franto.com

Problems with latest stable Flex 4 nightly build

I have commercial project in Flex 4. That’s great I always wanted to use Flex 4 for commercial project (otherwise I didn’t have time to work with Flex 4). It was too risky, because Flex 4 is just beta 2, but application depends on custom skinning, so we have decided to implement it in Flex 4 together with Flash Catalyst. Workflow is not ideal (as graphics designer didn’t know about Flash catalyst), but surely it was help (at least for cutting assets ). There were few problems, but after month of development and reading some stuff and tutorials on web I want to try use latest stable nightly build. Right now it’s Flex 4.0.0.13875 from 29th of January. So I’ve downloaded and install it to Flash builder.

First, what I’ve found out that namespace mx was change to ns namespace. xmlns:mx=”library://ns.adobe.com/flex/halo”
xmlns:ns=”library://ns.adobe.com/flex/mx”

some properties was renamed e.g BitmapImage resizeMode to fillMode, some properties was removed.

But I’ve stuck on 1 problem… from flash.* packages, there is just flash.text.*, all other flash.* packages are not inside. So e.g. I can not use MouseEvent and similar stuff

Does anyone know if I don’t see anything obvious? Does anyone use latest stable nightly build of Flex 4? (I’ve tried also latest nightly build Flex 13963, same problem)

I really want to use it, because I know, there is some important things fixed. Please let me know, if you have how to fix problem

Thank you very much

Loosing children interactivity after setting perspectiveProjection

My current project needs to use new native 3D in Flash Player 10. It seems so easy to use it, just set any 3d property like x,y,z or rotationX, rotationY, rotationZ and all should work perfectly. It seems so. But I have found problem and it seems it’s Flash player bug (I hope someone proves me wrong ). I need to change field of view of some DisplayObject to have different perspective as it is set by default. So I’ve done it in way

var pp:PerspectiveProjection = new PerspectiveProjection();
pp.fieldOfView = 11;
 
this.transform.perspectiveProjection = pp;

it’s easy and it works. But problem is, that after setting of perspectiveProjection all children interactivity (mouse click, rollovers and rollouts) stops working and this is really big issue. I’ve tried everything I know to prevent this, but I could not make it work. So I’m trying to write this post to get help on this (if it is possible).

Let me know if you have similar problem and please vote for Adobe bug(s) I will post later to let Adobe fix it ASAP.

Some links with this issue on net:

• http://old.nabble.com/Setting-perspectiveProjection-disable-children-interactivity-td21207809.html
• https://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FP-2445
• https://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FP-1609 This is even marked as resolved by Adobe

Let me know if comments if you know anything about this problem. Thank you

Wordpress plugin Permalinks Changer

When you want to change your permalinks structure in Wordpress,there is easy way if your are Wordpress semi-advance user. But there are also Wordpress Newbies, which want to change Wordpress permalinks structure as well. I’ve created small wordpress plugin called Permalinks Changer, which helps you to change you permalinks structure in more friendly way. This was implemented as help to one of my friend in some private interner marketer forum. Now there are just 3 simple possibilities of permalinks structure:

• use your post name in URLs
• use category and post name in URLs
• reset to default permalinks structure

If you have any idea how to make life easier for Wordpress newbies, please leave a comment with your suggestion.

Download Wordpress Plugin Permalinks Changer

Numeric sorting of Flex DataGridColumn

This is quick example for Numeric sorting of Flex DataGrid columns. If you want to sort column in DataGrid, default sorting is sorted by String and not by Number. If you have just one numeric column, you may create custom sort function and set sortCompareFunction for given DataGridColumn. If you have more such columns and your dataProvider is ArrayCollection, which consists of many objects, better solution is override DataGridColumn and implement compare function inside this class. Here is class

package com.flexets.components.dataGridClasses
{
	import mx.controls.dataGridClasses.DataGridColumn;
	import mx.utils.ObjectUtil;
 
	public class NumericDataGridColumn extends DataGridColumn
	{
		public static const NUMERIC:String = "N";
		public function NumericDataGridColumn(columnName:String=null)
		{
			super(columnName);
			initCompare(NUMERIC);
		}
 
		function initCompare(numeric:Object):void
		{
			if (numeric == NUMERIC) {
				sortCompareFunction = numericCompare;
			}
		}
 
		/**
		* Pull the numbers from the objects and call the implementation. TAKEN FROM mx.collections.SortField
		*/
		private function numericCompare(a:Object, b:Object):int
		{
			var fa:Number;
			try
			{
				fa = dataField == null ? Number(a) : Number(a[dataField]);
			}
			catch(error:Error)
			{
			}
 
			var fb:Number;
			try
			{
				fb = dataField == null ? Number(b) : Number(b[dataField]);
			}
			catch(error:Error)
			{
			}
 
			return ObjectUtil.numericCompare(fa, fb);
		}
	}
}

and then just use NumericDataGridColumn in your mxml in DataGrid like this

<mx:DataGrid id="myDG" width="100%" height="100%" dataProvider="{myDataProvider}">
    <mx:columns>
	<mx:DataGridColumn dataField="id"/>
	<dataGridClasses:NumericDataGridColumn dataField="order"/>
	<mx:DataGridColumn dataField="title"/>
	<dataGridClasses:NumericDataGridColumn dataField="price"/>
    </mx:columns>
</mx:DataGrid>

Enjoy this little Flex tip.

More Google Wave invitations

I get more Google Wave invitations today and as I have already invited my friends I have now free Google Wave invitations. So if you want to try Google Wave and play with it, but do not know anyone with Google Wave account, ask in comments. I will send 10 invitation for first 10 people which will ask for Google Wave invitation in comments.

$1000 for Wordpress plugin

If you are Wordpress plugin developer you have nice chance to earn $1000. It’s for GetClicky Web Analytics site. It is site similar to Google Analytics, but their data are realtime, so you can really see who is on your site and which content is seen by your visitors currently. It’s very useful web analytics site and I’m using it for tracking my sites. But get back to GetClicky Wordpress Plugin.

They need to help with development and they are willing to pay you $1000. Here is quotation form their site:

Read more about it: $1000 for Wordpress plugin. And if you are not Wordpress plugin developer you may be interested in tracking you site with realtime web analytics by GetClicky. It’s completly free for one site and it’s very affordable if you want to track more sites in realtime.

Kseniya Simonova – Sand Animation

Off Topic: This is really amazing sand animation by Ksenyia (winner of Ukraine’s Got Talent). She is painting and animating German occupation of Ukraine in WW2.

Goodbye FlashDen, hello ActiveDen

I’ve found out today, that there is no longer FlashDen.net, but instead there is new site in Envato network called ActiveDen. It’s same site, but Adobe has asked Envato to change the name because “Flash” is registered trademark of Adobe. And there are also Flex files on ActiveDen, so there are no more just pure Flash files, so it’s maybe better name now.

Goodbye FlashDen, hello ActiveDen

Major update of Goalscape AIR application

This friday we have released major update for Goalscape AIR application. It is project we (me with Tomas as Flexets company) have been working on for more than year. If you are not aware of Goalscape application please look at intro video. But in one sentence it’s Goal Management Software.

Here is list of main features in this update:

• Search function
• Adding and naming goals
• Icons for common functions
• Language support
• Notes text
• Attachments

If you are interested in details go and read about them here: Major update for Goalscape AIR application and download Goalscape (AIR application). You have 1 month free trial and then it’s just 45€ one time payment which include all future updates.

If you have any questions about Goalscape ask in comments, I can answer them in comments. Even if you install Goalscape and want to see there some features, let me know and we will consider to add them to Goalscape.

Why my sites were not indexed by Google?

Few months ago I’ve created site http://filmcomposers.info about Movie Soundtracks Composers, because I like movie soundtracks and music composing (orchestral) (I really love Hans Zimmer work). But site is still not indexed by google. I was thinking, that’s because almost all content is done by Wordpress plugin Pods and there are no posts or pages and just this site is linking to the site http://filmcomposers.info. So I’ve submitted site to Google Webmasters tools, still nothing, I have check if there is no robots.txt file or if inside of that file are search spiders disalloved. I didn’t find anything. Buuut, yes, I’m such a fool It’s Wordpress privacy setting: I would like my blog to be visible to everyone, including search engines (like Google, Sphere, Technorati) and archivers or I would like to block search engines, but allow normal visitors. Yes, that’s why google can’t indexed my site This option adds meta tag into page header:

<meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow">

So if you have same problems and you have site based on Wordpress, check in your Admin section Settings > Privacy or check html source code for robots meta tag in header.

After this discovery yesterday I’ve found out that even franto.com has same settings and it’s not indexed by google from time I’ve changed hosting provider few months ago. So I have rather changed all my other sites and they are all ok I think I need to create some AIR app for checking such SEO problems…