flash

Accessing a web service in a Flash CS3 AS3 project.

Since CS3 doesn't have a web service component, as previous versions had, is there a good, feature-complete, AS3-only (no Flex dependencies) library for accessing web services with AS3? ...

What are the (technical) pros and cons of Flash vs AJAX/JS?

We provide a web application with a frontend completely developed in Adobe Flash. When we chose Flash 6 years ago, we did so for its large number of features for user interaction, like dragging stuff, opening and closing menus, tree navigation elements, popup dialogs etc. Today it's obvious that AJAX/JS offers roughly the same possibili...

How do I dynamically create a Video object in AS2 and add it to a MovieClip?

I need to dynamically create a Video object in ActionScript 2 and add it to a movie clip. In AS3 I just do this: var videoViewComp:UIComponent; // created elsewhere videoView = new Video(); videoView.width = 400; videoView.height = 400; this.videoViewComp.addChild(videoView); Unfortunately, I can't figure out how to accomplish t...

Linking directly to a SWF, what are the downsides?

Usually Flash and Flex applications are embedded on in HTML using either a combination of object and embed tags, or more commonly using JavaScript. However, if you link directly to a SWF file it will open in the browser window and without looking in the address bar you can't tell that it wasn't embedded in HTML with the size set to 100% ...

How would I allow a user to stream video to a web application for storage?

I'd like to add some functionality to a site that would allow users to record video using their webcam and easily store it online. I don't even know if this is possible right now, but I think flash has access to local webcams running through the browser. Do you have any suggestions or resources to get me started on this? I'm primarily a...

Can I develop flash without buying anything?

I'm a little lost here. I don't know flash, but I want to learn - especially since Adobe's opened up the spec. I don't want to learn badly enough to shell out for the real tools, though. What sort of toolchain is available for flash/swf/flv/etc compiling, processing, converting, etc? What do I need to know, and where should I start? ...

trouble with scrolling a UIScrollBar component within a class

I'm trying to attach an instance of UIScrollbar component to a dynamic text field inside of an instance of a class that is being made after some XML is loaded. The scroll bar component is getting properly attached, as the size of the slider varies depending on the amount of content in the text field, however, it won't scroll. Here's the...

CSS / JavaScript Navigation Menu on top of Flash in Firefox

My site has a drop-down menu built in CSS and JavaScript that drops down over a Flash animation. In IE (6&7) the drop-down menus drop over the Flash animation, however, in Firefox (2&3) the menus appear underneath the Flash animation. Is there any way to get this dynamic menu to flow OVER the Flash in Firefox? In IE 7 menu appears ove...

What is Adobe Flex? Is it just Flash II?

Question Alright, I'm confused by all the buzzwords and press release bingo going on. What is the relationship between flash and flex: Replace flash (not really compatible) Enhance flash The next version of flash but still basically compatible Separate technology altogether ??? If I'm starting out in Flash now, should I just skip to...

Referencing back to the parent from a child object

My question is pertaining to the best practice for accessing a child object's parent. So let's say a class instantiates another class, that class instance is now referenced with an object. From that child object, what is the best way to reference back to the parent object? Currently I know of a couple ways that I use often, but I'm not s...

How to do Flash pseudo-streaming?

I need to build something that starts serving a H.264 encoded video to a flash player halfway through the file (to support skipping to a point in the video that has not been buffered yet). Currently, the videos are in the FLV container format, but transcoding is an option. I managed to re-write the file header and metadata information ...

How do I prevent Flash's URLRequest from escaping the url?

I load some XML from a servlet from my Flex application like this: _loader = new URLLoader(); _loader.load(new URLRequest(_servletURL+"?do=load&id="+_id)); As you can imagine _servletURL is something like http://foo.bar/path/to/servlet In some cases, this URL contains accented characters (long story). I pass the unescaped string to UR...

Using Actionscript 3 to connect to a database

I'm looking for advice on how to dynamically create content in flash based on a database. Initially I was thinking that we would export the database to an XML file and use the built in Actionscript XML parser to take care of that, however the size of the XML file may prove prohibitive. I have read about using an intermediary step (PH...

Is there a way to build a Flash 9 SWF from an FLA file without using the Flash IDE?

Two reasons this would be useful, in case there's some other way to achieve these goals: 1) Building in the Flash IDE is really slow; I was hoping a third-party compiler would be faster. 2) It would be nice to be able to build projects on machines that don't have the Flash IDE installed. I'm familiar with other AS3 compilers that are out...

Is there good .sol editor for Flash Player 9 Local Shared Objects? Can we build one?

There's plenty of them out there but none of them do what I would like them to do. Most of them crash when opening a file or simply corrupt the data. Many don't run at all. It seems to me that most were written 3-4 years ago for AS2 .sols and no longer work with FP9/AS3 sols. I'd attempt to write my own using AIR but I can't find a new ...

So which is faster truly? Flash, Silverlight or Animated gifs?

I am trying to develop a multimedia site and I am leaning heavily toward Silverlight however Flash is always a main player. I am a Speed and performance type developer. Which Technology will load fastest in the given scenarios? 56k, DSL and Cable? ...

How can one host Flash content in a WPF application and use transparency?

How can I go about hosting flash content inside a WPF form and still use transparency/alpha on my WPF window? Hosting a WinForms flash controls does not allow this. ...

How to record webcam to flv with smooth playback

I would like my website to record flvs using webcams. These flvs need to play smoothly so I can play with them afterwards, for example transcoding them to avis. I've tried many different servers to handle the flv recording. The resulting flvs play OK in Wimpy FLV Player, for example, except that the progress indicator doesn't move smoot...

Getting multiple file sizes for a preloader

Alright, currently I have my SWF hitting a php file that will go and find all the files I specify to it, add their sizes together and return their combined sizes as one number. I then use this number with a ProgressEvent listener to determine the current percentage of files downloading for that particular section of the website. Pretty ...

How to join webcam FLVs

I want my website to join some webcam recordings in FLV files (like this one). This needs to be done on Linux without user input. How do I do this? For simplicity's sake, I'll use the same flv as both inputs in hope of getting a flv that plays the same thing twice in a row. That should be easy enough, right? There's even a full code exa...