senocular.com

Macromedia has anounced its third annual MAX 2005 conference which is to be held October 16 - 19, 2005 at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, CA.

"This is shaping up to be the most incredible conference we have ever hosted," said Kevin Lynch, chief software architect, Macromedia. "The Flash Platform is continuing to evolve dramatically this year, and MAX will be the place to engage with the latest developments."

For more information, see http://www.macromedia.com/max/.

I've spent some time a few months ago making a JavaScript-based CSS parser to be used in Dreamweaver for extracting CSS properties from elements in the working document. I've since abandoned the project. But now, I'm making it publically available for anyone who may be able to make use of it... or for those who are simply curious.

CSS_parse.js

Most of you are probably familiar with SourceForge, an open source application development site that hosts projects of all varieties (even those regarding Flash/ActionScript). However, Jesse on ActionScript.org has proposed "GForge", a SourceForge-like system hosted by ActionScript.org specifically for Flash and ActionScript related projects. Now the question is, is this a good idea? Do Flash projects need to be segregated in this manner? And what about OSFlash, a similar system already in place hosting open source projects specific to Flash/ActionScript? If you have concern, check out the thread concerning GForge and let Jesse know what you think.

One of the first issues to come to terms with when dealing with basic Flash button events is dealing with Flash event bubbling... or rather, the lack of. Given two movie clips A and B where B is a child of A, you are allowed only one of which to actually be able to use button events. If both A and B are given button events, only A will receive them as parent clips with button events block all button events that child clips might receive. Read more to learn of an alternative.

I've added a link to ASH (ActionScript source code highlighter) over in the tools section (was up until recently the projects section) of the menu. Some may remember this from when I first introduced it, but it has since been lost with history. I'm not currently actively working on it, but I'll try to get to it sooner or later improving performance, features, and robustness. At present, you can use it for simple code highlighting (it also highlights code in the ActionScript section).

Seems as though Macromedia is taking a new direction with the next version of the upcoming Flash player (code named Maelstrom) touting it as Macromedia Flash Platform. We've already seen that Maelstrom will provide us with better video, clearer text and a wide range of dynamic effects, but now we also see that the new player will also support file upload (open) and download (save) for an enhanced RIA experience (more new features). With this, Flash truely is becoming a platform. You can find out more at Macromedia's platform page or their press release.

I've updated the ActionScript 1.0 ContinuousDash class to the ActionScript 2.0 DashedLine class. Using this in combination with the ProgressiveDrawing class, I've created an example of a progressively drawn dashed circle.

Note: the ProgressiveDrawing class is now located in the com.senocular.drawing package.

Gogofrog is offering to host your 3D Flash web site for free. They offer all you need to make your 3D website as seen here. Offers:

• Unique 3D format
• Update and edit your site whenever you want
• Rich media Web hosting service

Looks pretty interesting and they've done a decent job with the 3D even with the incorporation bitmaps. Best of all, it's free.

NewsForge is reporting that GPLFlash is back. GPLFlash is an open source version of the Flash player plugin for GNU/Linux. The project was initially abandoned when Macromedia released the Flash player for Linux. The project has returned with hopes to replace the "restrictively licensed" Macromedia counterpart.

Drip is a handy little tool developed by Joel Webber that helps DHTML developers pinpoint memory leaks in Internet Explorer.

It's a pretty simple application. Basically, it lets you open an HTML page (or pages, in succession) in a dialog box, mess around with it, then check for any elements that were leaked.

It's basically an alpha release but it looks useful. Check it out.