The WCK framework is something I used recently on the Blackberry Playbook version my Susie Starfish app. Moving into the world of physics is a big step for any flash dev and I feel the WCK framework is a good way to get up to speed on some of the basics.
Moving onwards I wanted to be able to appreciate how the framework works a little more so I could begin to program aspects myself through pure code in a way that was more familiar to me than the Box2DAS port. My reasoning is that I just wanted to be a little more in control for when I come to memory management and the general interactivity of the project. The following code snippet is a quick example of a box falling onto the ground and firing off the events related to such an activity.
Having freelanced for over 18 months now I find it interesting to see how different companies work and the tools their development teams use. Here is a quick insight into some of the tools I use in my everyday Flash development work. These views are in no way advisory but offer an insight into the tools I use most often and most helpful in my work flow.
I received my free PlayBook a couple of days ago and wanted to share my own personal views on the device and development process. Now we all know this hasn't been the smoothest of journeys for these guys - with a lot of flack from developers...
First opinions of the device are good, looks nice, feels good in the hand etc. It's only after a little bit of use where the small things become apparent. Now those that know me will know I'm a bit of an Apple fan - I've had my issues with various Apple devices but for the inconvenience the rest of the package keeps me a happy user. Initial factors to note are the lack of email client (something that will be rectified soon) and I have noticed not all sites work on the device (e.g. The FWA). Being a Flash compatible device I was expecting the PlayBook to replicate web browsing on my main machine with a few usability limitations due to the the device's size.
A recent issue I ran into involved the stats tracking of a swf within a Facebook tab using the fb:swf fbml tag. Facebook's markup language doesn't allow you to include the .js files normally associated with many tracking frameworks. The simple way to get around this is to use Google Analytics Tracking for Adobe Flash. The component makes it easy to track page views and events as the business usually handled by your .js files in handled within the component itself.
Quick little tip for displaying the fonts you have loaded into your AS3 project. Once the fonts have registered run this small script to trace out the fonts available to your application.
var fontArray:Array = Font.enumerateFonts(false);
for(var i:int = 0; i < fontArray.length; i++) {
var font:Font = fontArray[i];
trace(“name: “ + font.fontName);
trace(“typeface: “ + font.fontStyle);
}
Over the last couple of days I've been playing with the Rich Text Editor component in Flex, however when trying to use embedded fonts the editor seemed to switch to a default font. It appears that if you want to want to use custom/ embedded fonts in your project you also need to include the default Flex font (Verdana) in your styles declaration.
The reasoning is that if Flex tries to use a font that is not embedded, it will automatically switch to the use of system fonts. By default the Rich Text Editor uses Verdana, so in turn if you don't embed or locate Verdana, Flex will ignore your embedded fonts and switch to default system fonts, now for the code...
Since leaving the guys at WAI in June '09, I have followed a more open working lifestyle. The last 6 months have been pretty awesome both professionally and on a more personal level. In relation to work I have been able to participate in a variety of exciting projects which have been more in line with the kind of work I wanted to concentrate towards. During this time I have been exposed to a number of topics I feel are important to anyone considering the freelance life.
One of the first questions many people ask be about my freelancing is how experienced and skillful they feel you need to be in order to become a freelancer. Skill sets are obviously fundamental to the work we do, and alongside an indepth working knowledge of your toolset, I've also learned to acknowledge how others work to produce the same results. When working at my previous agency, we did little more than use the Flash IDE with FlashDevelop with PureMVC as the framework of choice.