Labs

IBM recently published this article by Jeff Vogel, which I think is a must-read for any aspiring Flash developer.

As Jon Grden points out, the market is red hot for ActionScript developers. One of the fundamental issues with Flash developers is that more often than not we don't come from computer science or engineering backgrounds. Most of the programmers here have a significant background in the arts, which oftentimes seems to be at odds with the procedural world of programming. As a result, a lot of these developers spend their time spinning wheels on how to write the most efficient code possible.

The IBM article describes the exact sort of issues ActionScript developers struggle with. It provides practical, useful tips that will make a better programmer out of you. The best part about it? None of...

Coming off the heels of this blog post about dynamically attaching code to frames in AS3, I decided to foray into ending the use of timeline code altogether.

I failed.

But I did come up with a handy dandy script that will certainly come closer.

Click on for the script and documentation.

Seems the community is getting together to show off some Apollo apps:

http://www.brandonellis.org/?p=39
http://www.apolloapps.com/
http://www.apollohunter.com/

Its that time again. Today we will be discussing the download method of the FileReference class. Unlike other methods that require a URLRequest, this one requires that request to be the complete path to the file on the server and not a relative one. While this is a pain, it is possible. Here is a download method that will do this for you:

So it appears DataType Number cannot be tested against null conditions. In order to determine if a Number has no value you must use the function isNaN(num) which returns a Boolean. That's right boys & girls a Numbers initial value is Not a Number ;-) Oh AS3 you confound me!

Want to start playing with Apollo, but don't want to take the time to learn FlexBuilder? Then use Flash CS3.

The team at Adobe is hard at work on an extension/plug-in that will streamline authoring Apollo apps from Flash CS3, but in the meantime, here is an extension created by Guy Watson that makes it easier.

There are also some new Apollo articles on the Adobe labs site (scroll to the bottom of the page).