as much as it actually does.

This is easily handled by listening for Security Error Events from the URLLoader and additionally wrapping the load call in a try/catch statement. However, I was surprised to find out that URLLoader has no built-in timeout for altogether unavailable addresses. In most cases, a Security Error would be thrown when a crossdomain policy file fails to load, but that takes about 30 seconds. I’m still a little confused on the details of this, but check out the comments on the URLLoader in the AS3 Language Reference.

Enter URLLoaderDeluxe. I’m sure this has been done before, but I failed to find code out there that was ready to go. URLLoaderDeluxe extends URLLoader and adds an optional timeout value to the constructor.

In addition to handling non-existent or unavailable urls, turns out this aids in dealing with ad blocker plugins on browsers. The ad blocker will basically remap a call to a url it recognizes as an ad server, rendering it unavailable. In these cases, a simple timeout on the call can save you from errors, fail the load, and send the app on it’s way. Jesse Warden wrote on this a while ago, and his solution coincides with what I’ve done here.

Please let me know if this helps, if I’m totally off, or if you know anything else about this.

propedit svn:externals ., where ‘.‘ is the directory’s property you would like to edit.

I’ve been adding external library linkage to the top-level directory in the repository to keep everything in the same place, but it really doesn’t matter where you add your external links.

The link in the externals property file should look like this:

path/to/library http://svn.site.com/mylib

I ran into one issue where svn would give me a warning about a locked working copy,

svn: warning: Working copy 'my_directory' locked

Mark pointed me to this article, which stated towards the bottom,

One thing to note: any directory you specify for an svn:externals checkout should not already exist in your repository.

So, in path/to/library http://svn.site.com/mylib, the end directory, library, will be created by the external link and should not exist, or else you will get the above error.

Transport error (#1001) while retrieving data from endpoint `/ajax/updatestatus.php': A network error occurred. Check that you are connected to the internet.*

Lastly I’ve turned to my blog to broadcast my quick 140-ish character thoughts to the world. But who will read them? Who checks their blog reader every ten minutes to see who is saying what? Does anyone even have my feed in their reader? If Twitter is down for an hour, will it appear as a black hole in time years from now?

*internet should be in Title case, Facebook.

Also see,
http://istwitterdown.com/
http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/twitter.com
http://status.twitter.com/

ThunderBolt project:

http://code.google.com/p/flash-thunderbolt/

ThunderBolt Console:

http://code.google.com/p/flash-thunderbolt/wiki/ThunderBoltAS3Console

Anyone been using this?

Check out my RuntimeLibraryItem class. This abstract class can be easily extended or instantiated for different types of external assets or just individual items.

For example:
Externalizing my fonts saves huge weight up front, but loading and registering them can be a bit confusing and tedious. My RuntimeFont class is an extension of the RuntimeLibraryItem class and streamlines the external font loading process.

I’ve started to build a library of font swfs for each project by generating a swf for each font with a single exported font library item. So, LucidaGrandeRegular.swf would contain the exported font symbol, ‘LucidaGrandeRegular’. The class LucidaGrandeRegular.as would then look like this:

public class LucidaGrandeRegular extends RuntimeFont
{
        public function LucidaGrandeRegular(autoLoad:Boolean = false)
        {
		var url:String = 'path/to/LucidaGrandeRegular.swf';
		super('LucidaGrandeRegular', url, autoLoad);
	}
}

RuntimeFont takes over from there:

public class RuntimeFont extends RuntimeLibraryItem
{
        public static var library:Array = new Array();

        private var _name:String;

        public function RuntimeFont(name:String, url:String, autoLoad:Boolean = false)
        {
                _name = name;        // save the name of the font to be registered
                super(url, autoLoad); // RuntimeLibraryItem class loads the swf
                library.push(this);     // store this in a static var of runtime fonts
        }

        private function registerFont():void
        {
                // registers with the Font class for use in the application
                Font.registerFont( getClass(this.name) as Class );
        }

        override protected function handleLoadComplete(event:Event):void
        {
                this.registerFont();  // register the font when the swf loads
                super.handleLoadComplete(event);
        }

        public function get name():String
        {
                // utility getter for whatever
                return _name;
        }

}

This turns the font load for LucidaGrandeRegular into something as simple as

var lg:LucidaGrandeRegular = new LucidaGrandeRegular();
lg.addEventListener(RuntimeClassLibrary.LOAD_COMPLETE, handleFontsLoaded);
lg.load();

This is still evolving, but I’ll post sample code in the examples directory soon.


public static function get parentUrl():String
{
if(ExternalInterface.available)
{
try
{
var parent:String = String( ExternalInterface.call(" function(){ return document.location.href.toString();}"));
return parent;
}
catch(error:Error){}
catch (error:SecurityError){}
}
return '';
}


Just be sure you have AllowScriptAccess set to “always” in your embed params or else a Security Error will be thrown by the player.