Archive for the 'Flash' Category

Pistach.io entering beta testing

Published on May 3, 2008 in Advertising, Flash and Pistach.io. 0 Comments

Pistach.io is entering beta testing.

You've probably noticed the Pistach.io ad on my site for a little while now. Peter Elst was helping us alpha test the ad rotation. Seb's got his badge up as well and the other beta testers from the Pistach.io Flash Pack will be adding theirs shortly.

So what's Pistach.io and the Pistach.io Flash Pack? We're a group of highly regarded and influential Flashers who are banding together to monetize our web sites in an elegant way: With a single ad, prominently displayed across all of our web sites. (Read more about Pistach.io here.)

Dave and I have been working for the past few months to build a system that is massively scalable and can handle any number of packs. We're kicking things off with the Flash Pack and we're open to suggestions about new packs. Dave will no doubt be blogging about the technical side of things in the future and it should make for an interesting read as we've built Pistach.io on Amazon's EC2, S3, and SimpleDB systems. We are also going to be using Amazon's Persistent Storage for EC2.

We're starting to sell ads during the beta period. If you are interested in advertising on the Flash Pack, contact me at aral {at} pistach(.)io.

I will be posting more information, including rates and the list of Flash Pack sites that are taking part in the beta test, in the coming days.

We also still have room in the Flash Pack. If you're a top Flash designer or developer and want to join an cool group of your peers and monetize your site in a way that respects your users and actually reinforces your reputation instead of tarnishing it, get in touch with me at aral {at} pistach(.)io.

Big news: Flash goes completely open!

Published on May 1, 2008 in Flash. 23 Comments

The SWF format is now totally open. Rejoice!

This is big: Adobe is removing restrictions on the use of the SWF and FLV/F4V specifications as part of their new Open Screen Project 2008.

When Mark Doherty emailed me to tell me about his post on Adobe's Open Screen Project 2008, I wasn't expecting such an important announcement.

Along with the opening of the SWF format, Adobe has also removed the licensing fees it used to charge for the Flash Player.

What does that mean for us? It means Flash _everywhere_. It means you picked the right platform to develop your skills on. It means Flash will be around for a long, long time! :)

Additionally, Adobe will be publishing the device porting layer APIs for Adobe Flash Player, the Adobe Flash® Cast™ protocol, and the AMF protocol.

This is something that myself and others in the Flash community have been pushing for for a long time and I'm very happy to see that Adobe is finally confident enough in the strength of the Flash Platform to take this step. Bravo!

Update: A random thought: I wonder how much Apple's stance against Flash on iPhone contributed to this. Looking at the members of the Open Screen Project, you see that the major handset manufacturers are all on board. (Or was it Microsoft's mobile Silverlight initiative?)

Further reading:

Adobe has released a video and further information for developers and Ryan Stewart shares his thoughts also.

Oops, I broke Google?

Published on April 24, 2008 in Flash, Flex, google app engine and the gae swf project. 0 Comments

Update: They're on it! :) In the meanwhile, the suggested workaround is to add debug=True to your template.render() methods (pass it as the third argument, i.e., after the context).

Update: As of 2.30pm (when I last checked), the app appears to be working again. I've made no changes whatsoever.

If you hit the Flash or Flex client on The GAE SWF Project right now, you will be greeted with a page long traceback.

I've just opened issue 273 on the Google App Engine Issue Tracker to track this and added this comment on the forums.

The problem is that the error never occurs locally when developing and testing with the Development Web Server and randomly starts happening on appspot (the app will work well for stretches of time and then start failing 100% of the time.)

The last time this happened, issuing an appcfg.py update . fixed the issue but I'm not going to do that now in hopes that seeing the error will make it easier for Google's engineers to fix it.

The GAE SWF Project version 1.33

Published on April 22, 2008 in ActionScript, Flash, Flex, google app engine, python and the gae swf project. 2 Comments

I just released version 1.33 of The GAE SWF Project and, as tradition would have it, need to head to bed in the next few minutes lest I should expire.

The updates in a nutshell:

  • The Yahoo! Astra TabBar component does not show the focusRect when navigating by keyboard. I fixed this for the example but I'm going to talk to my friends at Yahoo! so that this can be implemented in a reusable way in the component itself. See the latest Flash 9 client demo and navigate with the keyboard to see the focusRect in action.
  • Added tab indexing to the Flash 9 client.
  • Added an extra (optional) field to the profile page so you guys can express yourselves!
  • Synced the Profile screens for the Flash and Flex clients.
  • Lowered the keyboard delay on server-side validation to 500ms
  • Server-side validation no longer locks the submit button on the Profile screen.
  • Released version 1.33 of the source code.

Check it out here.

The GAE SWF Project Featured Application on Google App Engine Application Gallery

Published on April 22, 2008 in ActionScript, Flash, Flex, Google, Open Source, google app engine and the gae swf project. 5 Comments

Screenshot of The GAE SWF Project as Featured Application on the Google App Engine Application Showcase

How cool, I just heard from Brajeshwar on Twitter that The GAE SWF Project is currently the featured application on the Google App Engine Application Gallery.

I released the proof of concept Flex 3 client late last night after the initial Flash 9 client release last week and I'm look forward to writing more about it in a future blog post.

And, far from being a theoretical exercise, the very pragmatic GAE SWF Framework is going evolve and get put through its paces as we use it to build the web application for the Singularity Web Conference. I can't wait!

Exciting times!

Updated The GAE SWF Project (v1.20)

Published on April 20, 2008 in Flash, Projects, google app engine, pyamf and python. 9 Comments

I just updated The GAE SWF Project to version 1.20 on appspot.

A quick list of changes:

  • Pulled out BaseView and BaseApplication classes.
  • Simplified service calls. You no longer have to use Service.call() and pass a reference to the view instance. Just use execute("service.method", arg1, arg2, ...).
  • Fixed a bug where the app was remembering the initial deep link on logout. Logouts now take you to the root of your Flash app.

The big change is that I've pulled out base application functionality so that your Application class now only contains logic specific to your particular application and not to GAE SWF applications in general.

Check out The GAE SWF Project on appspot.

The GAE SWF Project

Published on April 19, 2008 in ActionScript, ActionScript 3, Applications, Architecture, Best Practices, Community, Conferences, Development, Flash, Flash 9, Flash Remoting, Flex, OS X, OSFlash, Open Source Flash, Projects, RPC, Rich Internet Applications, Singularity, Standards, Usability Design, google app engine, pyamf and python. 2 Comments

The GAE SWF Project: Knowledge and tools to help you build Flash and Flex apps on Google App Engine

Today I'm releasing The GAE SWF Project, a resource of Flash and Flex-related knowledge specifically aimed at getting you up and running quickly with Google App Engine. If you want to skip all the details and start playing with it, skip to the Getting Started section.

Everyone else, read on!

When Google announced Google App Engine last week, I couldn't believe what I was hearing. It was as if someone had said, "Hey, Aral, tell us what your perfect development environment is and we'll build it for you."

In recent weeks, I had started playing with Python and Django and experimenting to see whether I could use it to build the web application for the Singularity web conference that I'm organizing at the end of October. Turns out that I could not have picked a better time to invest in learning Django and brushing up my Python as Google App Engine is heavily influenced by (and supports) Django and is written in Python.

A framework for the Singularity Conference

Singularity is shaping up to be a really great conference. I'm honored to have a constantly-expanding stellar line-up of speakers and yet the sessions are just one very important aspect of the conference. I find that you get as much out of your social interactions with speakers and other attendees at conferences as you do from the sessions. And Singularity is no exception.

The Singularity conference application is not something you will login to on October 24th and never visit again beyond October 26th. On the contrary, I plan to launching the application as early as possible and add features as we go so that we can start building the community around the conference. This is essential for the organization of the local conference hubs, for building friendships months in advance of the conference, and so that you can influence what the conference ultimately becomes (you do not have to attend the conference to join the online community.)

When I initially announced the Singularity conference two months ago, I stated in the About page that Singularity would have a "focus on open source, the community, and on giving back."

Today, I'm taking the first step towards delivering on that promise by releasing the initial underpinnings of a framework that will eventually power the Singularity conference web application. I present to you The GAE SWF Project.

The GAE SWF Project

The GAE SWF Project (hey, Google chose the name, I only provide the juvenile attempts at humor) is a resource of Flash and Flex-related knowledge specifically aimed at getting you up and running quickly with Google App Engine. The initial release contains a proof-of-concept Flash 9 client showcasing a pre-alpha version of The GAE SWF Framework. The framework is a very light-weight combination of Python and ActionScript 3 that uses some of the best open source components available today on the Flash Platform and Python ecosystem. It is inspired at its core by best practices and a pragmatic approach to application development.

The proof of concept (and, indeed, the whole project) specifically targets Google App Engine. This is by design. The framework is not a generic one (although, by all means, feel free to get inspired and port it if you wish). The dedicated focus is part of the appeal. It means that we can make things simpler.

There will be no abstraction for the sake of abstraction and no premature abstraction; the framework will evolve by encountering real-world problems and solving them.

Finally, keep in mind that you are viewing the fruits of three days of work at the moment (this, in itself, should be testament enough to how easy -- and fun -- Google App Engine makes development). It is early days but I feel that we've made a good start. I hope to hear your thoughts and feedback in the comments.

The Proof of Concept

The proof of concept is built on Google App Engine using Google's webapp framework.

It showcases several fundamental architectural considerations, the most important of which I've outlined for you below.

HTML and Flash in a tree...

You use handlers in app.yaml to host a mix of Flash and HTML content, including the Flash Remoting gateway, in a single Google App Engine app.

Embed Flash content using SWFObject

SWFObject is the way to embed Flash and Flex applications in your HTML. Use it. 'Nuff said.

Deep links

You implement deep linking using a combination of server-side Python and SWFAddress so that both SWFAddress-style and regular URLs are supported. Regular URLs are translated to SWFAddress-style hash/anchor URLs on the server.

Thus, both of the following URLs are valid ways to reach your profile page on the proof of concept Flash 9 client:

Regular URL:

http://gaeswf.appspot.com/examples/initial/profile

SWFAddress-style URL:

http://gaeswf.appspot.com/examples/initial/#/profile

Flash content that obeys browser text-size changes

Users with poor eyesight or in environments with reduced-visibility (such as bright sunshine outdoors) may want to increase the size of the text displayed in the browser. By default, Flash and Flex content does not react to these text-size changes. However, it is possible to make Flash content obey browser text-size changes and the proof of concept implements one such method that does not involve any alterations to the Flash app.

(You can read more about similar issues -- and see some juicy Flash myths debunked -- in my review of the talk I gave at Highland Fling this month titled Bare-naked Flash: Dispelling myths and building bridges.)

PyAMF

PyAMF is a Flash Remoting implementation for Python. It has a dedicated and responsive group of passionate developers working on it, led by Thijs Triemstra, Nick Joyce, and Arnar Birgisson. On Tuesday, the team released PyAMF 0.3 with support for Google App Engine.

The GAE SWF Framework uses PyAMF as a core component to communicate with the server and the various Google App Engine APIs. It is currently running PyAMF 0.3.

The PyAMF gateway is setup as a regular mapping, and mapped to /gateway in app.yaml.

Users API

You use the Google App Engine Users API to login and out of the Flash application. The current Flash 9 proof of concept implements one of three possible ways of handling logins (see the note in my earlier blog post about the other two ways.)

Intelligent forwarding after login

When you hit a deep link in the application without logging in, you are automatically forwarded to the link after you login. This is a behavior that you are accustomed to seeing (and expect) in HTML-based applications but I have rarely seen it implemented in Flash and Flex applications.

DataStore API

The Google App Engine DataStore is a massively scalable database based on Google's Bigtable (the same distributed database that powers their search and services like Google Earth).

The proof of concept has a profile section where you can fill in your name and a URL (the Users API currently does not provide your GAE app with the user's name, just their email address). This data is saved via PyAMF and the DataStore API.

(All server-side services are in the /services package.)

Client-side and server-side validation

The Profile Screen shows you how to implement two different types of validation: simple client-side validation and server-side validation.

The Name field performs simple client-side validation that stops the user from submitting the form without entering a name.

The URL field, on the other hand, actually hits the server and asks the DataStore to verify that the URL is valid. When you think about it, it makes sense to use server-side validation code to validate more complex data types using the exact same code that the DataStore API uses.

The user experience is managed via visual cues that are carefully scripted using the excellent KitchenSync AS3 sequencing library by Mims Wright. (Mims just added me as a project member so I can contribute a small update I blogged about earlier.)

(I'm still working on tweaking the timing of the type wait duration for firing the server-side validation code to make it as seamless as possible.)

As the framework develops, I know that the KitchenSync library is going to be an essential, core element, and I look forward to contributing back as much as I can to the project.

Mail API

The proof of concept also makes use of the Google App Engine Mail API to send email confirmations to your Google Accounts email address after you update your profile.

When initially working with this, I was searching for a simple way to monitor the mail that was being sent from the app. Although the Development Web Server allows you to specify an SMTP server when you start it, I couldn't get it to work with either GMail or my web host's mail server. And setting up sendmail or postfix was a pile of worms I didn't want to sample.

Instead, I found a simple, open source SMTP server written in Python that's perfect when developing locally with the Development Web Server. It's in The GAE SWF Project app that you can download. To start it, simply change to your The GAE SWF Project folder and type:

./monitor_mail

You will see all email sent from your application in the Terminal window. (Note: I run on a Mac and all the commands in this article are meant to be run in Terminal on OS X. You may need to tweak them slightly for your operating system of choice.)

CSS, etc.

I may introduce myself as a Flash Developer but that doesn't mean that I don't care about the rest of the web. With good friends like Andy Budd, Richard Rutter, Paul Annette, and Jeremy Keith living almost a baseball-bat-wave away from me, I'd be scared silly implementing a new site with anything less than pristine markup. So that's what I've strived for here and I hope I've at least come close. (I did use one <br/> tag, for which I feel very dirty indeed!)

Nearly all of the credit for the CSS goes to the excellent YUI Grids CSS library that Rob Knight clued me into via Twitter last week when I was battling with altering the K2 theme on Singularity to make it into a cross-browser three-column fluid layout.

(The scale9-esque fluid download cell is courtesy of the even more rounded corners with CSS technique.)

The HTML content is structured using several Django templates, which are supported by Google's webapp framework.

Finally, the Flash client uses the TabBar component from the open source Yahoo Astra Flash components and Uza's AS3 Global Object to implement several global convenience properties (like the current SWF's URL).

Getting Started

Getting started with The GAE SWF Project couldn't be easier.

1. Download and unzip

First off, download the Google App Engine SDK (includes the local Development Web Server and webapp framework.)

Next, download the latest release of the The GAE SWF Project and unzip it.

(Or, you can check out the unstable, bleeding-edge version from The GAE SWF Project Subversion repository's trunk on OSFlash.)

2. Start the server

Open up Terminal and navigate to the folder you unzipped The GAE SWF Project to. To start the Development Web Server type:

./start

This is a convenience script that I made that starts the Development Web Server and sets the mail server as localhost:5000. You can change these in the script of just use dev_appserver.py . to start it up without mail support.

If you want to monitor the email that gets sent, open up a separate Terminal window and, in The GAE SWF Project folder, type:

./monitor_mail

3. View the app and start hacking!

Now that the app is running, view it in the browser by hitting http://localhost:8080.

You can now open up the source folder and start exploring!

Trace you, trace me, trace it for always...

Wow, did I just paraphrase Lionel Richie?

Anyway, I find it useful to tail the Flash trace log (especially to see trace results in the browser and online). Here's how you do it:

Before you start, you need to enable logging by creating a file called mm.cfg in /Library/Application Support/Macromedia.

In it, enter:

ErrorReportingEnable=1
TraceOutputFileEnable=1

You only need to do this once. After that, whenever you want to tail the log, open up a new Terminal window and type the following, replacing USER with your home folder:

tail -f /Users/USER/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash\ Player/Logs/flashlog.txt

Play, enjoy, share, have fun!

As I state on The GAE SWF Project site, I hope that this open source effort will help you to get started quickly with building Flash and Flex application on Google App Engine. In the past few days, I have had more fun developing this than I can remember in a long while. I love Python, I love Django, I love Google App Engine, and I love Flash and Flex. To have them all together... well, that's a dream toolset, right there!

And, there's something to be said about writing your app and then letting Google handle the rest. Personally, I can live with that.

(Oh yes, and I do desperately need to talk to someone at Google about hosting the Singularity conference web application on Google App Engine with regards to the quotas -- if you know whom I should contact, please either let me know directly at aral {at} aralbalkan(.)com or leave a comment below -- thanks!)

The GAE SWF Project is currently a proof-of-concept; it's a three-day old baby that I hope will blossom into a useful resource.

I hope you you enjoy it and I hope that it makes your life a little easier or at least gives you food for thought.

Play with it and let me know what you think in the comments.

New Flash and Flex jobs

Published on April 18, 2008 in ActionScript, Flash, Flex and Jobs. 2 Comments

Here are the new Flash and Flex jobs from the OSFlash job board for this week:

Building Flash applications with Google App Engine

Published on April 11, 2008 in ActionScript 3, Development, Downloads, Flash, Flash Remoting, google app engine, pyamf and python. 9 Comments

Update: This post is barely a week old and already outdates. See my updated post and The GAE SWF Project to get started quickly buildingFlash and Flex applications on Google App Engine.
Continue reading 'Building Flash applications with Google App Engine'

OSFlash Job Board relaunch: Flash, Flex, and ActionScript job listings at half price

Published on March 25, 2008 in ActionScript, Adobe, Community, Flash, Flex, Jobs and Open Source. 2 Comments

Do you have a Flash, Flex, or ActionScript job to post? Post it on the OSFlash Job Board.

I've just relaunched the OSFlash Job Board and all jobs listings are 50% off this week if you use the coupon code RELAUNCH. This expires on April 1st, 2008 (no joke!) :)

If you want to get notified of new jobs, you can get job alerts by email or subscribe to the RSS feed.

The OSFlash Job Board initially launched last year using the Joard system that my friend and business partner Dave Stone was developing. Dave decided to discontinue Joard at the start of this year so we were left without a job board.

It has taken a little while to get everything set up again but the job board is now back up and running using the excellent JobThread system.

OSFlash gets over 120,000 unique visitors every month. We also have a new job board widget that is featured on the OSFlash.org home page and here on my blog (I get around 70,000 unique visitors a month on this blog). By putting your job listing on the OSFlash Job Board, you'll thus be reaching a very tightly-focussed group of close to 200,000 Flash, Flex, and ActionScript developers, designers, and creatives.

Check out the OSFlash Job Board for Flash jobs, Flex jobs, and ActionScript jobs and don't forget to use the RELAUNCH coupon code to get 50% off your job listing until April 1st, 2008.

If you want to help support OSFlash, tell your friends about the OSFlash Job Board by adding the OSFlash Job Board widget to your site.

OSFlash Job Board Widget (JavaScript)

<script type="text/javascript">
<!-- 
var jobthread_jobroll_title = "Jobs";
var jobthread_jobroll_outer_style = "background-color:#dddddd;border:1px solid #999999;width:160px;";
var jobthread_jobroll_inner_style = "background-color:#ffffff;color:#666666;border:1px solid #999999;margin-left:10px;margin-right:10px;padding:10px 10px 2px 8px;font:11px Arial, Helvetica, Sans-serif;line-height:16px;";
var jobthread_jobroll_title_style = "color:#313131;font-weight:bold;";
var jobthread_jobroll_link_style = "color:#0464bb;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;text-decoration:none;border:none;";
var jobthread_jobroll_featured_style = "";
var jobthread_jobroll_featured_link_style = "";
var jobthread_jobroll_top_style = "padding-top:8px;";
var jobthread_jobroll_bottom_style = "padding-bottom:4px;";
//-->
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://jobs.osflash.org/feeds/jobroll/?num_jobs=5&num_featured_jobs=1&display_method=default&version=2.0"></script>

OSFlash Job Board Wordpress widget

I also made a simple Wordpress Widget that you can use to add the Job Board to your Wordpress blog's sidebar. Download the OSFlash Job Board Wordpress widget.

Once you've downloaded it, simply extract it into your wp-content/plugins folder, activate it, and add it to your sidebar from the Widgets section of the Wordpress administration tool. (Note: The CSS positioning is set for my site, you may need to modify it to make it display correctly for yours.)

Here's the source for the OSFlash Job Board Wordpress plugin. It's released under the open source MIT license, so please feel free to use and adapt it to make your own Wordpress plugins too. 

<?php
/*
Plugin Name: OSFlash Job Board Badge
Plugin URI: http://aralbalkan.com
Description: Displays the OSFlash Job Board Badge on your Wordpress blog. Released under the MIT License. Copyright (c) 2008 Aral Balkan. http://aralbalkan.com.
Author: Aral Balkan
Version: 1.0
Author URI: http://aralbalkan.com
*/
 
function osflash_job_board_widget_init()
{
	if ( !function_exists('register_sidebar_widget') || !function_exists('register_widget_control') )
		return; 
 
	function osflash_job_board_widget($args)
	{
		extract($args); 
 
		echo $before_widget; 
 
		?>
<div class="osflashJobBoard">
				<script type="text/javascript">
				<!-- 
				var jobthread_jobroll_title = "Jobs";
				var jobthread_jobroll_outer_style = "background-color:#dddddd;border:1px solid #999999;width:160px;";
				var jobthread_jobroll_inner_style = "background-color:#ffffff;color:#666666;border:1px solid #999999;margin-left:10px;margin-right:10px;padding:10px 10px 2px 8px;font:11px Arial, Helvetica, Sans-serif;line-height:16px;";
				var jobthread_jobroll_title_style = "color:#313131;font-weight:bold;";
				var jobthread_jobroll_link_style = "color:#0464bb;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;text-decoration:none;border:none;";
				var jobthread_jobroll_featured_style = "";
				var jobthread_jobroll_featured_link_style = "";
				var jobthread_jobroll_top_style = "padding-top:8px;";
				var jobthread_jobroll_bottom_style = "padding-bottom:4px;";
				//-->
				</script>
				<script type="text/javascript" src="http://jobs.osflash.org/feeds/jobroll/?num_jobs=5&num_featured_jobs=1&display_method=default&version=2.0"></script>
			</div>
 
		<?php
 
		echo $after_widget;
	}
 
	// Register widget
	register_sidebar_widget('OSFlash Job Board', 'osflash_job_board_widget');
}
 
function osflash_job_board_style()
{
	?>	
<style type="text/css">
		.osflashJobBoard
		{
			position: absolute;
			left: 20px;
		}
		</style>
 
	<?
}
 
// Add widget once plugins are loaded.
add_action('plugins_loaded', 'osflash_job_board_widget_init');
 
// Add the badge's CSS to the head.
add_action('wp_head', 'osflash_job_board_style');
 
?>

Update: There was a small hiccup right after the blog announcement. If you couldn't reach OSFlash.org or jobs.osflash.org, please try again. It's back up and running! Thanks!

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