Here’s a quick ActionScript font utility, that some of you flash devs may find useful. It uses the most popular way of embedding a font, by referencing a font symbol in the library. If you are not familiar with the process, the following are quick directions on how to create a font in the library. (1) Open up your Library. (2) Select the upper-right corner of the Library panel pop up menu. (3) Select New...

Here we go again, another snippet into a flash devs mind. Have you’ve ever been tasked with localizing a flash application? Have you ever had the need to determine the width of a string prior to displaying it in a text field? Just recently I had to localize an application in 4 languages, which meant my user interface/design would have to adjust depending on the language or translated string being displayed....

Facebook, Facebook, Facebook, how I despise thee. I’m in the middle of developing a Flash based Facebook application, which requires the ability for a user to view particular images in Facebook supported countries. I assumed Facebook had some sort of API which would return the countries they support. But as it turns out, they dont. Facebook groups countries by locale and language as demonstrated by Facebook’s...

I’ve been freelancing at AKQA San Francisco for a few weeks and have experienced an annoying bug in the Flash CS4 IDE. I feel it warrants a posting, since, some of you may be experiencing the same issue with the IDE. As a flash developer you are dependent on testing (CTRL+ENTER) your movie locally versus in the browser, especially if you are creating animations or pixel pushing and want to see the changes...

When meeting with clients and potential employers, I’m often asked If I have experience working with API’s (application programming interface). The answer is yes, and then I follow up with, “Have you reviewed my blog?” Just recently, I was asked the API question in an interview and a few minutes later the interviewer wrote this pseudo code on the dry erase board. var _username:String; var...

I’m essentially posting this, as a response to search terms that people frequently use , which eventually direct them to an old posting on loading images. Unfortunately, the posting does not cover loading an image directly from the flash library, but the method is fairly simple. When you import a bitmap into Flash, you can modify that bitmap and use it in a variety of ways, the simple usage is to display...

Here’s an AS3 example using the url shortening service bit.ly Bit.ly is a utility that allows users to shorten a long URL, share it, and then track the resulting usage. Why would you want to shorten your Url? Url shortening makes it easier to include the link in an email or Twitter post without it breaking or taking up space. Bit.ly basically redirects a click from the short url to the destination URL...

Bandwidth detection can be used in a flash site to load optimized assets for the client based on the detected bandwidth. Unfortunately, the Flash Player does not have a native bandwidth detection system, so we can’t accurately predict the users bandwidth. Bandwidth test results vary greatly due to many factors like latency, but, we can get an idea of the users download bandwidth by using flash to download...

At some point in your Flash career you will be asked to implement some sort of Flash widget that communicates with the latest social community apps, like Facebook and Twitter. This post was influenced by a clients request for an application that would display Twitter feeds based on a particular search term . The following example is a proof of concept based off the clients inquiry. Press the Search button to...

I have been developing for the Flash platform since 1998. Throughout the years, I have read and heard endless commentary on the death of Flash. Groups of people hate it, are annoyed by it, complain that it crashes their computer, that it has no place in the mobile space, that it steals your girlfriend and eats your Cheerios. I mean come on, its probably the only client side language that is treated like a red...