I have been a developer for nearly 20 years and a web developer for about 10 years. Over the years, I have considered creating a blog to share the things I have learned (and am learning) about web design and development, but I never seemed to have the time. When I began learning about web development using Ajax and Ajax Frameworks, I decided to take the time to create this blog.
My intention for this blog is to focus primarily on Ajax Frameworks, but since web development requires knowledge of many technologies, I will occasionally write about things such as CSS, Javascript, PHP, MySQL, Flash, etc.
Lately, I have been using JQuery as my primary Ajax tool. Although I have used other Ajax Frameworks in the past (Dojo Toolkit, Yahoo! User Interface Library, Scriptaculous/Prototype), JQuery has thus far been the easiest to learn. In my first few posts I will discuss some of the JQuery Plugins that I have created. Some of these include: a plugin for Google Maps (jquery.imGoogleMaps), Form validation and submission (jquery.imValidateForm), Page Populater (jquery.imPagePopulate), and a plugin to create lists (jquery.imList).
While I am still learning about some of the other Ajax Frameworks, I hope that what I have learned will be helpful to others. Just remember, “When you can pull the pebbles from my hand…”
I discussed the use of the gpUrlLoader Class in a previous post (see: AS3: A URLLoader Class). This class, part of my gpAS3Library, will load image, swf, text, xml, html, stylesheet, json, and sound files.
In this post, I will discuss how to use the gpUrlLoader class to load multiple images into a Flash movie. I used this technique when I created the gpFlashGallery (A free Flash/XML photo gallery).
In a previous post, I discussed the web 2.0 domain name generator and the web 2.0. color harmonizer that I created on web20.digitalvilliage.com. On the galleries.digitalvilliage.com subdomain, I created the gpFlashGallery, a free XML-based Flash Photo Gallery.
The gpFlashGallery is highly configurable via an XML file. Every aspect of the gpFlashGallery can be configured using this XML file (page color, thumb container dimensions and color, transition type, etc). The image information (location and optional title) is also stored in an XML file.
More information about the gpFlashGallery can be found on http://galleries.digitalvilliage.com. The files can be downloaded from GitHub.
BTW, the reason I named the subdomain galleries rather than gpflashgallery is because I plan to add to add other photo galleries there in the future. I created both a Dojo and JQuery photo gallery almost a year ago for projects that I was working on. Once I get change to document the plugins/widgets, I will place them on the galleries subdomain.
Let me know what you think.
I finally completed the redesign/development of my portfolio site (GreenScorpion.com).
This site was my first attempt at grunge design. I used Photoshop brushes that I downloaded from GetBrushes.com to design the site (and followed some tutorials that I found on SixRevisions.com and DesignHard.com).
I developed GreenScorpion.com using Flash/ActionScript 3 and Joomla (and a bit of JQuery).
For the portfolio display, I created a Flash Movie relied heavily upon the gpAS3Library and XML. I then used Joomla to create a component that incorporated the Flash movie. After the Joomla component was completed, I created a Joomla module based upon the component so that the Flash movie could be displayed in a specific area on a page (on the home page).
I need to add more to the site, but the portfolio part is done. I also need do something to create a more consistent color feel between operating systems. I created the design on my Mac, but I did most of the development on Ubuntu. The website is much darker on Ubuntu than on my Mac (I haven’t looked at it on Windows, but I’m sure that there will be a difference as well). But for now, I’m done.
When I converted the gpShapes class from AS2 to AS3, I wanted to be able to create shapes with web 2.0 type color schemes, but I did not want to hand code each color scheme in an XML file every time that I wanted to use one. So I created the gpColorSchemes class by duplicating a set of web 2.0 styles that I have in Photoshop. The gpColorSchemes contains 34 preset color schemes that can be used with any Flash/ActionScript application. I named this post Part 2a because I created this class to be used with the gpShapes class (Part 2), but the gpColorSchemes class can be used separately from the gpShapes class.
The gpAS3Library is a set of Flash AS3 utilities that I use when creating my Flash applications.
In Part 0, I discussed the gpUrlLoader class – This class will load image, swf, text, xml, html, stylesheet, json, and sound files.
In Part 2 of the gpAS3Libary, I will discuss the gpShapes class. This class is the basis for much of the UI that I create in my Flash applications.
When I created Flash applications with AS2 in the past, I loaded application information such as page color, button colors and sizes via an XML file. I used this XML configuration file throughout the application, but, because I hated manipulating XML with AS2, I always converted the XML into arrays as soon as it was loaded.
Now with AS3 and E4X, using ActionScript to manipulate XML has made flash application development much easier.
The gpAS3Library is, to some degree, an ActionScript framework (albeit, in the very early stages). I use most of these classes in every Flash application that I develop. When I decided to convert these classes from AS2 to AS3, I realized that I needed a global configuration class to store the XML data that I loaded from the server. And with E4X, I can now easily retrieve the information I need from the XML lists.
Although I named this post Part 1, I have already discussed one of the classes of the gpAS3Libary in a previous post (see: A UrlLoader Class). In this post, I will discuss the gpConfig class.
I have nearly completed my new portfolio site. I developed the Flash Movie on my Windows machine, but the rest of the development (Joomla, etc) has been done on my Ubuntu box. I’m using ActionScript’s ExternalInterface Class for this project. During integration, I learned that the Javascript code on Linux is a bit different than the code needed for Windows.
I came across an interesting problem the other day with regards to AS3 garbage collection. I assumed that when an object is removed from the stage, everything is removed, including event listeners. This is not the case. I created a carousel class for my new portfolio site. The carousel displays images for a specific portfolio category (web, business cards, magazines, etc). When the user clicks a link for a different category, all images for the current category are removed and then the new images are loaded. But when the new images loaded, I received the error:
Error #1009: Cannot access a property or method of a null object reference. |
After some testing, I found that the event listeners were not being removed.
I’m working on a portfolio site where I’m using Flash to display my work. When a user clicks on a link for a website that I designed, they will be taken to the actual website. But when the user clicks on the link for book cover or magazine, I want the large image to be displayed using lightbox (A JQuery Plugin). The primary reason is that I want to use lightbox is because the Flash movie has a height of 225 pixels – not nearly enough to display a large image. Surprisingly, with the help of ActionScript’s ExternalInterface Class and JQuery, creating this functionality was easier than I thought.
I ran into an interesting problem today when I attempted to remove all objects from the Stage. I didn’t realize that there was not an ActionScript method like removeAll (or something). After about a half hour of trying I was finally able to create a script that will remove all children from the Stage.
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