David Stiller’s blog

On Thursday, July 12, 2007, a hefty box arrived at my doorstop.  Inside?  My author’s copies of Foundation Flash CS3 for Designers, written by Tom Green and me.  What a way to perk up the afternoon! 

Right away, I flipped to the XML chapter to show Meridian the picture of herself (she’s in one of the XML sample files, which includes a number of JPGs).  Keep reading »

In Part 1, not quite a week ago, we looked at a relatively simple way to track the progress of an FLV file as played without the FLVPlayback Component in a SWF.  Here in Part 2, we’ll make the knob draggable, causing the video to seek to the point in time that corresponds to the knob on its track.  As it turns out, the ActionScript involved doesn’t change all that much.  It may look like a lot more code, but the mechanics should be easy enough to follow.  Keep reading »

Often, but not always, I syndicate my blog entries on the blog at Community MX, CMXtraneous.  That particular blog has a word limit on article length, so not everything I write makes it over — that, and sometimes I simply forget to copy/paste my content to both locations.  In any case, I don’t see replies to the CMX entries nearly as often as I do my own, but I do try to make the rounds.  I just found three replies to my recent “Making Buttons Work in Flash CS3 (ActionScript 3.0),” and since the CMX interface doesn’t seem to like replies with sample code in them, I’m replying to those comments here.  Keep reading »

Following on the heels, at least conceptually, of “How to Control Video (FLV) without a Component” here’s a quick look at how to indicate the progression of an FLV by way of a custom made progress bar (thanks for the suggestion, Rick!).  In a follow-up article, I’ll show how to make the progress bar interactive by having the draggable knob seek to keyframes in the FLV.  It turns out that much of the code for this first part derives from “How to Determine the Completion of a Flash Video (FLV) File,” which shows how to determine video length, with and without the use of Components, in ActionScript 2.0.  In this article, we’ll be going the non-Component route, because FLVPlayback already has a progress bar.  Before we delve into the code, we need to prepare two small movie clips.   Keep reading »

A couple months ago, a writer for BoDo (Business of Design Online), asked to interview me after happening upon this blog.  I was happy to oblige, and what followed was a bit of pleasant correspondence that culminated in the article linked here (thanks, cat!):

http://www.businessofdesignonline.com/interviewing-david-stiller/

Traditional VCR controls usually incorporate fast forward and rewind buttons, which either increase the playback speed of the video or quickly play it in reverse, respectively.  The result is that you can skip around in a video but still maintain some sense of where you are.  Useful as these controls might be, you won’t find them in any of the FLVPlayback Component skins.  (What appear, at first glance, to be FF/RW buttons, are actually a means to jump to optional navigation cue points in the video, much like jumping to chapters on a DVD.)  Is it possible, then, to fast forward and rewind FLV files?  Sure thing.  Let’s take a look.  Keep reading »

At the time of this writing, Flash CS3 is still brand spankin’ new on the shelves.  For some lucky folks, whose companies presumably have volume discounts with Adobe, the latest version of Flash is already in their hands — has, in fact, already been installed without any fanfare or training.  Some of these designer/developers are finding, quite suddenly, that button symbols no longer seem to work in Flash CS3 (I’ve seen quite a few panic posts already on the Adobe forums).  What gives?  Is Flash broken?  Not a bit of it!    Let’s see what’s going on.  Keep reading »

Drawing by Chris Flick,
www.csfgraphics.com

Truth be told, I was home last Friday already, but have only gotten around to posting today.  TODCon was a whole lot of fun, really.  Actually, that’s not putting it strongly enough.  TODCon was truly a great time!  I finally got to meet a bunch of Community MX pals, including Tom Green, with whom I co-authored Foundation Flash CS3 for Designers (check stores in July!).  I even met a client and a few people I’d helped on various forums, which are the kind of connections I always like to make.

There are times when you have a preconceived notion about someone that doesn’t turn out, face to face, to hold true.  Well, that wasn’t the case here at all.  I was expecting to have a good time, and that expectation was rewarded in spades.  I really “clicked” with these folks, and I imagine any onlookers would have assumed we’d all been friends for a decade at least, as you can see in these photos by Jim Babbage.  Keep reading »

I’m off to TODCon — this one really snuck up on me! — and it’s in Vegas this year, so I’m looking forward to the bright lights.  I’ll be presenting two sessions:  “ActionScript 3.0 for the Non-Hardcore Programmer” and “ActionScript for Flash Sound.”  I spent a couple hours today recording some fun audio files for the samples.  This conference is sure to be a blast!  If I can, I’ll write a few notes from the road.

ActionScript 3.0 introduces new data types galore, and two of the funniest looking are easily int and uint.  For one, they belong to an ultra-elite group whose names are fully lowercase (the third is void).  For two … well, I mean … uint.  Come on. 

What are these data types, and what are they good for?  Let’s take a look.  Keep reading »