I'm a little late on pointing this out, but its worth repeating it here again anyway.

Last week, Adobe released a couple of new templates for your Flash 8 IDE to address the latest changes in how Internet Explorer addresses active content (i.e. Flash). With the latest update, IE users have to actively allow your Flash movie to play. The Flash Active Content Update Extension will help in building new sites that avoid this problem.

If you're looking for help in adjusting existing HTML pages, check out the Active Content Developer Center. And for information on the problem from the browser side of things, check here.

Macromedia has released the first update for the mobile templates you find in Flash 8. This is important to note, even if you aren't currently developing for mobile. The update means more devices are becoming available on the market that support Flash. More devices means more screens on which to show your content. The more screens, the more viable the market for your content is. Macromedia has been touting the mobile market for the last two years. This may be the year that it becomes a reality for American developers.

[via Bill Perry]

This really would have helped when I made my full Flash wedding site, but at least now I can start promoting full Flash to synagogues all over. FlashRTL adds right to left language support to all text areas (dynamic or not) in a Flash project and makes it possible to build Flash-based sites for all right to left languages like Hebrew, Arabic, Persian and more. The developer is offering the package of ActionScript classes for free to the public. Because the package was originally developed to display Persian, the classes may require some editing to incorporate into your latest project.

via John Dowdell

Latest Katrina update: Local paper Gambit Weekly has shut down indefinitely.

FDT was just released as version 1.0 on August 22 and is now available for download and a 30 trial. The Eclipse plug-in allows hardcore coders to jump into Flash via ActionScript 2’s object oriented design. The plug-in features live error highlighting, advanced code completion and a great JavaDoc style pop-up plus a lot more. The code completion tool works similar to the code hints in the Flash IDE but pops up possible ActionScript as you type more like the code hints in Dreamweaver’s source view. The JavaDoc feature allows a developer to quickly scan large groups of files and read all formal code comments (always comment with stars, /**…*/) while hovering over methods, types and variables throughout the code. I also like the Flash Explorer feature that allows a coder to view their project as a full overview where they can easily change classpaths or even run various organizational actions. If you currently use Eclipse or if you just use a regular external ActionScript editor feel free to test out this new plug-in.

via the FlashCodersNY list

Today I was trolling the web looking for information about XML and components and came across an interesting list of tutorials not really about the relationship of those two things but covering XML, CSS, and image loading in Flash, plus a couple good Flash 8 how-tos and even a little video. NWebb is a full featured flash blog, portfolio and experimentation site for a European Flash guru whose extended Flash knowledge will help even the newest of the new get into Flash and quickly get up to speed. As you scan through his tutorial list make sure you try out the latest BitmapData how-to and learn a little Flash 8 before it comes out.

sIFR is web-element that uses JavaScript and Flash to create rich text for the web that is dynamically created based on the offsetHeight and offsetWidth of the text elements. Since it uses CSS to find the text to replace, sIFR is able to meet W3C standards by being suppressible via stripped style sheet. The web-element uses Javascript to discover if the browser can run Flash and then to hide and replace all identified for change text. A small SWF is created with the text to be replaced and then sized to the exact height and width of text element to be changed. The latest version creates the Flash text at a small font size and then scales it up to a size to fit the element. The key thing to remember when you use this is the big what if the user doesn’t have Flash. According to Mike Davidson (who created sIFR with Mark Wubben), You need to try to make you text look similar to the Flash via your CSS. Basically don’t leave your section headers as regular sized text to be replaced with huge titles. The non-Flash browser will destroy the look of the site in this case. Also this is accessible because the Flash is only replacing text in the same way a style sheet could replace text elements with images. So a screen reader should just see the page in the normal way, but a regular user will see the Flashiness. The developers of this technology have really thought about their users. They worked with the Firefox Flashblock developers to make the Flash not show up for Flashblock users. sIFR even has a best practices recommendation. The gist? Don’t use this to replace all text, just section headers. Also designers should be wary of using this to create links because Flash takes away some browser functionality when used for hyperlinking.

sIFR if free to head over to the link below to download and check it out. The zip comes with an FLA that you can open and edit to add you own fonts and make changes.

The Studio 8 update comes with a few changes, including the end of the Flash standard or professional choice. Studio 8 will only be bundled with professional and designers who don't need the full package can choose to only buy the stripped down Flash Basic 8. Flash Basic has only a subset of Flash 8 features available and is meant as a starter Flash that will allow everyone to get animated. Basic does not include Flash Lite (Flash for cellphones, smartphones and pdas) export support and has stripped down video manipulation capabilities.

I think the seperation of Flash Basic from the studio package creates a non-developer option for bloggers and vloggers who want to start creating their own Flash but don't need the full Studio package. Plus younger designers will be able to step into Flash early and then step up to a professional package later on.

Time for a visual display of that wondrous Del.icio.us cloud. Stamen has created an open source Flash display that allows you to see all the popular Del.icio.us bookmarked pages one week an a time. You can click on each color-coded link or even see how links have lost or gained popularity in the last week. There is even an option to step back through the history of the popular bookmarks to compare them. While you’re checking it out click on the select links below the display to view highlights of each link’s popularity over time.

via ishbadiddle and the Social Software Weblog

Yahoo recently announced the release of the Yahoo! Shopping Web Services API. The API gives the developer direct access to product search, catalog listing and merchant search formulation. The bundled development kit includes code samples in Perl, Phyton, PHP, Java, Javascript, and… (drumroll please) FLASH.

Before you break out that dev kit check out the services examples and notice how easy the Flash integration must be. Each web service call returns an XML formatted page that any Flash developer can tell you will be readable and parse-able via ActionScript. Finally a web professional can create a professional online store for relatively cheap via Yahoo! that uses a Flash front end to wow users and clients. Hopefully Homestarrunner will re-code their store in Flash and I will be able to buy my beloved Strong Bad shirts directly from Bubs.

via O'Reilly

PointeCast is a PowerPoint plug-in that allows non-developer users to export their presentations to Flash format or SWF files. This seems like a great idea, until you visit the publisher's site. First off, the product is to expensive. There is no reason a simple plug-in for an Office application should cost $299 or more. Second, the publisher says that Firefox and Internet explorer are Flash enabled in the announcement press release. Sorry but Flash player is a independent program that includes a browser plugin that is installed on something like 97 percent of all computers in the world, but the two web browsers you mentioned do not need to be installed with the plug-in and by default give the user the option to install them minus Flash. Now we don't trust the publisher anymore. Especially when we consider the third problem here. PowerPoint has an option to Save as Web Page. Sure exporting the Flash would be an awesome idea, but why do i have to pay more to do so than the cost of the original program and why shouldn't I just save for web without the plug-in? Or why not just export to video and then convert the video to Flash format (SWF)?

via Bill Hartzer

The third Macromedia developer relations podcast drops a mentions of a new cool feature for the coming Maelstrom. Flash 8 will feature a ExtrenalInterface class for ActionScript that allows a developer to enable external programs to call functions in their Flash project. It also allows ActionScript to make calls to those external programs. This means that Flash projects created for Flash player 8 and later (Maelstrom+) can call Javascript without the use of the Flash JavaScript Integration kit. The podcast even mentions the possibility of having a C# program call a function in an embedded flash file and vice-versa. The FlashCoders Wiki has more information on this new feature and even a code snippet to show exactly how to use it.

The Yahoo search blog announced the winners of the Y!Q Challenge recently and I immediately started think of ways to integrate their implementations into a Flash project. Y!Q is a dynamic search implementation that pops a layer over your webpage with a short Yahoo search of related content. The documentation and APIs are freely available online.

Why not take that Y!Q information and load it into a dynamic Flash project instead of a CSS controlled layer. Then you could control the view of the content and possibly create a scrolling search layer that has a limited height and width. Or, considering Y!Q is controlled via a JavaScript library file, your Flash project’s text could call the Y!Q HTML layer into existence via the Flash and JavaScript integration kit and float it above your site content.

The tips box offered up this gem and I finally got a chance to check it out. Moodle is an open source CMS for education that is similar to the Blackboard application my university used. It allows student and teachers to communicate and distribute course related materials via an online members only bulletin board or forum system. Jamie Pratt and Timothy Takemoto got together and designed a Flash Activity Module to add to the Moodle interface that allows Flash project to be uploaded and displayed. Now teachers can create simple Flash-based learning materials, upload them and give their student and opportunity to view extended notes and content from their course. What’s great here is you don’t need to fiddle with PowerPoint to view that important presentation on Historical Geology because you can view to whole this inside a streaming Flash file with optional sound and true interaction. Check out the demo at the link.

Yahoo announced today they had bought Konfabulator and will be giving it away for free to all who want it. Konfabulator is a background application tool that allows a user to run small application widgets composed of simple JavaScript, XML, and images in a background layer of their operating system. This application is mimicked by the current Dashboard feature of OSX Tiger 10.4. Unfortunately developers can’t wrap Flash projects inside of widgets, yet, but there may be a good reason for this. Apple’s Dashboard discouraged use of Java, Flash and Quicktime due to their memory use. Conceivably adding a Flash project to a widget could slow a user’s computer to a crawl (given there would be more than one widget running at a time and possibly multiple large Flash based widgets devouring the computer’s memory). So let’s think of a different way to accomplish your Flash widget ideal. Create a simple widget with a thumbnail of your application in it. Clicking the thumbnail opens the Flash project in a new sized web browser via the JavaScript within the widget. Use the SharedObject class to keep track of the user’s interaction in the Flash project and enable a close window command when the user switches to another window or application. Unfortunately now you have an application that doesn’t stay open. Maybe the user could have a keep window open option? Of course all of this maybe moot because the Konfabulator developer has stated in his forums that embedded Flash is currently on their requested features list.

via downloadsquad

If you’re using Firefox and love extensions you need to get rid of Greasemonkey for a little while, or at least upgrade to the new stripped down version 0.3.5. All other versions of Greasemonkey contain a flaw that “allows any website which matches at least one user script (even * scripts) to read any local file on [the user’s] machine, or to list the connect of local directories.” As you can imagine this is extremely dangerous and can make your computer and network very insecure. The security bulletin applies to all types of computers: Mac, PC, and Unix.

This reminds me of the security issues Flash had right after the release of Flash player 7 including fixed buffer overflow problems and domain name spoofing. Macromedia was able to quickly turn out a security fix and although a large corporation doesn’t make Greasemonkey I’m sure they will be able to do the same soon. So remember, this doesn’t mean the end of the very useful extension that can add any JavaScript you want to any website, it just means a security update is coming.

For updates check out the official GreaseMonkey page and our sister blog, Download Squad

via theofficeweblog