Richard Willis: Freelance Flash & Flex Developer - Latest Comments

Re: HowTo: Create hexidecimal grayscale integers

Owen — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 05:09:52 -0000

although, of course, the code I just posted means you should use a value between 0 and 1

Re: HowTo: Create hexidecimal grayscale integers

Owen — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 05:08:26 -0000

you can also use hex numbers as the multiplier :)
ie num * 0xFFFFFF

Re: HowTo: Create a dynamic multi-language Flex application

The Mother of Joseph Beuys — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 04:01:50 -0000

Hey Alvaro

The apps i've made using this method are kind of massive and belong (IP-wise) to other organisations anyway, so i'm not really able to email them around to just anyone I'm afraid. If there's any part of this tutorial that's not too clear just let me know and I'll try to find some time to rewrite that bit to make it clearer.

Re: HowTo: Create a dynamic multi-language Flex application

Alvaro Raminelli — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 22:15:06 -0000

hi
I would like to know if you can to send me this app.
I dont get to do to function this..
I need urgent to make some like with this..

Thanks
wait

Re: FlashBrighton all over the DIMAs like a rash

zenbullets — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 16:27:40 -0000

Your copy is truly fearsome Rich. FEARSOME. Shame there wasn't a copy-writing category for you this year.

Re: FlashBrighton all over the DIMAs like a rash

neil — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 08:09:08 -0000

your copy surely is awesome :)

Re: Where have my swc graphic assets gone?

Gareth — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 15:10:50 -0000

Hi Richard, I wrote the article for Ultraviolet Design. Appreciate the link back. Coincidentally I also wrote a post about this problem however I attributed it to using multiple swcs in one AS project in Flex Builder. I have more recently realised (and had this confirmed by your post) that it is just a bug in Flash, which we are at the mercy of. Very frustrating but what can you do.

Re: HowTo: Create a dynamic multi-language Flex application

The Mother of Joseph Beuys — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 08:41:49 -0000

Ive just had to adapt this system a little for a Flex app that didn't use curly braces binding but instead uses AS binding via BindingUtils. Happily tho just a few minor changes to the xml parsing method which I'll come back here and document later when I get the chance. And if anything it seems slightly better as it should be a technique entirely free of 'Warning' traces. :)

Re: HowTo: Force Flex to apply width & height with CSS

The Mother of Joseph Beuys — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 05:27:09 -0000

having just got up this morning it has occurred to me that if there are any other things missing from or incorrectly implemented in Flex' CSS support - as there undoubtedly are - we could rename 'DimensionsManager' to something like 'CSSImplementor' and give it a whole bunch of other static methods too, to adjust aspects beyond just width and height, including one method called 'setAllCSSStyles' which could simple call all the class' other static methods in turn.

i don't really have the time or the need to do this right now but if i get some time later i might.

Re: AS3 Optimisation Tip I: Use public properties

spender — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 19:34:20 -0000

in some languages i've used, this would be considered bad if the code exists in a linked library, because it allows for no refactoring flexibility... code that were dependent on the library would require recompiling should a public field be changed to a setter/getter in the library. hence there is a preference for public setters/getters wrapping private variables to allow insertion of logic/validation should the need arise without the penalty of recompiling all dependent projects. as runtime importing of code in AS3 is rare, this would rarely be an issue here.

Re: AS3 Optimisation Tip II: Avoid String concatenation

spender — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 19:27:17 -0000

this comes up frequently especially with strings used to hold a log of some sort...

function addMessage(msg:String)
{
log+=msg+"\n"; //really very bad... with enough log output, this will sink the ship
}

Re: Cellular Automata I

zenbullets — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 04:45:15 -0000

I first encountered Cellular Automata at university, and never really got the point. Until I read Rudy Rucker's "Lifebox, Seashell and The Soul" many years later, which derives a lot from Wolfram, and I got mightily obsessed with the idea of Universal Automatism, the theory of a fully deterministic universe that can be modelled mathematically (blogged about at length here: http://zenbullets.com/blog/?cat=15).

I also did my own bit of CA based art: http://www.zenbullets.com/generative/CLife.php , which is a bit more of a scribble compared to the complexity of your piece.

Re: Construct, init, reset

rich — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 18:00:21 -0000

no worries ragaskar, hoped it helped. and thanks for the url, very useful. :)

Re: Countergaming

rich — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 17:58:08 -0000

hey maria

i think you might have mixed me up with someone else. good luck finding this other mysterious 'richard willis' character. :)

Re: Countergaming

Maria Fernandez — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 15:56:12 -0000

Hi!

Are you Richard Willis, the one i did the pgce at worcester with?

if so, keep in touch!

Re: Construct, init, reset

ragaskar — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 17:17:02 -0000

thanks for this writeup...

there is a loose benchmark regarding init vs. constructor code at http://blog.pixelbreaker.co....

Savings: 100ms!

Re: FlashBrighton’s “Head of Content”

Bee — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 06:19:02 -0000

Nice 1 dickie, looks like your going leaps and boundies with the plugin media guys.

I'm working at swindon college soon to start as an ILT intructor looking after there VLE and funnily enough there content managment and DRM for the site, as well as teaching the hairdressers how to use computers

'.. thats right, place your index finger on the mouse button and press firmly, brilliant! your doing great, now if you can just pop your top off...'

Yeah I quite like my job

Re: Classes within swfs within swfs gotcha

rich — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 08:11:29 -0000

So just going on from there: what I've just discovered is that I don't even need to bother recompiling the encased swf at all. In my case here the encasing swf loads the encased swf and casts its main timeline MC to the visual class said MC is linked to in the library and, I'm therefore assuming, brings that and any other classes therein (in this case the main timeline MC contains a whole bunch of MCs that link to the aforementioned ViewClassA) into itself anyway. I'm assuming this because having compiled the encased swf I have closed its FLA file, made changes to the ViewClassA trace code, recompiled the encasing swf, cleared the cache and viewed in a browser to see those changes to ViewClassA appear in the output trace. Which is nice, i don't have to bother recompiling both swfs every time I want an update.