Codex desktop will mash up some of my more popular flash apps into one Adobe Air 2 based interface. Once the app is released it will replace many sections here at my WordPress site. It already contains a bulletin board system, a download section, a YaYa Youtube module, a site activity monitor and a contact area. The BBS is a new version of my old Power Windows forum with new things like YouTube video insertion into posts,  Callout Boxes (HTML text with colored background and drop shadow) and Glow Boxes (HTML text with colored background and pulsing glow) as new post components.

 This mashup has been created to make it easier for me to add modules to it as updates and in 2010 you will find me more and more on the desktop and less and less on the web.

 One of the planned modules I want to add later is something to allow users to view/submit/download Koolmoves AS3 scripts for their script libraries. From reading posts in the Koolmoves forum this is something that users would like as there are not many scripts included in the default script library and IMO it’s a pretty cool feature of KM. Hopefully I can set something up that lets users save any script they see right into their Koolmoves Script subfolder. We’ll see.

This desktop application should be available soon.

Built with Flex 4 (Flashbuilder) and exported as an Adobe Air desktop app, YaYa Video Poster will let you upload any video in  your local library to your Facebook wall and it also lets you add a description for the wall post. The post title is the name of the video itself. When the application opens the first time it will let you login to your Facebook account and ask you to grant it the permissions it needs and once it has those permissions (namely to upload videos to your Face book account) it runs normally every instance after. If for some reason you do not grant it permission the Facebook specific abilities are hidden and it will run like the normal YaYa. Have fun and drop me a line if you have any problems. YaYa will have another version coming out once Adobe Air 2 is released so stay tuned!

Click here to read about some of the new features

I’ve already begun playing around with it and have some AIR 2 applications ready for public use. The first mashes up a Koolmoves class by Wilbert Brants with Flex 3 and is called “Droppic”. Droppic shows off the new File Promises ability of AIR 2 and allows you to search Picasa and drag any picture in the app to your desktop to be instantly downloaded. The second also uses the new File Promises of AIR 2 and is called “KM-CODEX FileGrabber”. This application contains all my available downloads and again allows you to simply drag an item listed in it to your operating system and drop it to instantly download it. All download counts are updated at runtime.

KM-CODEX FileGrabber can be downloaded using the link below, once you have it installed you can download Droppic or any of my other downloads by using it. There is also a link to get the Adobe AIR Runtime Installer which is required to install FileGrabber. Nearly all code I create with Adobe AIR from here out will be AIR 2 based and when the Adobe Showcase allows AIR 2 submissions it will be housed there as well.

Click here to get the Adobe Air 2 Runtime

Click here to download the KM-CODEX FileGrabber Application

In the next few months I will be leaving Flex 3 behind for Flex 4. Time really flies when you are having fun!

1. The YaYa Video Player is now a Spark Video Player Component – Video controls are much more responsive now and the video player can be switched into a true full screen mode. To exit full screen you simply hit the ESC key.

2. Download ability separated from search results – in the old version you downloaded and tracked the download status from the list of YouTube returns. This did not allow you to perform another search until all downloads were complete. The new version handles downloads differently and you can download items while performing a new search. You can add items to the download cue as many times as you like no matter what else is going on in the app.

3. Cue to master playlist – in the old version the library was it’s own playlist and the YouTube search results were their own playlist. In the new version you cue items from the library or YouTube search results to your “Active Playlist”. Dropped videos and direct loaded videos are also added to the active playlist now so in theory your active playlist can contain items from four possible cue directions. Items can be removed from the active playlist individually or the entire active playlist can be cleared.

4. Papervision now integrated – the panels are now animated with Papervision effects. The Accordion from the old version is gone and now the control bar is on the right of the app and all buttons are active or disabled depending on what is going on around them.

5. Online User Guide added – inside there is a link to view/download the YaYa User Guide.

Screenshots follow:

YaYa isn’t meant to bring your YouTube user account to the desktop. It’s meant to let you enjoy Flash video without overlays or clutter. It isnt meant to draw you in with a hidden agenda of selling ad space, there isn’t a drop of advertising in it (nor will there ever be) other than a link to my site which you can see is NOT heavy on sales.  YaYa is meant to freely let you cue up 100′s of your favorite videos from your Library…send them to the player (and maybe even pump it to a big screen like my friend does in his bar)…hide the controls and let it do it’s thing. Nothing more, nothing less.

Most YouTube apps ALWAYS require the internet. YaYa doesn’t. Once you have some favorite videos downloaded (and you can download up to 50 at a time btw) you can unhook the modem and get your groove on.

Like I said in another article. When it comes to FLV, I want what I want when I want it. With the YaYa library being local I can pretty well guarantee that my favorite videos will be ready when I want them to be whether I’m tethered to the internet or not or whether or not YouTube’s service is available.

Some of the features of the v.9 release:

1. Totally reworked multiple download routine. The list of returns is now repeater based instead of itemRenderer based so when you scroll while downloading, every active download is tracked as it should be and progresses as it should. Refactoring was causing major problems using a renderer and if you scrolled the list while downloading an item things went wonky. Not anymore.

2. Exit awareness during downloads. If you attempt to exit with downloads in progress the app finishes all downloads and library queries before exiting and notifies the end user of such.

3. Library playlist queuing. Now you queue items from the library to the video player. This is more natural. This way you can use the filters to narrow down what you are looking for…select from the narrowed down list and queue them up.

4. Added YouTube username search. You can now search by keyword or YouTube user.

5. Added a new “Hide Controls” mode. Click the box and the entire application window becomes the video space.

6. Display of Publish date (by user request).

7. Search progress indicator. Just a visual so you know the app is searching YouTube.

8. Version check from app. If your version is current you are notified. If not you can download new version.

8. Many background tweaks not worth mentioning.

Nirmal T V from Life Rocks 2.0 was kind enough to write about YaYa at his website recently and it’s apparent he actually tried the app from his screenshots as opposed to simply cutting and pasting some text for the sake of it. Coming from a guy as talented as he is, it put a smile on my face to read it and for that I thank him sincerely

Also added this version is a “Hide Controls” checkbox which will do just as it suggests and hide the Accordion controls and make the video player full window. In combination with the stretch on/off control you should get any video to layout like you want.

Initial Load Screen

The New Library Tool Box Expanded – Assigning A Genre To A Video

Search Panel Additions

Preparing To Download To Library

Library Download In Progress

Video Player Stretched – About To Take Snapshot

Snapshot Viewer – Preparing To Remove One Picture

The New “Hide Controls” Mode – The Entire Application Window Becomes The Video Space

I released "YaYa" (Yet Another YouTube App) 1/25/10 to the Adobe Showcase.

YaYa lets you search for YouTube videos and download them to be added to a local library. Your library supports favorites and title searching to create customized playlists selected from your favorites. YaYa can simultaneously download videos to be directly added to your library. YaYa supports drag and drop of FLV’s right to your library too. You can take screenshots of your videos as they play and export them as JPG or PNG files right to your YaYa folder in your documents directory. You do not need an internet connection to view your local library but of course it’s needed to search YouTube and add videos to your library.

This app expands on in-R-tube in some very significant ways. Mainly the library is now database driven (SQLite) so it allows me to do things like allow library searching and bookmarking. You can bookmark videos in your library and then only show your bookmarks to create a custom playlist. You can title search your library to create a playlist as well. The screenshot ability has also been improved upon and you can preview all screenshots and remove any unwanted screenshots before exporting them. You can export screenshots as JPG or PNG. Another upgrade is the multiple OS support. in-R-tube was Windows only but YaYa is for Windows, Linux or MacOS thanks to Adobe AIR. Instead of single video downloads, you can now download multiple videos at once to be inserted directly to your library.

Tonight I’m adding to it a bit. I’m adding the ability to shuffle the playlist, adding support for “genre’s” and tweaking the library search to allow searching by multiple criteria if desired (like search for all bookmarked videos with genre of rap). When that is added the version will be updated from v.3 to v.4

The newest version (Power Windows) now supports Video Objects. Users can insert a video object (remotely hosted FLV path) into any post and set it’s size and alignment. Like all other objects, the video object can be re-edited at anytime (all users can edit their own posts) or removed completely from the list of objects that define that post. It’s hierarchy in the post can also be adjusted (like all other objects) by simply dragging it in the Object Outline and dropping it where you want it placed.  If the stored path to the FLV is valid, other users can download any video posted. If for some reason the path is not valid (either on purpose or because the hosted server is down) the user attempting to download it is informed that the video is no longer available.

What I am trying to do is get users to add or obtain videos that interest them, be they video tutorials or any other type of video. Since all valid videos ever posted in the desktop app are ones that can be downloaded, they can be shared and hopefully spread around to whoever has need of them.

Only the Power Windows version supports video. If you feel like taking part and have videos worth posting, myself and all users would appreciate anything you can submit.

Nearly all my website content will be migrated into this desktop app in 2010 (for instance all my downloads are inside there now) and it is an ongoing effort.

You can find Power Windows in my sidebar. It’s free, has no advertisements and is offered in good faith. These apps are also available from the Adobe Showcase and if you do not have the Adobe AIR runtime installed, the desktop forum installers in my sidebar (and at Adobe) will install it for you.

Screenshots follow:

Here is a screenshot of the lower right of the forum where the “Refresh Forum” button is. The download button would be to the left of that if you log in as a registered member of the forum. As a “Guest” it is hidden.

To register, click the “User Account” button in the lower left of the forum like so:

This will open up the User Account panel where users can register, login, email their password, change their password or log out of the forum. When users log out they are logged back in as “Guests”. You want to register so in the upper left section of the User Account panel is the “Register” section shown below:

Fill in the required fields and click the “Register New” button. The board will attempt to register you. IF you choose a username already in use the board will inform you so you can try again. If the registration was successful it will email you a password and inform you in the forum like so:

Check your email for the message it sends you. Copy the password from your email and login to the board using the login section on the upper right of the “User Account” panel.

After you log in with your registered account the board will enable all things available as a member (especially the download button) and set your permission level to member so you can post and reply to threads. If you don’t like your assigned password you can change it in “User Accounts” now as well. Now that you are logged in as a member the download button is visible (little arrow icon):

Click that little arrow and the File Download panel slides in. All files have download button next to them and icon indicators to tell you what platform(s) were used to make them. Click the screenshot below to see the download panel picture larger.

Hope that clears up any confusion on registering. Have fun, drop me a post now and then and enjoy the downloads!

Studio is really off the chain and Tim and Dan are extremely talented guys who always go the extra mile for their users. Thanks Guys!

Read Full Article Here

The in-R-tube download is available to all registered forum members right inside the Desktop Forum.

All existing forum posts have been converted over to the platform. Users of the older version boards will have to download and install a new digitally signed version.

Since I’m targeting an AIR application I have liberty to use AIR’s html component which lets you load and unload Flash videos without all the problems usually associated with streams and as such this desktop CMS prototype allows insertion of videos as the screenshots show.

Any object inserted can be moved, edited or removed after the fact. Objects can be inserted at the end of a post or in any specific spot a user chooses. The version I will submit to the Adobe Showcase will allow users to save posts and reload them for editing. If this were the backend for my blog system I would add code to upload media and select media from a chooser to be inserted. Since this example is for public use all media objects use full server urls provided by the end user.

The posts created are fully dynamic in nature and react to their surrounding. For instance, if the user resizes the application or swf, the post contents react and adjust themselves accordingly. If they insert an image it’s displayed natively if the end users display size accommodates it…if they resize and it’s dimensions exceed the display space….it’s scaled and other niceties like that. There is one caveat though. Anything web based would of course have to forgo the use of AIR’s html windows (which I use to load videos) as it’s an AIR only appliance. Even used in AIR movies it somewhat forces you to setup your delivery and layout in a particular way because html windows are always on top of the z-order and will be on top of every other layer in your movie. If web based though there are really a lot of options without the html windows and everything else in this soon to be submitted example could in fact be used for a web based cms. The posts can be stored in a database and simply be displayed to end users viewing the website or re-edited by the admin in an admin panel. I will most likely spend the next few months dedicating my time to advancing this code, adding new objects and getting an altered version added to the desktop forum system.

The Forum is now at Version .3 and all existing boards will update themselves accordingly.

See the Desktop Forum Change log thread to see details.

Staying behind and focusing on AS1 Koolmoves is a choice and a choice that has ramifications. Bob has done his level best to make the UI backwards compatible for users who want to do so but AS1 is yesterdays news and by dragging your feet to migrate to AS3 you are deprecating yourself as much as Adobe has deprecated the language version you are holding onto. Can you still make movies with AS1? Sure you can. The question to me isn’t whether you can or not but more along the lines of “Why would you want to?”.

The usual reasoning people have when they explain why they do this is by saying “I don’t code much” or “AS3 is too difficult to understand or grasp and I’m doing fine with AS1”. Users who I have heard this from, especially ones who also submit to the KoolExchange defy their own logic as nearly every AS1 based movie I have ever opened (be it mine or someone else’s) has something written in the Actionscript Editor. If you write even one line in there you are in fact “scripting”. This does not mean there are not people who drag things onstage and manipulate them with the AS1 based commands or component parameters and never write a line of code, I’m just saying this is a very minor percentage of the Koolmoves userbase these days IMO and each day finds them more and more behind the eight ball as far as being “current”.

The surprising fact to me is, the vast majority of users I see in Koolmoves are web designers and why they would want to cement their feet into a language version a full two versions behind the current version baffles me. In a field that is so competitive, how can you justify NOT staying current with the language that is at the core of what you create and the Flashplayer you target? It’s the equivalent of a Doctor who refuses to acknowledge advances in medicine and clings to what he learned back in the day because it’s “comfortable” or because he refuses to accept “current standards”. Much like everything else in life, things change folks and the ability to adapt goes hand in hand with the ability to code and is what makes you progress and grow as a coder.

Anyway, back to my original point. If you are envious of the new things offered in Koolmoves that are AS3 based and not AS1 based, blame yourself…not the developers. All Koolmoves is doing is adapting to it’s surroundings and progressing and growing as a platform. It isn’t going to do that focusing on AS1….and either are you.

There is hope though. The new Script Editor might help you help yourself and get you current. It actually may be the best thing that ever happened to you as it relates to Koolmoves. It may just be exactly what the Doctor was looking for

How it works is there is a folder named “Script library” in the Koolmoves/Bin/AS3 directory that has subfolders underneath it. The script editor reads these subfolders dynamically so if you create a new subfolder (meant to allow you to categorize your scripts), the next time you load up Koolmoves the new subfolder will show up in the script editor.

Inside these subfolders are xml files that contain one full script and are also read dynamically when Koolmoves loads up. Any xml files found in any particular subfolder are added to the  AS3 Script Editor.  Taking a look at one of the supplied xml files will have you understanding how to write your own very quick and I guarantee you will be creating subfolders and scripts for some of your favorite things before you know it.

The new Editor itself is found in the KM Actionscript Editor and has a Toolbox Icon

When you click the Toolbox Icon the AS3 Script Editor itself reads the subfolders and then opens with all your categories on the left, a search panel to search your scripts, a description of the script, any parameters that are required to be filled in and a script viewer that lets you see what the contents of the finished script will look like.

What is so great about this new addition is the fact it has something for everyone no matter their skill level. New users not up to speed on AS3 or simply having a hard time with it will benefit by having all kinds of AS3 scripts to choose from that requires nothing from them except filling in some parameter fields and inserting the finished script into the Actionscript Editor. Advanced users benefit by being able to make their own scripts and either use them for personal use to speed up coding repetitive things or share them with the community and spread the FUN.

I see a big future for this feature. Mark my words, it will be one of the most popular KM features and one of the most actively talked about and shared in the Koolmoves community.

I only wish Koolmoves components handled things this way and read custom components and added them to the UI  in some way to make it easy for us to insert them as well (hint, hint).

Above: Load screen

Above: Log Viewer Sliding In

Above: Log Viewer, Timer Halted, Scrolling Through List (IP’s hidden for screenshot)

Above: Screenshot of various admin controls

I’m getting questions about how the Desktop Forum is administered. The board is controlled with a dedicated administrator version that has all the features of the user version as well as things like:

1. Global Editing

Unlike the user version that only allows you to edit your own posts, the administrator version can edit any post at any time.

2. User Banning

Users can be banned inline at the touch of a button. Banned users are not able to load their boards as the user version locks them out. This control is reserved for cases of extreme misuse and usually an admin will simply edit any mildly offensive language and warn.

3. Thread Deletion

Threads can be deleted in place. The board will update all user post counts, forum thread counts and any other ancillary database entries affected by the deletion. If the thread is the only one in any forum, the last user name for that forum is cleared in the forum list and reset to “No Posts Yet”.

4. Post Deletion

Posts can be deleted in place. The board will update all affected user post counts and thread list post counts. If the post is the only one in a thread, the entire thread is deleted.

5. Thread Title Editing

All titles can be globally edited inline.

6. Maintenance Mode Switching

The admin can switch the board into maintenance mode on the fly. User versions will detect this flag and temporarily disable themselves until the status is changed to allow entry (maintenance turned off) again.

7. Admin Entry Awareness

Only users with admin status can enter the admin module. If the user is detected as a guest or a user without admin security access, the administrator version disables itself. This is coded for cases where a user might try to obtain a version from server meant to be an update version for an existing admin. Should they try to use it, they will find it useless and decompiling to get around the fact just as useless.

8. Slide In User Log Viewer

This slide in panel tells the admin who is online, their IP, last action taken and time of action. Timer based, this module can have it’s timer halted in real time to allow administrators to scroll through the returned list at their leisure. This is done to avoid timer resets which loads the list in real time and might force the admin to scroll down again since new data was sent to the Flex list. By being able to halt the timer they can simply halt…scroll to the position they want…for as long as they want, and re-enable the timer again when they are done to start auto-loading the list again. When the log panel is slid out of view, the timer automatically disables itself to save on database load. The amount of results can be adjusted on the fly from 20 – 1000 last actions viewable.

9. User Log Clearing

Administrators can reset the user log table (zero it) at any time they wish.

10. Admin Fail-safe’s

For user bans, thread deletions, post deletions and title edits the board asks if the admin is sure they want to perform these actions before taking any action. This is coded in case an admin accidentally hits a button they did not mean to.

User logs can be cleared (zeroed) at any time an admin chooses.

We’d like to wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! We appreciate each and every visit to this website and we look forward to continued support for Koolmoves, Adobe AIR, Adobe Flex and SWF Studio in 2010. Drive safe this holiday season, eat well and most of all….keep smiling!

Seeing is believing….here is Koolmoves 7 running here at home

I love FLV’s, always have…always will. I love services like YouTube that support them and serve them up. I love building things that play them, especially being a Koolmoves developer where handling and displaying things like FLV’s is made childs play. Even most browsers have plugins nowadays that will let you download FLV’s if there is one playing on a page you are viewing. FLV is everywhere and I hope that never changes.

For people who don’t code with Actionscript or a Flash enabled authoring platform however, viewing your locally saved FLV’s can be a pain right in the ass. Oh there are shareware apps that let you but I have about as much interest in shareware these days as I do dental surgery and you can damn well bet the nag screens will drive you nuts. The free 500 pound gorilla called Adobe Media Player will play them but as a Adobe AIR developer myself,I can say you will watch he average computer system crawl to a standstill and I personally can’t stand the application. Adobe sees it as promotion for Adobe AIR, I see it as a shining example of why I don’t code wih Adobe AIR anymore.

Anyway…back to my point…..for me personally I just want a simple FLV viewer that lets me watch what I want, when I want. I want to download new videos I want or heard about through the grapevine and watch them using the same app. I want to have fullscreen ability and no commercial ads or uneeded clutter pissing in my cornflakes. I want to cue up some of my favorites whether I have an interet connection or not and just sit back end enjoy….and if I fall asleep I want to feel the comforting glow of the video screen lighting up the room because it looped through my playlist and kept me company without so much as burping. 

The problem is what I want doesn’t exist without me spending a few bucks or slogging through shareware or using one that forces me to install Adobe AIR runtime or overcomplicates what I want. There is a solution however. Make my own.

I’m going to take the basic principal from the last post I made on the subject using the Koolmoves media player and it’s new YouTube abilities and expand upon it usng SWF Studio to create a desktop application. It will do what I want….when I want it to and when I’m done I’m going to post if for download so anyone else who feels that it may be useful can get their FLV groove on too. It will search YouTube…download what you like…….let you cue up videos from your downloads and run them in fullscreen no matter if your resolution is 800×600 or infinity and beyond. It will be simple and to the point and it will swallow all the FLV’s you can feed it.

 Yeah…….. Koolmoves and SWF Studio are the right choices for this one. No other platforms will do

Above is my latest YouTube search movie utilizing the new PlaylistCreator class by Wilbert Brants. It’s different from my previous YouTube search a couple of posts ago in many ways. My first one had me breaking down the YouTube list of returns manually using string manipulation and extracting and building my own inline xml playlist to send to the mediaplayer. Wilbert has encompassed all of that work into a nifty class and now it’s all handled internally for you with the PlaylistCreator. Like I mentioned before he also added support for Picasa Image gallery searches which I purposely integrated into this movie.

Recently added by Wilbert are two dispatched events. One is a “complete” event and one is an “empty” event. A complete event is dispatched if the search returns results, an empty event is returned if a search resulted in no returns. This lets you code functions to react to each event as needed.

Let’s say you already have performed a search and the mediaplayer is playing the list of returns and you initiate another search while the previous list is playing. Before , if the second search was empty….an empty xml list was sent to the mediaplayer which blanked the screen (because an empty list was sent to the player). Wilberts new version of the class now handles empty returns internally (does nothing instead of sending an empty xml list to the mediaplayer) and dispatches the “empty” event so users can respond programatically with listeners and notify the end user (like my example does). This was a much needed addition and I thank Wilbert for listening.

 The movie above is available for download. Users will of course not be able to use it until the PlaylistCreator class is distributed but it will be here waiting.  This movie also utilizes the Tweenmax classes.

YouTube example :
 
var y:PlaylistCreator = new PlaylistCreator();
y.player = mediaplayer1;
y.service = PlaylistCreator.YOUTUBE;
y.q = ‘coldplay’;
y.update();
 
 
Picasa example :
 
var y:PlaylistCreator = new PlaylistCreator();
y.player = mediaplayer1;
y.service = PlaylistCreator.PICASA;
y.q = ‘coldplay’;
y.update();

It doesnt get much easier than that my friends.

Search YouTube

Following the recent release of the Google AS3 API for YouTube, Bob and Wilbert have added not only support for the AS3 API but also added the ability to load YouTube videos directly to the MediaPlayer component (Shown above). This means you can either call up an external YouTube chromeless player now inside your AS3 based KoolMoves project or use an internal Mediaplayer of your choice. With the ability to skin your own MediaPlayer this means your YouTube player can look like anything your mind can concieve.

Of course I dont have to (but will) mention that none of this would have been possible had Koolmoves not supported AS3. The months of hard work by Bob and Wilbert are really paying off and it’s very cool to see a low cost flash authoring platform like Koolmoves support such high speed API’s.

Wilbert is always kind enough to send me early builds of anything new coming down the pipe and I thank him for that. Koolmoves really is an amazing platform. I’ve always been a Flash user but years ago understood that the cost of Flash is out of the range of the general or casual user so I decided back then to also code using a lower cost platform to help users who want the benefit of Flash without the high cost. Back then I chose Swish and coded tons of stuff using it and some source I made is still out there to be found. Then one day I stumbled across Koolmoves, was immediately curious and purchased a copy. It turned out to be the best single software purchase I ever made. Many times since I have thought of how much fun I would have missed out on had I stayed with Swish and while Swish has a large following it pales in comparison to the power of Koolmoves. 

What are you waiting for?….YouTube awaits….get coding!

Built with Koolmoves 7.0.2 and targeting Flashplayer 10 for best results, this board allows you to have a small footprint forum system with zero refresh of pages and allows users to post using html editors (RTE), write signatures, upload avatars and much more.

To install wpBBS in your WordPress blog:

1. Backup your existing WordPress database!!!!

2. Download the wpBBS zip file and unzip it.

3. The “wpBBS” folder inside the package is the folder you will upload to your server. Open this folder so we can edit a few files.

4. Open the “setup.php” file. At the top you will see fields that you have to enter information in. This forum system uses the same database that you installed your WordPress blog into. You need that database name, the host address, your database username and database password.

5. Below that it will ask for the FULL path on your server where you will install the wpBBS folder to. DONT FORGET THE TRAILING SLASH (/)

6. Below that you will see the entries to create forums titles. The setup script comes with three examples but you can add as many as you want. Each forum section asks for the forum title, forum description, post new rank, post reply rank and displayorder. All WordPress users are by default user level 1. Admin is user level 10. wpBBS supports user levels and users can only see forums they have the rank to view. Later, when we release the Administration panel for wpBBS, this ability will really be showcased but for now new users should make all forums they want wordpress users to see level1 and any forum they only want to see themselves any level higher than 1.

If you add more forums to the setup.php file, you must also add matching INSERT queries to match the three examples provided (shown below)

7. Open the wpBBS.fun file in the source code subfolder in the wpBBS zip file with Koolmoves 7. The wpBBS.fun source code uses the TweenMax classes from Greensock. You will need to download and install the TweenMax package and install it into your class path in Koolmoves (bin/as3/classes folder)  to recompile the source code before using it. You will see the import statements inside the wpBBS.fun file (near the top) that call up the Tweenmax classes.

In our example we have installed the TweenMax classes in our Koolmoves/bin/as3/classes subfolder. The Tweenmax folder is named “gs” (same as in the downloaded TweenMax package).The ONLY THING YOU NEED TO EDIT IN THE wpBBS.fun FILE IS THE FULL SERVER PATH TO YOUR wpBBS BOARD! This should be exactly the same (with trailing slash) as the entry you made in the setup.php file

Once you have edited that line, save the fun file and Export the movie. Place the exported movie in your wpBBS folder that was created when you unpacked the ZIP file.

8. Once you have your database connection edited, all your forums added, saved the setup.php file and have compiled the wpBBS fun file with Koolmoves and placed it in that folder….upload the entire wpBBS folder to your server (should match the path you used for the $serverPath variable). Once the folder is uploaded, make sure the directory is writeable (chmod…see your host for details) because the setup.php file will create your mysql connection file for you and need to be able to write. Once everything is ready,  navigate to the wpBBS folder in your browser to run the setup.php file:

9. If everything went well and the database fields you edited in the setup.php file (addy, password,database name and database username) were correct and it found your WordPress database, you should see this in your browser after you run the setup.php file:

Like it says, delete the setup.php file from your server!!!  The wpBBS tables were installed and we are ready to add the wpBBS forum to your WordPress blog. Before you do, test the installation by direct hitting your wpBBS.swf file in your browser

You should see your wpBBS board ask you to login:

USE THE SAME LOGIN PASS YOU USE FOR YOUR WORDPRESS BLOG! It should log you in and you should see all the forums you created by editing your setup.php file during installation (note this picture shows the example forums provided with the default setup.php script…these would actually be whatever foirum names you made)

10. Ok, now that you have confirmed your wpBBS board is installed, It’s time to add to your WordPress blog as a page.

wpBBS is 580 pixels wide and 525 pixels high. If the width exceeds the width of your viewable space in your WordPress theme, you can fire it as a popup window. This installation assumes your viewable space can handle the board width (like ours at the KM-CODEX does) and focuses on adding it as a page in your blog. Since wpBBS has it’s own logic to integrate with your WordPress blog database and is a Flash object, we get a little leeway as far as how to integrate it with our WordPress blog. Unlike php based plugins or widgets, you can embed this Flash movie in your blog in any of the many ways WordPress supports Flash objects. There are a lot of plugins which allow you to embed Flash objects in WordPress but we recommend the Kimili Flash Embed Plugin (same as we use in the KM-CODEX) for best results.

Once you have installed the Kimili Flash Embed Plugin and activated it, you will have a new icon in your WordPress editor toolset (arrow is pointing to it in pic):

Create a new WordPress page called “wpBBS” and use the Kimili Flash Embed tool to embed your wpBBS blog into the page. We recommend using the full path to the wpBBS.swf file to ensure the board loads correctly and can find it’s php back ends. We also recommend forcing FlashPlayer 9 (or better) in the Kimili Plugin:

11. Add any other text below the embedded wpBBS board you wish for the new WordPress page and SAVE it. In your WordPress blog you should have a new page button called “wpBBS”. Your registered WordPress users should be able to login to the board using the same login/pass they use to comment or login to your WordPress blog. Once a user has logged into wpBBS once, they will be remembered by the board on return visits and it will autolog them in.

**Note**
This is the first release of wpBBS and should you have any problems, feel free to visit the wpBBS forum at the KM-CODEX to ask questions or post bug reports. We will be adding an Administration panel (run from desktop) so users can administer their forums in the next few weeks and until then users can Admin their boards using phpMyAdmin (or similar) . Have fun and we hope to see YOU on OUR wpBBS forum!

You can choose slideshow skins, alter all kinds of slideshow settings and export the entire show with the Koolmoves source code and XML file written for you while seeing what your exported slideshow will look like as you make your alterations. The caption placement is decided by clicking and dragging your mouse inside the slideshow preview (right in the mediaplayer itself!) and you can click and drag to your hearts desire until you get a caption placement you like.Each slide lets you enter a caption but is not required. Some can have them or all can if you want.

Give the demo a try (In Source Code section) and see how easy it is to create a dynamic XML Koolmoves slideshow. When you export your show it will centralize all the images you added, will write your XML for you and export your chosen slideshow skin as Koolmoves source code ready to open in Koolmoves.

This example posted in response to a Koolmoves forum inquiry.

“I need a video to play automatically on the first page load and then require clicking a play button when returning to the page.”

The answer is running above, It runs on first visit but requires clicking the play button on revisit and is downloadable in the KM AS3 section

Koolmoves application firing a native windows popup message with the ssCore.App.showMsgBox SWFS command

Koolmoves listing result of a batch of images dropped on application using ssCore.App.setNotify

Dropped file array being split and searched through with AS3 and then used to populate a KM7 listbox component with the image name as the label and the path as the data.

Now Koolmoves has had a long standing friendship with the Northcode team and on face value this may not seem like big news. The reality is, once Koolmoves introduced AS3 support, we lost support for SWFS as their AS3 classes were only provided via SWC and Koolmoves does not support SWC libraries. That meant to continue to utilize SWFS with Koolmoves, you had to export your core movie as AS1. Northcode did things a little different for the 3.7 release. They not only provide SWC files, they also provide AS3 intrinsic classes like they did for AS2 so now even Koolmoves users who want to export AS3 movies can once again rely on the awesome abilities of SWF Studio to create some very cool desktop applications. That, is very big news and to make it even more awesome, Northcode offers a 10% discount to all Koolmoves users! If you are a Koolmoves developer and want to make desktop applications that allow you to do things you simply cannot do without a commercial wrapper….you’ll be hard pressed to find a better wrapper than SWF Studio or better customer support. Download their unlimited trial version and see for yourself!

For a list of all SWF Studio commands, visit the NorthCode website!

Adobe Air Controlling Koolmoves 7 MediaPlayer Component

Extracting Screenshots From Koolmoves 7 MediaPlayer Component With Adobe AIR

I just started the Adobe AIR wrapping for Blip Bandit which will be named Video Bandit. These screenshots are early in the AIR build and are to work out logic. The layout will be changing. New additions AIR brings to the table are:

1. Snapshot support with batch dump of all screenshots as JPG, PNG or GIF format.

2. Drag/Drop support to allow video files to be dropped right on the app for viewing/snapping.

3. Direct URl support to push remote videos into player individually.

4. Downloading of any remote video.

5. Drag Out support if I can get it to fly

6. Multi platform desktop support thanks to Adobe AIR.

* For this example on load I am forcing a playlist with two flash videos that have cuepoints. Otherwise the bandit acts normally and a search will replace the forced playlist

Now that the Bandit core is working, it’s time to add some functionality. First up is cuePoint handling. Now on face value cuePoint handling may seem an odd choice for a feature but many flash developers create flash videos with cuePoints for presentations or other uses and may need a way to test the created points in realtime. Some flash users simply need videos with cuePoints to develop code or are searching for flash videos with cuePoints. Since public flv players rarely display them or even indicate if they are present in a flash video it made sense to add support for them in the bandit.

Above is the cuePoint support in action. Using one of Wilberts SimpleTable components, any cuePoint found in a video is displayed (as it is encountered) onscreen as a colored box starting  in the upper left down to the bottom left (as a live dynamic table) of the video display area. On mouseover of each the cuePoint boxes it’s cuePoint name is displayed. On click of a box, the playhead is advanced to that cuePoint (even if paused). Boxes can be any size, any color and their alpha value can be set with the constructor.

To round out the cuePoint coding I have added two text displays to the lower right of the player to inform users of how much time has elapsed and what the video total running time is (in seconds). I also used Wilberts MediaPlayer class’s change event so I can reset the table if users choose a new video from the playlist.This covers all three instances when the table might need to be reset.

1. When an item in an existing list of items completes (and a new video is sent to the player).

2. When the user manually chooses a video from an existing list.

3. When a new search is completed and the list is repopulated (which automatically runs the first video from the list of found videos).

Instead of using the metadata which lists all cuepoints, I instead add items reading the cuePoints themselves as they are encountered. This is for pure eye candy effect so it can show off Wilberts table being built dynamically. Coding was added to support this eye candy so even if you jump back the playhead, when the video resumes playing from the jump no cuePoint that was previously read is duplicated as it reads from array to see if the cuePoint has already been added to the table.

Next to be added is download ability.

A prototype based on my Flex 3 / Adobe AIR media bandits, this is a FLV search tool that hits Blip TV and searches for videos based on a search term. This prototype is just for me to work out namespace handling in KM7 and busting feeds without E4X (which KM7 will hopefully support soon!!) and is a rough draft only. I still want to add the video download ability, cuepoint reading/display and other things like my Flex ones do before I call this one ready for prime time.

What this class does is allow you to create a table of cells that allow just about anything your minds eye can conceive to be sent to the individual cells themselves. In my example I am sending in images of uniform width and height but it could just as easily use non uniform sizes for content with rows and columns being sized to anything I desire and sized in any order I desire. Wilbert mentioned he will submit examples to the class file which show some hard coded tables with content of various sizes and different table layouts to the KoolExchange once the class is added to the full version and I’m sure others will as well.

My example above is meant to show that the table itself can be sized dynamically and visually altered in real time and does not need to be hard coded if the content in question is sent in dynamically or if cell sizes and counts are decided after the fact or as the result of user interaction. With each change of the numeric steppers above, the table itself is completely redrawn based on their values and as you can see render times are very fast.

Now while the name “SimpleTable” would suggest simple, the methods and properties of the class allow you to make very advanced tables indeed. The more I use this class and wrap my head around the power it offers the more I see the possibilities of creating some very cool tables for things like spreadsheets and other advanced tabular data and content.

Keep your eyes peeled for this class to arrive soon!

1. Replaced the WordPress contact form with a dedicated Contact page. This Koolmoves contact form uses a RichTextEditor component to allow users to format their email message and also allows them to easily post linkable text. All emails are sent and arrive as they are written in the RTE and the form itself uses a combobox to let users choose the subject of their email message.

2. I finally added the source code downloads to a dedicated page here. This section helps us track what is popular and will help guide us for future submissions. Just about everything we offer is GNU and leaves a lot of freedom for us as well as end users. As promised I’ve also setup a Flex download category to maintain links of mine from my previous Flex websites other people linked to.

3. The “Confirmed Classes” dedicated page here has been removed. The classes that we have confirmed (or received confirmation on) to work with the KM7/AS3 compiler will now be maintained in a special forum in our wpBBS forum here. This lets us link out to them and still lets users give some feedback (which the dedicated page did not allow) if they wish. This forum is reply only and open to all registered forum users.

4. I’ve added code to standardize our personal version of our opensource wpBBS forum. Our forum now supports thread locking, pinning, user post new levels (if a user does not have the privileges to post a new thread…it is a reply only forum) and user post reply levels (in cases where we simply want to put information out and disallow new threads and replies similar to the Flashkit “News” forum making it a read only forum). I am adding private messaging to our forum as well and will introduce and explain how that works when the coding is finished and added. Sounds are also being added to the forum.

Thanks to all who have made themselves known btw. We love feedback and appreciate the efforts on the part of those who have taken part in what is going on here. We also are seeing more Koolmoves blogs and websites being built and applaud their effort toward the platform. We don’t want the KM-Codex to be the best Koolmoves related website…we simply want to be one of MANY websites dedicated to the software and community. The more this platform gets talked about…the more it comes up in search engines spurring users who have never heard of it to maybe take a look at what it has to offer.

An example of the Pixelator class running in Koolmoves 7. Click the image to see the pixelator in action.

We’ll be adding it to the Confirmed Classes section of our wpBBS forum.

My understanding is that Bob Hartzell is focusing mainly on the KM7 compiler supporting as many existing popular AS3 classes as it can and using the AS3 Animated Gif class authored by Kevin Weiner & Thibault Imbert as a base, he has now added Animated Gif support to the beta. By attrition, the more capable Bob codes the compiler, the more classes it will support by default and just by him adding support for this one class it may be that many other classes are now also supported. Trial and error with all kinds of classes combined with the feedback the KM community gives to Bob is paying off  large dividends and each beta build ends up being more and more powerful due to this joint effort and his outstanding programming abilities.

The complete list of new additions for the 7.0.4 build are as follows:

1. Fixed export of movie clip in symbol library with same class name as an external class
2. Fixed case sensitivity issue associated with package file names
3. Fixed problem with type mismatch message associated with use of ‘new’ with a locally defined variable
4. Fixed assorted AS3 issues so org.gif classes and some other classes now run
5. Fixed display of Movie Overview after a button is deleted
6. Added bitmaps, sounds, binaries tabs to F11 symbol library

A lot of Flash users utilize Paypal HTML shopping carts for listing multiple items even though their shops themselves are coded as Flash objects. While this is all fine and good, I’ve always found it a bit odd visually since it breaks continuity and is a coding choice  rather than something that is forced by Paypal itself. If your site is full Flash and you are running a Paypal shop I’m a much bigger fan of only sending users to Paypal on checkout and handling the cart itself internally as part of your Flash shop. This example shows you how to do just that with Koolmoves 7 and AS3.

This example uses a psuedo datagrid to display cart items. The items themselves are pushed to the cart with simple buttons. The main goal of the example is to show the mechanics of the Flash cart itself, adding and removing items from the cart, formatting currency totals (USD) for display and POSTing the cart itself to Paypal using AS3. As far as pushing the items themselves, you can do so in any fashion you wish (via lists, buttons or any other means you prefer). Normally I would hide the cart itself until something is added to it or tween it into view as things are added by tracking the main array length. You could also code a “View Cart”  button somewhere in your flash page that calls up the cart if it contains items. It is constantly visible in this example only for effect.

Flash carts can pretty much doing anything their HTML counterparts can from using option fields to supporting shipping costs or sales tax and this core example can be expanded upon easily to fit your shop needs.

This example is available for download in the Source Code section.

While none of this is groundbreaking with External interface being supported by earlier versions of Actionscript, to my knowledge there are no earlier examples at the KoollExchange and certainly none usin AS3 scripting.

All code is in the “Source Code”  section and a running example is here.

While none of this is groundbreaking with both FlashVars and External interface being supported by earlier versions of Actionscript, to my knowledge there are no earlier examples at the KoollExchange and certainly none usin AS3 scripting.

This is how I used to handle permalinks with my old Flex blog and also my Flex forum.

All code is in the “Source Code”  section and a running example is here.

User “zAMORdEK” in the Koolmoves forum wanted to use non linear paths with Koolmoves. Now that KM7 supports TweenMax it is rather easy to achieve this as shown above. The code is in the downloads area

These download boxes are psuedo datagrids made with Koolmoves 7 (what else ). MySQL based, these boxes will help us get an idea of what is popular while the year progresses and I wanted to get them in place before I start converting old KM6/AS1 submissions (which will be housed in their own box) to KM7/AS3 (yet another box) and adding more and more downloads of other kinds here.

Bob just wrapped up the first installment of betas for the final relase of the new Koolmoves 7 with AS3 after months of furious development, coding and testing and is taking a much deserved vacation to clear his head for who knows what is next in his bag of tricks. The new Koolmoves is amazing for the cost and with Bob behind the development wheel it’s looking to be a very good year indeed to have .FUN.

Now I’m not sure how long Bob’s vacation is and frankly…I don’t care. Whatever length it is, he damn sure earned it. While I see him on some exotic beach drinking some exotic drink without a care in the world in my minds eye, it may be he’s at home with family and just as content. I do know Bob is never really on vacation and have seen faint blips in the forum during his vacation that show he never really stops taking part….never really steps away and never really stops devoting his time to what he is creating.

Order something exotic and make it a double, you deserve it Bob!

The differences between the two are mainly in logic with kBBS using it’s own registration routine that emails the admin on new registrations and emails the registered user his/her password.

The login routine had to be reworked as well as a few other things like the setup file and various back end changes. If you fill out the setup file correctly, this board is literally up and running in minutes.

Both forums are single frame movies with Tweening handling all movement (TweenMax) . All scripting is on a single frame and there are no nested clips with any scripting whatsoever. This should make it easier for users to wrap their heads around the scripting instead of classing everything in. This was the main problem with the myBBS submission a few years back…new users couldn’t even find the scripting let alone understand it.

I’ve added a forum category for kBBS here at our forum should users have bug reports or questions.

Desktop based admin panels are planned for the next few weeks. Until then admin your board with phpMyAdmin or similar.

The most recent version will always be here.

I will fix problems as they arise and will continue to update this zip file. This one is already different from the Exchange version (new setup.php).

Get the most current kbbs_koolmoves_flash_forum here!

I want to thank a few people for helping me get this submitted.

Thanks to:

Stoke (my partner) without whom none of this would be possible.

Wilbert Brants for his expertise and insight into his Koolmoves components. Wilbert saved my ass a few times on this one

lmlasher (my heart) , Phil, blanius, LizzieMac and Jovan for their tireless posting to help me bug test and get the board to where it is now. I couldn’t have done it without your help and I will always be grateful to all of you.

On to coding admin….

The tree is dressed out (with some extremely helpful pointers from Wilbert Brants) and now utilizes a three bitmap switch to accommodate the pinned and locked icons and the search filters and display have all been reworked across the board.

Some screens of the new colors and icons:

The user control panels are all online and users can upload SWF, JPG, GIF or PNG files to use as avatars (5k in size or less):

We’ve decided to release this first version as a complimentary board for WordPress to get it out the door as soon as possible. There are a lot of questions in the Koolmoves forum about dynamic code and a look at this will clear up a lot of things for a lot of users. The admin panel will follow soon after and is meant to be run from the desktop. In the next few months we will code a standalone version and submit that as well.

We just started testing fake installs today and so far everything is on schedule. All posts in my version here will now remain intact and the stats and counts are all live.

Stay tuned (and get the hell on the board and say hello!).

This subject came up in the Koolmoves forum at Flashkit so I threw this together as an example with source code. It requires a PHP4+ enabled server and the file to be written to needs write permission (chmod). Things have changed a lot since AS1 so hopefully this will help users get going with POSTing variables to a server side and in this case writing the POSTed htmlText to a server side text file and then re-reading it to confirm it was written. Download the source below.

Enjoy!

km7_post_response source

After three days of coding and hundreds of lines of code, our wpBBS WordPress forum made with KM7 is ready to go live. The login/password for the forum is the same as the one you use for our WordPress blog. Be sure to use a correct email as the board will send you details of your account and attach a copy of our TOS. The test database was zeroed at 3am 2/18/09 and the board is ready for posting. We will be adding bits and pieces to dress it up in the next few days (tree icons, who’s online, avatar uploads, etc) and this board will eventually be available at the Koolmoves Exchange as a standalone (will not require WordPress). Have fun and we hope to see you on the board!

Chris & Stoke

Project: wpBBS Forum System

Description: WordPress based forum system created with Koolmoves 7.0.2, compiled as a Flash 9+ movie (AS3). MySQL/PHP based.

Status: Live Build

Finished so far:

1. Logins authenticated against WordPress database.

2. Sessions coded (for later display of who is online).

3. Welcome emailer and terms of service (TOS) scripting working. On first login users are sent a welcome email and copy of server terms.

4. Member detection. If user has never logged in before, the board asks them to do so. On success, emailer is sent (one time) and board enables itself. If member has logged in before, the board autologs them in and enables itself.

5. Flash cookie scripting working.  Shared Objects are utilized for autologin.

6. Forum database created and populated with test data for build.

7. Forum and Thread list display working (Tree component based)

8. Post display of chosen thread working. (Concatenated html text)

9. HTML Text editor (RTE) for new threads or replies added. We are simply working on tweening the panels right now and no post submissions are enabled yet. All threads and replies to use html text.

10. Login panel added and working. Will be resized to later be tweened in from bottom if no cookie found or user has never logged in. The one online now will change once sizing is decided.

11. User levels coded and working (Users only see forums they have appropriate user level to view).

12. Twin thread titles (one editable one not) added and tweened.

13. Submit buttons added and tweened.

14. Finalized layout to prepare for slide in top panels (who’s online, search).

15. Tree component utilizes Wilberts methods in various ways to select/deselect correct forum depending on button actions (will explain in later article).

16. Back end search script created and tested. Search returns will repopulate the tree in real time and is more fluid than earlier ways I’ve handled it.

17. User levels tested (I plan on hosting a private forum for beta testers so this was important).

18. Board is nearly ready for first post tests to ensure timestamps, ascending/descending, pinned and locked flags are set and being read correctly.

18. User levels finalized and tested. This board supports public and private forums.

19. Back end swear filters added and tested. End users can add as many as they wish.

20. Board entrance routine altered to confirm user level before loading tree data no matter if manual login or auto login.

21. Slight coloring to match sidebar.

22. Tested pinned, locked and post display order routines and confirmed frontend and back end are in sync.

23. Search panel added. Search by title returns a list of threads that contain the search term in the title itself. Search by posts returns a list of threads that have posts that contain the searchterm.

What’s next?:

1. Finalize who’s online panel (slide in).

2. Add icons to the tree.

3. Work out avatar upload routines for user control  panel (slide in).

4. Build Administrator panel (desktop based) to manage board. Admin is NOT web based (on purpose). This can be done at any time and the board can run live while building so it’s trivial. I want to wrap it for the desktop with SWF Studio 3.7 (next scheduled release) which will let me ensure the entire board and admin is using a Koolmoves 7/AS3 core. Koolmoves cannot utilize SWf Studio 3.6 so this is a must wait situation as I need this new SWFS release

5. I’m sure there is more I’m too tired to think of…..

As a follow up to Stoke’s post about the ScrollBar class he came across, HexLuv has a reflection class that is also compatible with KM7 (running above).

We’ll be adding it to the Confirmed Classes section of our wpBBS forum.

This very easily customisable class attatches itself to a dynamic textbox. I have tested it with Koolmoves V7, with no errors at all.

Scroll Bar Features

• Automatically determines if scroll bar is needed
• Customizable width
• Choose whether to use up and down “arrows” or not
• Customizable alpha control for foreground and background elements
• Customizable tints (colors) for foreground and background elements
• Customizable corner radius
• Optional gradient overlay

The download from HexLuv contains the CustomScrollbar.as file. I placed it in my Koolmoves/Bin/AS3/Classes/km/components subfolder (make sure you enable this directory path in your Koolmoves preferences under “scripting”) . See the download below to take a look at my source code and scripting used for the live example above

We’ll be adding it to the Confirmed Classes section of our wpBBS forum.

I want to use one of the Tree components for a WordPress forum I’m building (wpBBS) with KM7 and before I get to far into it I thought it best to test data load on a tree . Wilbert had mentioned months ago that the new F9 components could handle more data and of course I had no reason to believe otherwise but hadn’t really stuffed any massive datasets into one so before I make it part of the upcoming forum, I figured I better see if it’s feasable for use seeing as forums can grow large. This test stuffs dynamically created Forums and Threads into one and I’ve purposely made the numbers higher than I would ever possibly need for a forum and it seems WIlbert was not kidding and render times under normal conditions (based on my past forum thread counts) will be just fine 

mp3_setexternalplaylist

In my opinion the Koolmoves MediaPlayers are second to none and with 38 default skins to choose from and the ability to create your own skins , every user has the ability to make their player unique to match their website theme or surrounding content. Wilbert Brants (the resident Koolmoves component guru), has a very robust Mediaplayer class for users compiling AS3 Koolmoves content and he’s simplified loading from an external xml file down to  a single line of code. You can also populate these players in other ways (see class file) but this post is an example of his setExternalXMLPlaylist method.

Using an xml file named “mp.xml” with this structure (paths can be relative or full):

<playlist start=”0″ pause=”false” repeat=”true” shuffle=”false”>
<item label=”Grapevine Fires”>
<audio src=”./Grapevinefires.mp3″/>
</item>
<item label=”Kiss Goodbye”>
<audio src=”./KissGoodbye.mp3″/>
</item>
</playlist>

I can drop a MediaPlayer onstage and target my xml file with this single line of code. Using a mediaplayer with an instance name of “mp” it would be:
mp.setExternalXMLPlaylist(new URLRequest(‘mp.xml’));
stop();

Painless

**This subject has come up before in the forums at Flashkit and I want to remind everyone that if you are using one of the AS3 components or classes, Wilbert almost ALWAYS has a commented usage example in each class.**

I added some bits and pieces of my own to the class and the KM7 compiler did the rest

Koolmoves 7 can’t be beat for the price. Wow.

Click the StarBlur and drag it around the stage background. Set the blur amount at bottom with slider.

We’ll be adding it to the Confirmed Classes section of our wpBBS forum.

The Marching Ants Selection Marquee listed in the “Confirmed Classes” section needs a tweak or two for KM7 it seems. The ternary operators as coded in the “antsTimerListener” and “mouseMoveHandler” sections are for some reason causing stack overflows with the KM7 compiler. I’ve tried every variation of shorthand but falling back to if/else is the only thing that seems to make it fly:

Open the MarchingAntsSelect.as and replace:

private function mouseMoveHandler(event:MouseEvent):void {
bitmapShift == 3?bitmapShift=0:bitmapShift++;
drawSelectionRectangle(point1.x, point1.y, selectionSprite.mouseX, selectionSprite.mouseY, bitmapShift);
// update after event
event.updateAfterEvent();
}
with:

private function mouseMoveHandler(event:MouseEvent):void {
if(bitmapShift == 3){
bitmapShift=0;
}else{
bitmapShift++;
}
drawSelectionRectangle(point1.x, point1.y, selectionSprite.mouseX, selectionSprite.mouseY, bitmapShift);
// update after event
event.updateAfterEvent();
}

Then replace:

private function antsTimerListener(event:TimerEvent):void {
// if the bitmapShift value is 3 then we reset to zero, else add one to…
// 3 is used because it is the length of the bitmap if you count 0 as one.
bitmapShift == 3?bitmapShift=0:bitmapShift++;
drawSelectionRectangle(point1.x,point1.y,point2.x,point2.y,bitmapShift);

}

with:

private function antsTimerListener(event:TimerEvent):void {
// if the bitmapShift value is 3 then we reset to zero, else add one to…
// 3 is used because it is the length of the bitmap if you count 0 as one.
if(bitmapShift == 3){
bitmapShift=0;
}else{
bitmapShift++;
}
drawSelectionRectangle(point1.x,point1.y,point2.x,point2.y,bitmapShift);

}

An example compiled with KM7 (with fixes) is running above.

We’ll be adding it to the Confirmed Classes section of our wpBBS forum.

The TextFlow Classes (TextFlowLite and TextFlowPro) are the creations of the infamous Grant Skinner. This description from Grants blog:

“TextFlowLite is a simple, light-weight class that works in Flash Player 9 with standard text fields. It takes one line of code to link any number of text fields together so that the overflow of each textfield runs into the next. Likewise, it’s one line of code to change the text, or reflow it if the textfields are resized.”

These classes were originally conceived to be commercial offerings from Grant but he felt they still have issues that would need to be addressed (see his blog posts for details) so he instead offered them up publicly to be advanced. As they stand they work wonderfully with Koolmoves 7 and while they cannot yet handle html text, they are still very handy classes indeed.

In the Koolmoves example above I have two textfields onstage with instance names “txt1″ and “txt2″ and one button with an instance name of “b1″.

AS:

import com.gskinner.text.*;
import flash.events.*;

b1.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, resize);
var foo:String = “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Duis ligula lorem, consequat eget, tristique nec, auctor quis, purus. Vivamus ut sem. Fusce aliquam nunc vitae purus. Aenean viverra malesuada libero. Fusce ac quam. Donec neque. Nunc venenatis enim nec quam. Cras faucibus, justo vel accumsan aliquam, tellus dui fringilla quam, in condimentum augue lorem non tellus. Pellentesque id arcu non sem placerat iaculis. Curabitur posuere, pede vitae lacinia accumsan, enim nibh elementum orci, ut volutpat eros sapien nec sapien. Suspendisse neque arcu, ultrices commodo, pellentesque sit amet, ultricies ut, ipsum. Mauris et eros eget erat dapibus mollis. Mauris laoreet posuere odio. Nam ipsum ligula, ullamcorper eu, fringilla at, lacinia ut, augue. Nullam nunc.Sed et lectus in massa imperdiet tincidunt. Praesent neque tortor, sollicitudin non, euismod a, adipiscing a, est. Mauris diam metus, varius nec, faucibus at, faucibus sollicitudin, lectus. Nam posuere felis ac urna. Vestibulum tempor vestibulum urna. Nullam metus. Vivamus ac purus. Nullam interdum ullamcorper libero. Morbi vehicula imperdiet justo. Etiam mollis fringilla ante. Donec et dui. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos hymenaeos. Etiam mi libero, luctus nec, blandit ac, rutrum ac, lectus.Morbi consequat felis vitae enim. Nunc nec lacus. Vestibulum odio. Morbi egestas, urna et mollis bibendum, enim tellus posuere justo, eget elementum purus urna nec lacus. Nullam in nulla. Praesent ac lorem. Donec metus risus, accumsan ut, mollis non, porttitor eget, mi. Aliquam aliquet, tortor a elementum aliquam, erat odio sodales eros, suscipit blandit lectus dolor sit amet elit. In eros wisi, mollis vitae, tincidunt in, suscipit id, nibh. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos hymenaeos. Phasellus ornare. Suspendisse potenti. Mauris convallis. Vestibulum nec mauris in augue porta mollis. Proin ut nunc. Mauris aliquam dui eget purus.”;
var tf:TextFlowLite = new TextFlowLite([txt1,txt2],foo);

function resize(e:MouseEvent):void{
b1.removeEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, resize)
removeChild(b1);
txt1.height += 50;
txt2.height += 50;
tf.reflow();
}

We’ll be adding it to the Confirmed Classes section of our wpBBS forum.

http://www.northcode.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9327

The next released version of SWf Studio will contain AS3 class files along with their usual AS2 classes. Apparently they are having problems with Adobe changing things in CS4 that is consistently causing problems each time with their SWC class file. This is good news for Koolmoves 7 users as we cannot utilize the As2 intrinsic classes and as of right now the SWFS AS3 classes are only distributed via SWC (which Koolmoves does not support).

I have spoken about this in the Koolmoves forum numerous times and was concerned that while we have new abilities with KM7 (AS3 being the most prominent) we also boxed ourselves out of being able to use commercial wrappers like Swf Studio, Zinc and others that distribute their AS3 class files as SWC. As it stands right now the only option for Koolmoves users making rich desktop appliction with access to the operating system is Adobe Air which is more complicated for users to utilize and also would force the Koolmoves content to be wrapped inside either a Flex or Flash core and then compiled as an AIR app making it an awkward (at best) proposition.

If what Northcode says is true, we will be able to simply create a Koolmoves movie (using their AS3 intrinsic classes), export it and wrap it up in SWf Studio making for much smaller file sizes and more in tune with the same ability we had with KM6/AS1.

If you have to ask why anyone would choose a commercial wrapper over simply creating a swf projector…you haven’t played with many projectors. The differences are HUGE. I’m going to be keeping a close eye on this during the next few month.

source

Submitted this to the KoolExchange and Flashkit today. We need to get some core movies out there for Koolmoves users that cover the basics of AS3. It’s a big change from AS1/Loadvars to AS3/Loader and maybe things like this will help.

AS3 highlights: URLVariables, Error Event Handling, Listeners,CSS Formatting, Loaders, URLRequests

KM code is as follows:

//Koolmoves Changelog Reader (AS3) 2009 Chris Seahorn ()
import flash.text.*;
import flash.media.*;
import flash.display.*;
import flash.events.*;
import flash.net.*;
import flash.filters.*;
import flash.utils.*;
import km.preloaders.*;
//URLVariables instance to send the page url to the proxy
var params:URLVariables = new URLVariables();
params.dataURL = “http://www.koolmoves.com/kmwhatsnew.html”;
output.condenseWhite = true;
//grab one of Wilberts preloaders for rogress display of the loader
var pre:MovingLinesPreloader=new MovingLinesPreloader();
pre.bar_width=80;
pre.bar_height=10;
addChild(pre);

txt2.backgroundColor=0xF0F0F0;

var loader:URLLoader = new URLLoader( );
loader.addEventListener( IOErrorEvent.IO_ERROR, ioError );
loader.addEventListener( HTTPStatusEvent.HTTP_STATUS, httpStatus );
loader.addEventListener( SecurityErrorEvent.SECURITY_ERROR, securityError );
loader.addEventListener( ProgressEvent.PROGRESS, handleProgress );
loader.addEventListener( Event.COMPLETE, handleComplete );
//plain text is the default dataFormat but I added it here anyway to show the syntax
loader.dataFormat = URLLoaderDataFormat.TEXT;
//pop the proxy
var req:URLRequest = new URLRequest(“proxy.php”);
req.method = URLRequestMethod.GET;
req.data = params;
loader.load(req);

function handleComplete( event:Event ):void {
removeChild(pre);
//prepare StyleSheet
var css:StyleSheet = new StyleSheet( );
//style objects (literal notation)
var sampleStyle1:Object = {color: “#FF0000″, textAlign: “center”, fontSize:12, fontWeight:”bold”};
var sampleStyle2:Object = {color: “#336699″, textAlign: “left”, fontSize:10, fontWeight:”bold”};
//target headings and list items with the style objects
css.setStyle(“p”, sampleStyle1);
css.setStyle(“li”, sampleStyle2);
var example:String = event.target.data;
//slice up the raw html from the Koolmoves page targeting what we need
var index1:int = example.indexOf( “<p>” );
var index2:int = example.indexOf( “<!–***************close content*****************–>” );
//rip it out
var foo:String= example.substring( index1, index2 );
//remember to apply the css BEFORE you populate the field
output.styleSheet = css;
//there we have it
output.htmlText=foo;

}

function ioError( event:IOErrorEvent ):void {
//do something
}

function httpStatus( event:HTTPStatusEvent ):void {
//do something
}

function securityError( event:SecurityErrorEvent ):void {
//do something
}

function handleProgress( event:ProgressEvent ):void {

pre.showProgress(event);

}

proxy.php

<?php
header(“Content-type: text/xml; charset=utf-8″);
echo file_get_contents($_GET["dataURL"]);
?>

A while back I came across a snippet from Grant Skinner about the new runtime tools of AS3 that included an example for using the system.totalMemory to monitor how much memory is in use by the Flash player at run-time. I liked it and have used it a lot while testing different movies with KM7 to profile memory usage and while it’s not a perfect mechanism it does give you indications if you have a massive memory leak somewhere tanking the show.

This this is the snippet from Grants site:

import flash.system.System;
import flash.net.navigateToURL;
import flash.net.URLRequest;
…
// check our memory every 1 second:
var checkMemoryIntervalID:uint = setInterval(checkMemoryUsage,1000);
…
var showWarning:Boolean = true;
var warningMemory:uint = 1000*1000*500;
var abortMemory:uint = 1000*1000*625;
…
function checkMemoryUsage() {
if (System.totalMemory > warningMemory && showWarning) {
// show an error to the user warning them that we’re running out of memory and might quit
// try to free up memory if possible
showWarning = false; // so we don’t show an error every second
} else if (System.totalMemory > abortMemory) {
// save current user data to an LSO for recovery later?
abort();
}
}
function abort() {
// send the user to a page explaining what happpened:
navigateToURL(new URLRequest(“memoryError.html”));
}

While his version ultimately sends you off in cases that abort, I’ve always commented out that section and simply used it to monitor memory as I only have need of it as a drop in for the stage while testing builds of different Koolmoves movies. I wanted something more than a simple text display and created a SystemMemoryBar component based on Grants snippet, one of Wilbert Brants Koolmoves preloaders and some personal mojo

Above are three bars running (of course I would only use one if dropped in a movie while building) with different settings for each.

Constructor:

public function SystemMemoryBar(width:int, height:int, bordercolor:uint, barcolor:uint, drag:Boolean):void {

Usage:

var m1:SystemMemoryBar=new SystemMemoryBar(75,10,0xffffff,0xCF3000,true);
m1.x=50;
m1.y=40;
addChild(m1);
//mystatus returns the current level, warning level and fatal level of memory
m1.toolTip = m1.mystatus;

Additional Info:

Memory under the warning level always displays Green.
Memory above the warning level but below fatal level always displays Yellow.
Memory above or equal to the fatal level displays Red.
Drop filter is applied on drag of bar.
Width/Height can only be set via constructor (on purpose).
Border color and background color are user defined. Level colors are constant.
Bar is moved to top of display list on drag (as it should be )

km7_systemmemory_component

Koolmoves 7 with AS3 support on the other hand is only a week old so it’s community is in need of any and all resources it can muster to help it’s users get up to speed with the new abilities of version 7.

The way I see it , right now the KM community needs:

1. AS3 based Koolmoves Source code for users to explore.

2. Tutorials and guides.

3. Links to existing classes that Koolmoves supports.

4. Links to other KM resources.

It’s going to be a fun year and I hope my friends of the past continue to be my friends in the future…just like Koolmoves is