Looking for Flash Lite tester in Japan

Japan is still main target of some flash lite developer. Well, we know, they started to develop it since few years ago. And ever since, they still busy to develop and create more and more flash lite application on each telecommunication provider. Like NTT docomo, AU, etc.

Some of my flash lite project are targeted for japan market. Even I can not understand Japanese Language, I'm so lucky I have friends there. They will help me to do some test out before my flash lite release in Japan. They can tested out to their own phone or just bring the application and go to nearly shop that provided some handset to be tested.

And if you are in Japan, you can also help some developers are really like to launch a flash lite product in Japan. If you don't work, then some of developers want to pay to make any necessary modifications to make it work. Like instinct.co.nz who now looking for helper with flash lite tester in japan or outside japan with Japanese phones.

Looping for specific time in movie clip

File size are really matter when you working with flash lite. Specially when you making application with flash lite 1.* or 2.*. They will asking for lower than 100 kb as file size.

So, coding will be important. When you create movie clip and asking it for looping only several times, you will rather using coding than making movie clip many. So, for example, you want to have a movie clip only looping 3 times or 5 times, you can try this one.

Put a code in frame 1 :

var countMe = 0;
var howManyTimes = 2;

(Notes : 0 is included as a number..This would loop 3 times)

Then on frame 2 add keyframe, and do nothing.

On last frame :
if (countMe==howManyTimes) {
stop();
} else {
countMe++;
gotoAndPlay(2);
// note: cannot go back to frame one because countMe var
// would get reset if that frame is entered...
}

And, you are done!

More Flash Lite Forum on Uservoice.com

So, you already know how to get Flash Lite Forum. But there are more to go if you really want to know.

Since last week, we have 2 URL which talking about Flash Lite Forum :

http://flashlite.uservoice.com and http://flashMaD.uservoice.com



So you will get help to make AS3 work on Flash Lite, enforce instant full screen on Flash Lite or Symbian, add profiles of touchscreen devices to CS3 and many more.

Micro payment API for you to make money on your game

What is API and where you can get and host your free Multiplayer API is what we discuss in my last post.

Now you can even get Micro payment API for you to make money on your game. What great about this is a payment API for flash games.

Nonoba Payment is a Flash API, for ActionScript 2 & 3, that allows any game developer to charge real money, from a few cents to hundreds of dollars, for their in-game content. The developer receives 70% of all revenue, while we use 30% to cover transaction-fees, fraud and management of purchased items. It’s the same split as Apples iPhone App Store, and we think it's a pretty good deal and a great way for a game developer to make some actual money from their hours of hard work.

Games developed with Nonoba Payment works everywhere on the Internet.

How payment works:
Payment happens inside the game, and when the payment is done, the user can continue playing the game with the additional unlocked content. While we currently only support PayPal as a payment method, we’re hard at work negotiating deals with additional payment methods like Premium SMS, promotion based payment, and credit cards for all countries.


Opportunities for the developer:
Game developers have complete freedom over what they want to sell, and the price they wish to charge for it. The system is not limited but supports a lot of different payment models: trial-to-purchase, level packs, upgrades, micropayment for mini-upgrades, or simply asking for donations. It’s up to the developer to figure out how they want to monetize their game.

Multiplayer API and big contest:
Nonoba Payment naturally works really well with our other APIs, like our hosted multiplayer API for hassle-free building of flash multiplayer games. It’s already been used to build a bunch of great games, and we’re still accepting entries into our Multiplayer Kick-off competition, which runs until 1st of November with total prizes for $ 20.000 USD.

Visit our multiplayer section to learn more: http://nonoba.com/developers/multiplayerapi/overview

Flash Lite 1.1 Player Error Messages

While you finish the rest of your flash lite application, sometime you keep press Ctrl+Enter to check your application on Flash Emulator. Once you have problem with those, you will see any error message that will appear on the emulator.

This can help you to get away from more problem when you test on real handset. Like when I try to place movie clip into movie clip with loadMovie(url,"some_mc");, I found problem on it.


It is said :

Problem with content: 5 - Invalid ActionScript in SWF data.

So what is Problem with content: 5 anyway?

Adobe developer center bring solution with describe all this code problem.

Here's a complete list of the "Problem with content: number" messages you may encounter, listed by error number:

1. Out of memory
2. Stack limit reached
3. Corrupt SWF data
4. ActionScript stuck
5. Infinite AS loop
6. Bad JPEG data
7. Bad sound data
8. Cannot find host
9. ActionScript error
10. URL too long

Usually after the Flash Lite 1.1 player prompts you with a message, you need to exit the player, relaunch it, and open the SWF file again.

PDF File for Quick Learning 4 Ways Menu

While you doing an application in Flash Lite with 2 way or 4 way navigations,you will need a brief guide about it. It will guide how to create a key catcher button,create and use a key catcher button, creating a simple menu using movie clips,create a simple menu using movie clips,handling button events, create a button event handler script.

I love all this things all wrapped out by simple .pdf file. You may have it by free. Just go to this link , click smallpdf icon with "FREE DOWNLOAD THIS TUTORIAL" on right side.

You will have a pop up window, then you know how to download this file.

Xuinet FlashR Developer Challenge Launched

Last few days ago, I got an email from Esther for the Xuinet team.

Here the content :

In conjunction with Adobe, Millennial and DeviceAnywhere, Xuinet is leading the search for the best in class mobile Flash application. $10,000 in cash and prizes are up for grabs for the most downloads and best in the following categories:

o Blogs, forums and social networks
o Fun-n-games
o Images/slide-shows
o Sports
o On-the-go-travel, weather, news, etc.

To participate, Flash developers simply download the SDK at www.xuinet.com, create their content and publish it to the Xuinet network to enter before November 3, 2008. Further details on the FlashR Developer Challenge can be found at www.xuinet.com/2008FlashR.

Random Welcome Screen

I love tricky way to generate random frame to be stopped. For example, you have frame 1-10 with different movie clip on it. So,whenever user click a button,they will get surprises with different welcome screen.

Here we go.

on (release) {

// Sets the number of digits in the random sequence:
var mySetting = 3;

// Creates a random number:
myNumber = random(mySetting)+1;

// Checks to see if it is repeating itself:
if (myNumber == myTemp) {
// If it is repeating it generates a new random number:
myNumber = random(mySetting)+1;
gotoAndStop(myNumber);
// Continues as above:
if (myNumber == myTemp) {
myNumber = random(mySetting)+1;
gotoAndStop(myNumber);
if (myNumber == myTemp) {
myNumber = random(mySetting)+1;
gotoAndStop(myNumber);
if (myNumber == myTemp) {
myNumber = random(mySetting)+1;
gotoAndStop(myNumber);
}
}
}
}
// Displays the random number:
myDisplay = myNumber;
// Resets the variable to the new random number:
myTemp = myNumber;
}

Thanks for Phil Sculz for sharing this.

Bvlgari In Action

Last week,I met my friend who visited bandung, and show some cool wallpaper on his Sony Ericsson Phone. First, I was so amaze with his screensaver,which is running a new type of Bvlgary newest collection over in Japan.

While I saw this,I try to open his menu. What a great phone. I heard the have many application for flashlite. Games,menu, also all develop by flash lite. So i try to imagine what will flashlite do next. Not only in Japan,but also here in Indonesia.

Free Download Flash Lite Wallpaper

Have you seen what minutebio.com guys doing with Flash lite? they did great.I like its presentation of creating analog clock wallpaper. Specially Edgar Allan Poe wallpaper with clock.

It has simple presentation, but one thing is cool : Analog clock with the image of Edgar Allan Poe's ghost appearing and disappearing depending on the hour, minute and second. You can download here.

This because they create a movieclip that directed by fscommand2 GetTimeSeconds, GetTimeMinutes and GetTimeHourss.

Streaming Live Video with Flash Media Server

Having thought of using Webcam and compile it as part of Flash project? Student of Tom Green do. In fact, you should come and see what he doing to make it happened.

What we need, just do the following:

- Use a webcam and Flash Media Encoder 2.5 to create a stream.
- Use the FLVPlayback component and one line of ActionScript to feed that stream into a browser.

There are 6 articles for this :

Part 1: Installing Flash Media Server 3
Part 2: Streaming video with Flash Media Server 3
Part 3: Using ActionScript 3.0 with Flash Media Server 3
Part 4: Streaming audio through Flash Media Server 3
Part 5: Security features in Flash Media Server 3
Part 6: Streaming live video with Flash Media Server 3

Interesting huh? go and get it via Adobe Developer Center.

Flash Lite UI Component Examples

Here are some nice and lightweight components directly from the Experience Design team at Adobe Mobile and Devices.

What will you get from them:

* Discover how to create low memory yet rich components
* List, Slider, Tile, NavModel and Gapper components for Flash Lite 2.x/3.x
* Carousel, Menu, Story and scroll bars in Flash Lite 1.1
* Key Handling for Flash Lite 1.1 and Flash Lite 2.x/3.x
* Image Handling, loading and unloading etc (TileMenu)
* Creating device UI and multi-screen applications (NavModel)


Grab this here.

Bvlgari Stop Watch Timer

Today, i just realized that some analog watch use smallest hand just for stop watch guide. It is different than other watch, which use 3 kind of hands for pointing hour, minute and second.

Please check Bvlgari with Calibro 303 series. It has 3 small circles on it. The lower one is pointing second hand. So it will be little hard to create small Flash Lite screensaver with different purpose as usual.

So, we need to create small stop watch function as part of watch working. To help, we need to use function GetTimer().

time1=getTimer();

Also we need to put 3 buttons on the stage, start, stop and reset. In layer called action script, we add this code : stop() on frame 1, /:time2=getTimer();/out=/:time2-/:time1; (on second frame), and gotoAndPlay("count"); (on third frame).

On Start Button, add this code :

on(keyPress "1"){
/:time1=getTimer();
gotoAndPlay("count");
}

On Stop Button:

on(keyPress "2"){
gotoAndStop("full");
/:time2=getTimer();
/:duration = /:time2 - /:time1;
/:output = "Elapsed Time: " add /:duration;
}

On Reset Button:

on(keyPress "3"){
/:output="0";
gotoAndPlay("Stopped");
}

Thanks for Phillip Lam for great tutorial articles.

C905 : First S/E with Project Capuchin support

In todays newsletter of Sony Ericsson they have announced/mentioned the first mobile phone which supports the Project Capuchin API. It's the SE C905 phone with Flash Lite 2.0, FM tuner and a 8.1 megapixel camera.



What is Project Capuchin?

Sony Ericsson's Project Capuchin technology is a Java ME API and associated tools that define a bridge between the Java ME and Adobe Flash Lite programming environments.

This API and soon-to-be-available tools makes it possible to use Flash as the presentation layer and Java as the application logic, meaning that Flash tools can be used for UI design while still having access to all the phone services available to Java ME.

The tool packages the Flash content together with the Java application logic into a Java Archive, JAR file, hence allowing the resulting application and package to be treated and managed as a Java application re-using all of the existing Java infrastructure available on the phone and provisioning backend.

Project Capuchin takes advantage of Flash's strengths in fast UI deployment and well established designer tools, meanwhile Java's strengths are in services, security and a well developed distribution infrastructure.

Device Profile Update #6

Flash are listening to their user. Based on community feedback and data from their partners, they just released the Device Profile Update #6 for Adobe Device Central CS3.


Picture taken from : http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/devicecentral/features/.


There 63 new device profiles, it would be great option to publish flash lite application. Not just the profiles, it also includes important improvements to existing profiles.

So how many devices profiles you can select? almost 460 over!. And what would a Nokia N95 8GB user love to hear is, it now allocating 4mb heap memory. Get here for update.

Acrobat 9 with Full Flash Player Built In

Acrobat, a genuine name all people known as Adobe product, now has a full Flash Player built in. I think it just about time, when Adobe acquire Macromedia, many Adobe product support what Macromedia's offer.

And so is Adobe Acrobat with latest version, Acrobat 9. Let's say if I working on project with several document, like word document, PDF, Flash file, you can combine it all together as a single PDF portfolio. Thanks to PDF Portfolios feature, that make it all happened.

While you working with Microsoft Office Word 2007, with Adobe Buzzworld all be possibleto be online word processor that can read and write in the new docx format.

I believe the upcoming Adobe Reader 9 will be intgrated with Acrobat so you can share PDF files on web with easily.

Fully Hosted and Free Multiplayer API

This post title sound really good. But it is true, you may host and use free multiplayer API without any cost.

Thanks to Nonoba.com informed me by email about their feature. They have been working with multiplayer flash games on their own server technology for a long time, and during that time a lot of flash developers and companies have approached them for access or licensing of that technology.

The API supports the full range of multiplayer games, from simple turn based games to more complicated real-time games. To show these capabilities, they have released a new, and in their opinion, awesome game called Nonoba Racer. They have also ported some of our old creations to act as examples in the SDK, such as Fridge Magnets, Multiplayer Asteroids and DrawPad.

They are announcing their first big game competition with $20.000 USD in prices and a first price of $15.000 USD, for the best game to be built on the Multiplayer API.

Sign up for beta access at: http://nonoba.com/developers/multiplayerapi/signup, and get more info at:

http://nonoba.com/developers/multiplayerapi/overview

Astro, Adobe® Flash® Player 10

I have not lucky yet to give Adobe Flash 10 a try. I do believe it has more power to present better application. It come to be great experience to see its new expressive features.



It even have a code-name for it, Astro. From what I have heard from official site, some of the key features is easily transform and animate any display object through 3D, the ability to Create and share your own portable filters, blend modes, and fills using Adobe Pixel Bender™. Maybe you have heard Pixel Bender as Hydra, which can use as a filter factory, a way to create effects just in time. The combination of using the graphics card to do the calculations and not the processor come as great aspect.


You can check the release note for more information.

Opera Mobile 8.65 Support Flash Lite 2.1

Opera Opera Mobile 8.65 comes out with Flash Lite. The newest version, 2.1. It would help not just cell phones, but also portable media players and game consoles to run Flash Lite application on their devices.

New Features for Opera Mobile 8.65

* Support for Macromedia Flash Player 7 for Pocket PC
* FlashLite 2.1
* Text Wrap in Desktop Mode
* Grab and Scroll (only applicable to Pocket PC)
* Web search in address bar
* Save image
* Copy text
* Send link as email, SMS or MMS
* Import Bookmarks from Pocket Internet Explorer
* Desktop Mode as default viewing mode

For download Opera Mobile 8.65, you can access their offical site at http://www.opera.com/products/mobile/products/.

Get Updated With Flashmagazine on Twitter

I do enjoy my life by Twitter. It's a micro-blogging platform that let's you stay in touch with your friends and colleagues. And it is true, you can keep update what your friend doing recently.

And now I also can read Flashmagazine, my favourite website through it. Thanks to Flashmagazine that allow reader like me to see any new information. You can check this URL : http://twitter.com/flashmagazine.

Mine, http://twitter.com/edittag, now following many interesting twitter's account. Yesterday, mybloglog also follow me story via my twitter. What a nice to know each other through it.