CREATE A PROJECT FOR FDT FAST!!
3 weeks ago | in Actionscript 3, Terminal stuff, Workflow | 5 Comments »
I made a terminal script for creating new FDT projects. I use it when I want to test something or create a prototype.
The code can be found on the post detail page.
PROFILING A FDT PROJECT WITH FLASH BUILDER
4 weeks, 1 day ago | in My work | 2 Comments »
I made a screencast on how I profile my FDT applications using the Flash Builder profiler. With this profiler you can easily find memory leaks in your application.
All the files I used in the video can be downloaded here:
ACTIONSCRIPT SNOWFLAKES
1 month ago | in My work | 2 Comments »
MY WORKFLOW WITH ANT AND FDT
1 month, 4 weeks ago | Tags: ANT, FDT in Actionscript 3, Workflow | 9 Comments »
I am a big fan of things that speed up my workflow. One of the things that I have been using a lot lately is ANT. ANT is a scripting language you can use from within Eclipse (and FDT). ANT is quite powerful. You can use it to show input dialogs, manipulate files, create files, compile an application, FTP, SVN and much much more!
In my last three projects I have been using the same ANT file and I think it is pretty useful for other Flash developers too. That’s why I want to share it with you.
My ANT file has four targets (functions).
- Debug in Firefox
- Create deployable swf
- Deploy to FTP server
- Clean debug in Firefox
The most important target is the first one, that’s the target I use the most. It compiles the actionscript into a SWF and then gives Firefox focus. If you want to know how this works see epologee.com/blog. I know a lot of people use the external player in FDT, I switched to Firefox because it is much faster and as a bonus you can use SWFAdress and other HTML stuff. In my opinion it’s much better to test from within the browser because it it behaves a bit different then external player in some occasions.
The second target (Create deployable SWF) creates a SWF which is smaller that the debug version; this is because I excluded the ‘verbose stacktraces’ on a large project this somethings takes 200kb of a SWF file.
Another thing I added to my ANT task is a conditional compilation arguments to the compiler. With these arguments it’s really easy to create a code block which only works for deployment, or a piece of code which only works for testing.
The code to do this looks like this:
CONFIG::Debug
{
// code for debugging
}
CONFIG::Release
{
// code for release version
}Another interesting thing I added was FTP, the only problem is it isn’t supported by FDT by default. You need to install a external script (pretty easy). All about FTP and ANT is on the blog of Erik van Nieuwburg.
Every time you compile using my script ANT creates a build.txt with some information about the build (deploment or development, time of compilation, filesize, user, etc) I store this information in Subversion to keep track of all the builds. I copy this to a folder on the webserver too. In another project I used a modified version of this code to update a Version.as file before compiling….
Video
I created a video of my workflow to show you how it works.
If you have any feedback or suggestions please let me know. I created a zip file with all the files used in the video;
VIDEO OF VOICEPONG IN DENMARK
2 months, 2 weeks ago | in My work | No Comments »
This is a video I got from James Howard Young, he used VoicePong to show students how to create interactive music.
VoicePong is created by Patrick Brouwer and me.
INTERACTIVE MUSIC FOR THE RECORDER
2 months, 2 weeks ago | in My work | No Comments »
James Howard Young is giving a workshop ‘Interactive music for the Recorder’, in this workshop he uses VoicePong to show his students what’s possible!!
Denmark premiere of the results of a collaboration between Jnote.org and Base42.nl where performers of acoustic instruments control onscreen objects in a game-type environment
READ IT LATER!
3 months, 2 weeks ago | in Software, Web | 4 Comments »
When browsing the internet I see a lot of cool stuff that I want to read, but how do you store these items. What I used to do was store it to my Delicious account but I hardly ever look back to my bookmarks (I only use them to search for stored pages)… Today I accidentally came across the Firefox plugin ‘Read it later‘. It is a quick way to save those interesting pages! It has some really cool features:
• Save pages to a reading list to read when you have time
• Offline Reading Mode – Read the items you’ve saved for later on the plane, train, or anywhere
• RSS Feeds – View your list from anywhere with automatic rss feeds of your items
• Sync Between Computers – Sync your reading list with any number of computers, work or home
• After reading, bookmark pages on your preferred bookmarking service
• Click to Save Mode – Quickly batch a reading list just by clicking on interesting links
FLASH VOICEARKANOID
4 months ago | in Actionscript 3, Flash, My work | 2 Comments »
Today I have been working with Patrick Brouwer on a new voice controlled game. We wired up a version of Arkanoid with our open source audio framework in a few hours. Below is a video of the result.
(It’s work in progress… the final version will be presented on the Dutch Design Week next week)
ps. the source can be found on Google Code
ANNE FRANK
40 years, 1 month ago | in My work | 2 Comments »
I am currently working for Lost Boys on one of the biggest projects I have ever taken part in, the Virtual Anne Frank House. It is a Papervision3D environment where you can click through all information about Anne Frank. Many great Flashers have been involved on the project (Eric-Paul Lecluse, Arie de Bonth, Antoine Lubach, Stephan Bezoen and last but not least Ralph Hauwert.
The Anne Frank foundation posted a making of video on Youtube last week. Really cool!
SHEETS LES 1 EN 2 VISUALIZING INFORMATION IN FLASH
4 months ago | in Actionscript 3, School | No Comments »
[Dutch] Ik geef momenteel 3 lessen Flash voor de minor Visualizing information hierin laat ik de studenten ervaren hoe je dynamische infographics kan maken met behulp van Flash. Dit zijn de sheets die ik gister gebruikt heb en de sheets van vorige week.
VODAFONE USB MODEM ON SNOW LEOPARD WORKING AGAIN
4 months, 3 weeks ago | in My work | 1 Comment »
Since my upgrade to Snow Leopard I wasn’t able to use my Broadband Vodafone Modem (K3760)…
I got it working again thanks to Dylan Verheul blog post. Awesome!!
The new Vodafone software is much better since this release! The Tiger look is gone…
