Apollo & Flash9 (codename Blaze) tour continues, next time will be in Rome, Italy on 1st of December.
Mike Chambers and Mike Downey will be the speakers for this event organized by actionscript.it community.
During this event will be also explained Flex Data Services and AS3.
for more info about this event see the original entry @actionscript.it, also for informations about the event location.
Month: November 2006
Red5, first thoughts
As I promised myself, I started to spend some of the time in testing red5 since I’ve read the about the 0.6RC1 release.
Unfortunately I wasn’t able to run it on my Windows Vista so I try it on an older Windows XP. Once unpacked the installer I first tested some of the example applications boundled, everything worked fine.. cool, nice, great project indeed!
But then I wanted to migrate one of my FCS2 projects to Red5 in order to test “the real world”.
Ok, I need to write in Java? (there’s Python support, but it’s Jython) Cool.. I never seen Java, I thought it was a monster with eight heads 🙂
Got the first Java editor I found on the net, IntelliJIdea (what a wonderful editor indeed! much expensive, but really cool), and started with headache..
But at least, for a newbie like me, it seems to me like editing ActionScript3 files, so it wasn’t so difficult to make things running.
I’m still “trying” to re-write the application (with minor changes also in the flash files) but I managed to make remote sharedobjects, streams and remote calls running like in the FCS2 original application and I’m so happy 🙂
I just encounter a couple of time a Windows blue screen error while getting webcam streams (I need to make a snapshot next time) and some human unreadable java exceptions (It’s indeed a my fault) but I think it was a positive beginning after all.
Great great compliments to red5 developers!
CubeRotate flickr slideshow
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[/kml_flashembed]
Thanks to alex uhlmann who released the source code of his presentation at MAX, I’ve managed to do this little flickr slideshow based on his CubeRotate flex effect.
This effect, beside all the others in the flex component, are based in Sandy (a great opensource 3D engine).
Using the flickr libs from labs.adobe.com first I’ve created a very simple slideshow to take pictures from my personal gallery, then I followed the examples provided within the Alex’s files and voilà.. a little but indeed cool effect 🙂
Just one remark. I need to put a PHP page on my site with reads the flickr image file, using php’s function readfile, otherwise all the bitmapdata effects couldn’t works, because images are not from the same domain…If someone is interested I put toghether also a little tutorial on how to make it.
For more informations read the original entry @ Alex Uhlmann blog.
P.S. Do you like that little boy in the first picture? 🙂 It’s me!
[attachments docid=897 force_saveas=”1″ logged_users=”0″]
Create a Flex2 search plugin toolbar in Firefox2
With the release of Firefox 2.0 we had many new features and one of these is the Enhanced search capabilities:
“Search term suggestions will now appear as users type in the integrated search box when using the Google, Yahoo! or Answers.com search engines. A new search engine manager makes it easier to add, remove and re-order search engines, and users will be alerted when Firefox encounters a website that offers new search engines that the user may wish to install.”
For example you can add more search engines from here. I’ve take a look at the google built-in search plugin and I managed to create a search engine for AS3/Flex2 which uses the livedocs as target result site, but which uses a “search term suggestion” too.
You can install in Firefox2 this search plugin just clicking here.
This is the XML I used to generate this search engine:
<SearchPlugin xmlns="http://www.mozilla.org/2006/browser/search/" xmlns:os="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/">
<os:ShortName>Actionscript 3.0</os:ShortName>
<os:Description>ActionScript 3.0 search on livedocs</os:Description>
<os:InputEncoding>UTF-8</os:InputEncoding>
<os:Image width="16" height="16">data:image/x-icon;base64,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</os:Image>
<SearchForm>http://livedocs.macromedia.com/cfusion/search/index.cfm</SearchForm>
<os:Url type="application/x-suggestions+json" method="GET" template="http://suggestqueries.google.com/complete/search?output=firefox&client=firefox&qu={searchTerms}"></os:Url>
<!--<os:Url type="application/x-suggestions+json" method="GET" template="http://localhost/as3-static/search.php?q={searchTerms}"></os:Url>-->
<os:Url type="text/html" method="GET" template="http://livedocs.macromedia.com/cfusion/search/index.cfm">
<os:Param name="loc" value="en_US"/>
<os:Param name="termPrefix" value="site:livedocs.macromedia.com/flex/2 "/>
<os:Param name="term" value="site:livedocs.macromedia.com/flex/2 "{searchTerms}""/>
<os:Param name="area" value=""/>
<os:Param name="search_text" value="{searchTerms}"/>
<os:Param name="action" value="Search"/>
<os:Param name="client" value="firefox"/>
</os:Url>
</SearchPlugin>
You can also install it just by creating an xml with this code and save into your:
{UserAppDataDir}\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\{ProfileName}\searchplugins\
Using this search plugin as it is now, it just will redirect all the queries to the http://livedocs.macromedia.com site, and uses the google suggestion search engine to display the suggestions.
See an example on how suggestions works here. As you can see the results are encoded using JSON.
This is the output you will see there: [“mx.core.”,[“mx.core.view”]]
But since I wanted to have a “pure” flex2 suggestion search engine I grabbed all the contents from the Flex2 Language Reference site using python, saved the results in a local Mysql database and finally created a little search engine in PHP which returns the same json-encoded results, to be used with my search plugin.
Replacing the original search plugin xml file into:
<SearchPlugin xmlns="http://www.mozilla.org/2006/browser/search/" xmlns:os="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/">
<os:ShortName>Actionscript 3.0</os:ShortName>
<os:Description>ActionScript 3.0 search on livedocs</os:Description>
<os:InputEncoding>UTF-8</os:InputEncoding>
<os:Image width="16" height="16">data:image/x-icon;base64,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</os:Image>
<SearchForm>http://livedocs.macromedia.com/cfusion/search/index.cfm</SearchForm>
<os:Url type="application/x-suggestions+json" method="GET" template="http://localhost/as3-static/search.php?q={searchTerms}"></os:Url>
<os:Url type="text/html" method="GET" template="http://livedocs.macromedia.com/cfusion/search/index.cfm">
<os:Param name="loc" value="en_US"/>
<os:Param name="termPrefix" value="site:livedocs.macromedia.com/flex/2 "/>
<os:Param name="term" value="site:livedocs.macromedia.com/flex/2 "{searchTerms}""/>
<os:Param name="area" value=""/>
<os:Param name="search_text" value="{searchTerms}"/>
<os:Param name="action" value="Search"/>
<os:Param name="client" value="firefox"/>
</os:Url>
</SearchPlugin>
now the search plugin engine will query http://localhost/as3-static/search.php?q={searchTerms} for displaying the suggestions (so you need to have a php script there which can return something).
What I did at this point is:
1. Grab the flex2 reference using this python script. This script will output a file mysql.sql.
2. Import this sql file into my Mysql database using:
mysql flex2_reference < mysql.sql
where “flex2_reference” is a database I previously created.
3. Create this php script (sorry, it’s not really a good example of php script…) and saved into my localhost at this address: http://localhost/as3-static/search.php
and I’ve got a fully ActionScript 3.0 search engine with suggestion!
Find programming documentation
I found two very useful reference sites which aggregate various documentation within an ajax suggestion search textbox (like google suggest).
QuickRef.org [view]
Very fast an easy, includes C, C++, CSS, HTML, HTML DOM, Java, JavaScript, MySQL, Perl, PHP, Python, and Ruby references. Unfortunely it does not include ActionScript reference. It has also a “add to google” button, to add a widget in your google homepage.
Fast API Search [view]
This includes ActionScript reference too! It allows to select which references to be used in the live search (such as HTML, CSS, CSS2, Javascript, Google code, XML, XSL, XPath, XSD, PHP, Ruby, Perl, AS, ColdFusion, C, C++, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, Java…). Unfortunately this one does not include Python and it seems to be slower than quickref.org
Anyway, I think a couple of useful bookmark links.
Flash Switcher for OSX
After the many requests of a mac OSX version of my last Firefox plugin I finally was able to create it.
I have to say I had much more difficulties rather than the one for Windows.
For what I could understand Firefox for Windows unload the NPSWF32.dll once there are no pages displaying an swf. In fact (under windows) before switching plugin I have to be sure there are no pages wih an swf within, then I can clear the dll and copy the new one.
Instead Firefox for OSX doesn’t unload the Flash Player.plugin even when there are no flash contents. For that reason I could not delete the current plugin file, so I decided to first move the running plugin into Trash and then copy the new one in the Internet Plug-ins folder and then ask user to restart Firefox. In this way everything seems to work clean.
Another problem is the fact there are 2 different plugin file for mac Intel and mac PPC. So I had to create 2 different .xpi installers.
Many thanks to Gabriele Farina who help me with this, I completely forgot the fact there were 2 different installer under Mac.
Here the installers (btw, I’m not 100% sure they will work.. a better test should be done):
Flash Switcher for Firefox
P.S. Another thing regarding my recent interest on Firefox plugin development.
This morning Jesse Stratford mailed me saying he wrote an article about me (yeas, about me! ooh what a great honor):
http://www.actionscript.org/../Firefox-Plugins-for-Flash-Platform-Developers/