The Log » development

FDT 4 — FAQ

admin — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 14:06:18 +0000

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

Loading and using CSS in AS3.

admin — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:51:46 +0000

I should make it a habit to post things I know I’m going to forget. For instance, here’s some info on using CSS in Flash:

Supported CSS properties

color | color

Only hexadecimal color values are supported. Named colors (such as blue) are not supported. Colors are written in the following format: #FF0000.

display | display

Supported values are inline, block, and none.

text-align | textAlign

Recognized values are left, center, right, and justify.

text-decoration | textDecoration

Recognized values are none and underline.

text-indent | textIndent

Only the numeric part of the value is used. Units (px, pt) are not parsed; pixels and points are equivalent.

margin-left | marginLeft

Only the numeric part of the value is used. Units (px, pt) are not parsed; pixels and points are equivalent.

margin-right | marginRight

Only the numeric part of the value is used. Units (px, pt) are not parsed; pixels and points are equivalent.

kerning | kerning

Recognized values are true and false.

letter-spacing | letterSpacing

Only the numeric part of the value is used. Units (px, pt) are not parsed; pixels and points are equivalent.

font-size | fontSize

Only the numeric part of the value is used. Units (px, pt) are not parsed; pixels and points are equivalent.

font-family | fontFamily

A comma-separated list of fonts to use, in descending order of desirability. Any font family name can be used. If you specify a generic font name, it is converted to an appropriate device font. The following font conversions are available: mono is converted to _typewriter, sans-serif is converted to _sans, and serif is converted to _serif.

font-weight | fontWeight

Recognized values are normal and bold.

display | display

Supported values are inline, block, and none.

UNDOCUMENTED

leading | leading

Only the numeric part of the value is used. Units (px, pt) are not parsed; pixels and points are equivalent.

Finally!

admin — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 15:47:52 +0000

I sat down last night to start thinking about how I was going to build yet another customized video player (this time with bandwidth detection) for an upcoming project. By this time I’ve got a good base of code to go off of for these types of things as it seems that every other project demands a customized video player. But the more I thought about it the more I was baffled to not have come across a standardized framework for building video players for rich media applications. This is such a huge part of building applications is Flash and based on the explosion of Flash application frameworks and 3D engines, I’ve been surprised to not see the equivalent for equally important components of advertising RIAs like the video player.

Last night I came across the Open Video Player Initiative: http://www.openvideoplayer.com/

This appears to be perfectly in line with what I’ve been looking for. This is an initiative put forth by Akamai to standardize the creation of video for the web. As Akamai has emerged as the premier host for streaming media, it only makes sense that they would spearhead this project. The source for the framework even includes customized Akamani NetConnection and NetStream classes to provide easy plug and play for the Akamani network.

The code looks really clean and extendable. I’m excited to integrate this into my own video classes for my next project.

Development alternatives.

admin — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 15:05:58 +0000

I just finished reading the first in a series of blog posts by developer Jesse Warden on Agile development practices. It’s long, but I have found it really insightful to read about how others do things to deal with the same issues we all come across.

http://jessewarden.com/2008/11/agile-chronicles-1-stressful.html

As I understand it, Agile development is a process squarely different from the process that an advertising project typically follows. I have had similar thoughts to Jesse’s on working with agencies:

“Working with Design Agencies, there was no process. Not because Agencies are dumb, but rather because the project timelines Agencies have are typically significantly shorter than traditional software or product development. On average, 2 weeks vs. 4 months. While a deadline can stretch to 4 months, you only work 10 man days on it, and of those 10, 5 are done initially, and the other 5 are done over the course of 2 or 3 months on client changes. In short, if you have 5 days to complete a complicated coding project, you’re more focused on getting things done than you are worrying about encapsulation, continuous integration, and frameworks. Writing code on day 1, and wondering who in the heck has time for UMLand test cases. Agencies are deadline driven, whereas in software development, nothing is ever on time.”

I’m going to read on when I get more time. It would be interesting to hear what you think.

Ok, I might donate now.

admin — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 00:01:20 +0000

As some of my colleagues may know, I’m a diehard fan of Jack Doyle’s TweenLite/TweenFilterLite/TweenMax when it comes to making things animate in Actionscript. Today he introduced TweenGroup for managing multiple tweens!

I’ve been coming up with my own ways for simplifying the construction of a sequence of tweens, but this utility is by far more flexible and useful than anything I’ve come up with so far.