You're clients will love it! And in the end you will know more about the sites you build and how to better drive traffic to certain areas! Win! Win!
Ok so I have been using Google Analytics for quite sometime now and I must say i love it! So if you don't know by now Google provides FREE website statistics that go above and beyond any stat tracking systems I have seen to date. Well that is for something that is FREE. Anyway I want encourage all of you to get out there and start using Google Analytics for all your flash site going forward. Its really very simple to implement into your flash sites and even track individual events that occur in each of your sites. Please see analytics.google.com for more information on setting up your personal analytics with google and to get the Javascript needed for the code below to work. With that said let's get on to some actionscript!
/// GOOGLE ANALYTICS SIMPLE TRACKING/// Script by: corban baxterimport flash.external.ExternalInterface;
function gaTracking(page){
ExternalInterface.call("pageTracker._trackPageview", page);
}//end
Code for simple call
gaTracking("/flash/home"); //sends event to google's analytics system
Now what you can understand from this is... You can call this function during ANY event function etc that you so desire. And any string combination that you want to pass to it is fair game. Use best practices when passing in the strings though so its easier for you and your clients to read when you all are reviewing the numbers. Ok so thats that! Cheers!
Ok so for those of you out there using Twitter or thinking about using Twitter more often this post is for you. I have been using Twitter very regularly for about 6 months now. Its a great place to share all the great moments in life with your friends and colleges. Its super easy and super quick to learn and start sending updates. Twitter gives you about 20 options for posting updates to the site. So it is convenient for just about anyone.
So to top off the convince factor to twitter I stumbled on Twhirl! Ok so for a lot of you seasoned veterns I'm sure you are fully aware of Twhirl and all of its greatness. But I wanted to go ahead and just reiterate how great Twhril really is! Twhirl is an AIR application that brings twitter to your desktop in a slick convenient interface that has about everything the Twitter site has to offer! So far its my favorite and most used AIR app I have become accustomed to, to date. Which I will go ahead and say this. Thats a big step to get a new app in my life. I am a hard sell to keep an app around for more than a week or so if I barely use it. Ok with that said... Go sign up for Twitter, download Twhirl and start getting involved in the great new social community that is Twitter! Oh and don't forget to add me!
Ok and last a couple new interesting twitter links... http://quotably.com/ - Follow entire Twitter conversations from first post to every related reply. http://tweetpotato.com/ - Haha... Not sure what all this is going to be. But it could be pretty intresting to see how it all plays out! http://www.hashtags.org/ - great way to keep some of your tweets organized! This should be built into Twitter! Anyway to make it work you must follow @hashtags on twitter...
Wow what a morning to wake up to! Adobe has news all over the place. iPhone is getting the Flash Player! Yeah I said it! Well not me but... They did... Wall Street Journal, Engadget, MacRumors and Bit101. How great is this going to be! Its really very interesting to speculate what they will actually do.
So lets think... Ok we all know that the old VM1 is pretty slow compared to the VM2 engine. And the VM1 engine might not cut it on a handheld device since it already has problems on some of our older desktops. Or even on old G4's for that matter. So how is adobe going to get Flash to operate smooth on the iPhone with the VM1 engine? Cause honestly I don't want old flash content to crash my iphone constantly. But I don't want to missout on about 95% of all the Flash content on the web running on the VM1 player. So will they port a version that runs parts of the VM1 engine for video playback and just use the VM2 engine to keep things lite? Or what's the deal going to be? Iis it going to be something we can run AIR apps in only? Hummzzz. Only time will tell. Oh and the last question is will they make iPhone users pay for the player? I really hope not! I might even boycott that decision by Adobe even though I REALLY wants me some Flash on my iPhone!
Ok then onto some other news from the ol Adobe boys this morning...
Adobe Flash Media Rights Management Server? Do what? Well its a way to protect your FLV's in all Flash platform apps. Which is great for MANY content providers all over the web and now the desktop. It even gives some tracking abilities even if the user has downloaded the video! Wow those statistic guys will go berserk for that! Anyway follow the link for more info. This is going to be very neat though and it will help Flash video out a ton when competing with the Quicktime's and Windows Media Player's. Next does anyone know the price point?
Today is a big day for the guys at Adobe. AIR 1.0 and Flex 3 have hit the streets and will set them in position to own the RIA marketplace for a long time coming. With the rich history behind Flex and now AIR, Adobe's latest product that allows developers from all types of backgrounds to develop RIA's. Its a sure win for Adobe and for anyone using the internet today.
AIR gives developers from Flash, AJAX and Flex backgrounds the ability to develop desktop applications that are immediately usable and cross platform compatible. Something no one can argue is a wonderful step forward for the next generation of the web (3.0?). And what's neat about the cross platform is that it works not only on Windows and Apple machines but also on Linux boxes (Coming soon!). This means developing apps for the One Laptop Per Child project is now easy for us all. This also means your product can now stretch across the world like never before.
Flex Builder 3 is pretty cheap and will only run you$249. Which is a steal for anyone wanting to start learning and building RIA's especially for students. But for those of us that already own Flash CS3 the upgrade to AIR is $0! So if you already coding MXML or AS3 you are already to go and begin coding your own desktop applications! During the AIR beta 3 I put together a super simple FLV and H.264 player that now anyone can download and use on any system they choose! I will update it later today so its compliant with the latest release of AIR 1.0! Very exciting!
I am anxiously waiting to see what AIR and all the developers world wide will be developing this year and the years to come! Great work Adobe! We can't wait to see where this product takes us in the years to come!
Update: I just found a rockin' poster done by eboy for the AIR and Flex3 product launch! Download and print it on some 11x17 paper to spice up your office, its pretty sweet! Great work eboy!
Yesterday when I was looking at the new panels Lee Brimelow released it got me thinking about his tutorials on AIR and video. So I was like, hey, it would be cool to have a super simple AIR app that played my FLV's I've been compressing. It seemed like every player I tried was just a bit much. Soooo... here is my first AIR app. Its really nothing so don't expect anything. Currently, as it is, it has no controls or REAL features for that matter. I just put it together so I could play some FLV's I've been compressing. Really just to view them quickly and see how they looked in a player. Anyway its really just for quick testing tool for developers like me. So don't hold your breath for your new end all FLV player! It does the trick and has some scaling feature when you drag the video onto it, it will resize to the size the video has in its META data. Oh and enjoy my amazing graphics I made for it!
px4 flvPlayer 0.6.3
(0.6.3 cause I always wanted to have some weird beta number on something.)
Features - if that's what you want to call them
- drag FLV's onto it to start playing
- scales to the movies correct dimensions
To be added later:
- full play/pause/seek/volume controls
- ability to check META data
- screen shot video and save to PNG
- custom chrome
I will most likely open source the entire project so you guys can see my AS3 mess and help out or maybe learn a little. Either way it will be worth it to someone!
Update: I added H.264 support. And it was incredibly easy. Really as easy as a simple 'if' statement. Thanks for the idea Freddy! If you do place an MOV on it that isn't H.264 format it just won't play or will stop the video that was playing and wait for a new video to be loaded. I will do some error handling to this at a later date. Enjoy for now!
So... have any of you guys downloaded the two panels Lee Brimelow released recently? If not I would suggest doing so. They are killer time savers!
The snippets panel lets you store your code or get code from others that you reuse often and you don't want to have to constantly setup. Almost like knowing OOP but "not" and its reusable. Really it could be any code you want! Its easy to add your own through an XML doc that Lee gives you access to edit and add to the panel. If you want to add some code to the panel just navigate to the XML doc and start pasting. Below is one I made really quick for setting up a simple Fuse function:
I would love to see some of us share our favorite snippets to use in our own panels! I'm trying to get a little list together of mine and I will be sure to share it with all of you guys. But anyway Lee gives you all a nice list to start with. Some good AS3 code snippets for Tweener, some AIR stuff and more! I already started a little project just from the AS3 things these two little guys taught me. Its a pretty simple AIR app I plan to share very soon! But don't stress you don't have to use AS3 for your snippets AS2 code snippets will work fine too!
Also the Event panel is great to. Its like a snippets panel but it creates events for your AS3 project. Its really worth looking at since events are the basis of any project or site you are creating. Just make a movieclip choose a few events its going to have and viola, its auto creates the actionscript for you!
Well don't just sit there go download the Code Snippet and Event panels now!
This afternoon Steven Sacks announced the Gaia 2.0 Panel for Flash CS3. So for those of you guys interested jump over a read his official release post. I am hoping to review it myself this week and see what I can find. But I'd love to hear what you guys think when you try it out!
Wow this is great! So I might be behind in knowing about this but, Adobe and some friends have been making some Why Flash?Why Flex?Why AIR? videos and posting them on youtube.com. They are pretty amazing I must say! So if you got a minute and want to do some laughing at nerds being nerds jump on over to youtube and watch a few videos. Below is one of our good buddy Lee Brimelow of theflashblog.com. Also don't miss out on the Why AJAX? spoof by Phillip Kerman. Enjoy!
Ok not really on shelves per say put on a web site near you! I know some of you guys are really excited about this release and can't wait for Steven to release the final version. But for those of you already creating AS3 sites why not help out in testing! This way you can be sure its the product it can be! For you, and for everyone else out here on the inner webs. Well thats, that. Its a quick post, I know, but I wanted to make sure you all knew in case you hadn't been reading Steven's blog also! Enjoy! And please comment and lets us all know what you think about it and let Steven know too!
Do you love you some Flash? Are you a flash developer? Are you a flash designer?
Did you answer yes to one of these questions and you live in Dallas, Tx? I sure hope so!
I have been thinking about getting the Dallas flash community closer. How you ask? Well, how else! Get us all together for a few beers and a little actionscripting!
In all seriousness I am hoping to find about 10-20 Flash guru's that want to get together to start collaborating and teaching each other some tips and tricks. We have a great community here of Flash developers with a lot of talent and I think its time we start tapping into it. I haven't worked out ANY details as of yet. I really just wanted to try and get a head count of who might be interested. So if you don't mind helping with the cause and emailing your fellow flash buddies, that would be great! Who says Dallas can't do what the other big cities are doing? Now lets see what we are capable of!
I will start gathering a list, so if you guys could either emailing me or comment on this post about your interest that would be great. Then in about a week or so I will gather up all the emails and see how many people we have intrested and go from there. Also if you are interested in speaking to the group or have a facility that we could all meet up at I would be very interested! My email is corbanb[at]gmail[dot]com. I can't wait to hear from you all.
Update: I don't have any location details but I am thinking like the second Wednesday of the month after work. Like 7 - 8PM possibly.
About Me
Name: Corban Baxter. I am a full time flash developer and lover of all technology, gadgets, art, photography, interface design and life in general.
How great is this going to be! Its really very interesting to speculate what they will actually do.
that allows developers from all types of backgrounds to develop RIA's. Its a sure win for Adobe and for anyone using the internet today.
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