Macromedia has released the new version of Flash Lite versioned 1.1. The new version adds support for connected applications and open standards including SVG-T. The new version has support for the W3C standard SVG Tiny (SVG-T), network connectivity, improved audio support, and APIs to integrate Flash content with phone functionality. Early adopters and partners include Bellwave, NTT DoCoMo, Sony Ericsson, Symbian, Texas Instruments, and T-Mobile.
Read the full story here.
For more information on FlashLite visit http://www.macromedia.com/go/flashlite.
June 17, 2004
Last ActionScript Hero SMS Transmitter
These days I have been hearing a lot about MX2004's integration with Webservices, from my friends and finally decided to try it out. I started developing a SMS Application, using the free webservice available at WebserviceX and give it a web interface so people around the world can use it. I was amazed by the time it took me to do it, it just took me 10 minutes taking away the time I spend on developing the UI.
You can have a look at this app at http://www.lastashero.com/sms.html
At present there is one restriction in this application. It can send SMS only to mobile subscribers in India and in some cases only to post-paid subscribers (!?).
Many thanks to Jeffrey Hill for his excellent tutorial in flash-db.com on how to use webservices in MX2004. You can find the tuorial here : Using the Flash MX 2004 Web Service Classes
June 15, 2004
Powerflasher releases a Socket Output Server based debugging console for Flash
Powerflasher , a German based Flash developers Network has realesed a free XML Socket server based debugger with a GUI. Its a jobware and its free to use.
What is this program?
POWERFLASHER SOS (SocketOutputServer) is a XML Socket server with a graphic user interface. Connected clients can send messages to SOS. These messages are shown in SOS. Further on commands from SOS to Client can be sent. These are freely configurable.
As found on http://sos.powerflasher.de
Read more about this tool here.
The full documentation is also available at the same address.
What are the advantages?
Flash movies can hardly be debugged outside of the Flash IDE by missing "trace" output. With SOS Flash movies can also transmit messages from the live system to the developer. The output window of the Macromedia Flash IDE is very slow and scrolls under circumstance only approximately 80 lines automatically. Whereas a very fast console, which can represent many lines output in shortest time, without the run speed of the program is strongly affected, is available by SOS. SOS is developed as smart as can and used up thereby only little main memory and is easy to serve. Beside Flash theoretically each XML Socket able Client can use SOS such as C, PHP, Java etc...
Advantages in an overview:
- Fast log output
- Smart UI
- Highly customizable
- Multiple clients
- Configurable commands to Clients
- Flash console protocol not limited to XML
June 12, 2004
Flash Remoting ActionScript API update for ActionScript 2.0 from Macromedia
Macromedia has released an AS2 version of their Flash Remoting Components. It also includes Flash Remoting Components ActionScript 1.0 for Flash MX 2004 and Flash MX Professional 2004. You can download them here. The most exciting thing here is that, they have also released the source code for the same.
Macromedia Flash Remoting for Flash MX 2004 ActionScript 2.0
June 7, 2004
Updates to the Flash Remoting Components include:
The Flash Remoting ActionScript API has been updated to comply with ActionScript 2.0. The new RemotingConnector component allows you to work directly with the new data binding features in Flash MX 2004 Professional Significant improvements to the Documentation, including new ASDoc format and sample applications. These ActionScript 2.0 components should be used for all Flash MX 2004 and Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 projects, especially if you are working with ActionScript 2.0 in your Flash project. You can still use the ActionScript 1.0 components below, if you like, but the ActionScript 2.0 components represent the best integration with Flash, Remoting, and ActionScript.
June 10, 2004
Talk between Javascript and Flash
This question have been repeated for quite a number of times, so let me put it down and make it easier to just give a link to this thread than answering again and again. How to send information across Flash and Javascript (in a browser) and vice versa. And instead of going about what is what, let me better do a demo, or you can download the source.
Written by : Brajeshwar
June 07, 2004
XPath in Flash
XPath4AS2 is an ActionScript 2 library to add XPath functionality to Flash.
What is XPath?
XPath is a concise language for selecting nodes from an XML document. It allows you to write a short string query that defines a path to the nodes you want to select. For example, if you had a document that looks like this:
<products> <product SKU="7123734"><name>Big Metal Pot</name>
<price>19.95</price>
</product><product SKU="752585">
<name>Plate</name><price>12.95</price>
</product>
<product SKU="4182476"><name>Spoon</name>
<price>4.95</price></product>
</products>
You could select an array of products with this query
myXPathDocument.selectNodes("/products/product");
You could get all products that cost more than $5.00 like this
myXPathDocument.selectNodes("/products/product[./price > 5]");
You could get an array of all the SKUs with this
myXPathDocument.selectNodes("/products/product/@sku");
XPath is a very powerful language that can greatly simplify working with XML documents.
( As found in http://www.xfactorstudio.com/Actionscript/AS2/XPath/)
The AS 1 implementation of the same can be found at http://www.xfactorstudio.com/Actionscript/AS1/XPath/
Read more about XPath for Flash here.
You can dowload it here.
June 06, 2004
Macromedia Flash Player 7 for Linux now available
San Francisco—May 27, 2004—Macromedia (Nasdaq: MACR) today announced the immediate availability of Macromedia Flash Player 7 for Linux. This new version of Macromedia Flash Player, the leading rich Internet client, offers improved performance and security and powerful new development capabilities. Macromedia Flash Player is bundled with Linux operating systems distributed by Novell, Red Hat, Sun Microsystems, and Turbolinux (see attached quote sheet). For more information on Flash Player 7, or to download it, visit www.macromedia.com/go/flashplayer.
"Macromedia is committed to the Linux platform and wants to make sure Linux users can experience the proven effectiveness of Flash technology on their platform of choice," said Jeff Whatcott, vice president of product management, Macromedia. "Developers can now take advantage of the breakthrough performance and advanced capabilities of Flash Player 7, enabling them to deliver a consistent cross-platform experience."
The world's most ubiquitous rich client, Macromedia Flash Player is installed across more than 98 percent of Internet-connected desktops and a growing number of mobile devices. Flash Player is the high performance runtime for effective rich Internet applications created with the recently released Macromedia Flex presentation server and expressive interactive content created with the Macromedia Flash authoring tool. Developers worldwide rely on the integrated graphics, video, audio, and data capabilities of Flash Player to deliver the most engaging and effective experiences on the web. Engineers from Sun Microsystems and Macromedia worked together to port the Flash Player code to the Linux platform.
"We are pleased to have worked closely with Macromedia to help bring Flash Player 7 to the Linux platform," said Curtis Sasaki, vice president of desktop solutions, Sun Microsystems. "The integration of Flash Player 7 into the Sun Java Desktop System will enable our joint customers to view the rich, interactive Flash content that is so widely used on websites worldwide."
Flash Player 7 offers increased performance and ensures a consistent cross-platform experience. With support for Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), Flash Player enables developers to blend HTML and Flash with consistent formatting. New support for Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) web services connectivity allows developers to create rich Internet application user interfaces that handle enterprise data in a service-oriented architecture.
"Our company has built a rich Internet application using Flash Player on Linux that delivers a point-of-sale system for more than 700 sales staff members that retains the look and feel of their previous system, which reduced training costs," said Chris Peterson, consultant, MediaSuite Communications. "With the updated Flash Player now on Linux, we will be able to deliver even better performance, additional multimedia capabilities, and proven stability to our users, as well as deliver applications created with Macromedia Flex."
ABOUT MACROMEDIA
Experience matters. Macromedia is motivated by the belief that great experiences build great businesses. Our software empowers millions of business users, developers, and designers to create and deliver effective, compelling, and memorable experiences - on the Internet, on fixed media, on wireless, and on digital devices.
LINUX PLATFORM PARTNERS EXPRESS SUPPORT FOR FLASH PLAYER
Novell
"Novell is committed to providing the world's best enterprise Linux desktop. The inclusion of Macromedia Flash Player helps Novell give users the desktop capabilities they want and need."
- Charlie Ungashick, director of product marketing and management for Linux desktops, Novell
Red Hat
"The availability of Macromedia Flash Player 7 for Linux is an indicator of the growing demand for rich applications certified for the Linux client. Red Hat currently makes Macromedia solutions available with Red Hat Desktop and looks forward to integrating future versions."
- Deb Woods, vice president of product management, Red Hat
Turbolinux
"Turbolinux's focus is simple; to respond to the requests of our customers. When those requests pointed to the ability of viewing rich media content right out of the box, we were thrilled that Macromedia was more than willing to partner with us to offer Flash support for our customers."
- Koichi Yano, president & COO, Turbolinux, Inc.
June 02, 2004
Excellent Resources on JSFL
Since the day-one of the launch of MX2004 the only feature which I had been excited about was JSFL. I have been closely watching the Flash Community for new JSFL's and tools. The first of which I came across was the auto-save and mass compilation tools.
The one which is most intersting and has almost all the API's listed is the "Flash MX 2004 JSFL Reference" available at Dynamicflash and the next is the FlashGuru's "JSFL - Hidden Methods/Properties" found here.
This one looks real promising and I hope will change the way Flash can work for us. Great stuff by Macromedia guys on this part.