Jozef Chúťka's blog

After latest SyntaxHighlighter plugin update (version 2.3.8), there suddenly appears error window while mouse moving over SyntaxHighlighter code:

Error #2044 & text=Error #2036 Load never comple

The problem is in clipboard.swf file loading as icon (copy to clipboard). There are more people complaining on this error behaviour, and there is a simple fix. Replace this file in your wordpress:

wp-content/plugins/syntaxhighlighter/syntaxhighlighter/scripts/clipboard.swf

For this one clipboard.swf. And its working nicely again.

While Flex uses bilinear resizing method when scaling images (event for Bitmap.smoothing() method), you won’t be able to get nice results when downscaling more than 2 times. Inspired by ImageResizer class I have also created SmoothImage Class. This object extends mx.Image and uses ImageResizer.bilinearIterative() class in order to generate smoother resized results.

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Facebook Query Language, or FQL, allows you to use a SQL-style interface to more easily query the same Facebook social data that you can access through other Facebook API methods (assuming your application has access!). Data returned for Facebook ActionScript Api are XML. You can access data via E4X after setting correct namespace. As for now (January 25, 2010), Facebook result defines xmlns=”http://api.facebook.com/1.0/” , but it may change in future, so lets make it dynamic…

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Default facebook login page is usualy opened in new browser window or popup window, so user lose focus from your page. This application opens facebook login page within your flash application, so user will not lose your page. In fact little iframe trick is used.

This post connects my 3 previous posts: Flex IFrame – Web browser in flash, FacebookLogger and Facebook Extended Permissions With Authorization by Overriding Class in swc in order to create elegant solution for facebook connect with your desktop application (means outside facebook iframe or fbml). I recomend to read all previous mentioned posts before trying to run this app.

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It may be not popular, but it is possible to substitute / override whole class from .swc file. Lets say you are using some public api, in our case Facebook actionscript api. I admire work of developer team, but I would like to have some things different. My facebook application requires publish_stream extended permission right after user login (authorize) my application. Even if official facebook api documentation says it is possible to ask for extended permission with login.php call (req_perms parameter), our facebook actionscript api does not offer setting this parameter.

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Pixel Bender Explorer is simple application that lets you dynamicly load .pbj files, apply it on image and edit shader values. Application uses two classes. ShaderLoader class loads external .pbj file and casts loaded binary data into Shader object. ShaderExplorer class inspects created Shader object and generates editable form based on Shader parameters. You can load your own external .pbj files (crossdomain.xml required near .pbj file) or feel free to download and use whole .swf application localy.

Application inspired by Enumerating Pixel Bender filter parameters and metadata dynamically in Flash and Introduction to Pixel Bender: Part 2 articles.

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Even for seniors, there is still something to learn. I have chosen those great articles that would help you improve your knowledge about flash and flex and something littlebit behind the scenes.

Flex SDK coding conventions and best practices

This document lays out the coding standards for writing open-source Flex framework components in ActionScript 3. Adhering to these standards makes the source code look consistent, well-organized, and professional…

The Flex Non-Docs (previous site)

For all those secrets in Flex, those that aren’t known, those that aren’t published, or those that are just hard to find for some unknown reason, like percentWidth…

10 Things Every Senior Flash Developer Should Know

John Lindquist interviewed quite a few Flash/Flex developers as potential employees for Roundarch. The hard part for him is knowing exactly what questions to ask to be able to gauge a Flash dev’s skill level…

Nemo 440 – ActionScript 3 disassembler in AIR

Nemo 440 is free ABC code diassembler implemented as AIR-based application. Nemo 440 can read SWF files compiled with Flex 2/Flex 3/Flex 4 and translates ActionScript 3 byte code to more understandable text dump.

Update (Feb 12, 2010): AS3 hidden treasure in the mm.cfg

Revealing and documenting many Flash secrets hidden in mm.cfg file.

This article helps you embed pixel sharp fonts (without antialias) into your flex apps. As far as I know you wouldn’t be able to do this just by direct embedding local font file into your flex application, but you gonna need Flash CS4 authoring tool. There are two ways you can make Bitmap text work in flex. You can use pure css method or actionscript method. The downside of both methods is, you have to define and export from flash exact font size you are going to use.

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GeometryMath.isLine() static function tests 3 Points and returns true if these points are in line. Optional 4th parameter defines if you require point2 to be in the middle between 1 and 3. Function is not based on vector algorithm, but on triangle equation. This simple function was developed in order to optimize number of points necessary to draw some paths. To draw a line, you do not need all the points, you can omit all the middle points that are on the same line and the result looks the same – optimizes performance or storage.

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If you need to resize an image on client side, I mean real bitmapData resize (not just showing scaled), feel free to use ImageResizer class. This class takes bitmapData of source image, new width and height and resize method (defined by ResizeMath class), and returns new bitmapData of resized image.

Update: It seems that bitmapData.draw() method uses bilinear algorithm when scaling via Matrix. Bilinear algorithm gives you fine results when downscaling no more than 2 times (400px -> 200px). So, I added bilinearIterative() method into ImageResizer class that creates resized bitmapData by multiple steps achieving much smoother results!

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