Archive for the ‘Flash’ Category:
Force directed node interface 2
Here’s an example of the force directed node interface that I’ve been talking about. It’s not complete. It’s just a working prototype. You still cannot load project details, but I’m waiting to add that if I decide I want to take this any further.
Since the dimensions of the interface have been reduced to fit in this blog post, things might be a bit small (try zooming in). You can also drag nodes around. Helpful when things get pushed off the screen. Nodes can be opened and closed by clicking on them.
Force directed node interface
I’ve been working on the experimental Flash front-end I spoke about in the last post. The idea is to use a force directed or force based system for displaying categories, keywords, projects and their relationships. I was curious about what kind of user experience that would create.
Here’s a video of the force directed layout interface in action.
So, what is a force directed layout?
It is a method for positioning nodes of a graph in a way that is aesthetically pleasing as well as easy to digest. This is accomplished by creating a simulated physical system where all nodes are like electrically charged particles (Coulomb’s law) and the connections or associations are like springs (Hooke’s law). After running through thousands of iterations, the entire system begins to become stable until all the forces are in somewhat of an equilibrium.
Fig. 1 Interface with only the category and technology nodes expanded.
Fig. 1 is a screenshot of the layout. In this example there are only a few nodes expanded, but it gives you an idea of how things end up looking. There are two base nodes: “Category” and “Technology”. Clicking these returns the appropriate set of subnodes. The association of these subnodes is shown with a line connecting the child and parent node. When clicking on a specific technology keyword or category, that category/keyword subnode expands into another set of nodes which are projects.
Fig. 2 Interface with more nodes expanded
Fig. 2 shows the cross associations between categories and keywords.
So far it’s been a cool and somewhat successful little experiment. I’m not sure it would work as an interface as the node labels overlap too much and when there a lot of cross associations, things don’t look as organized and it’s much harder to read.
I still need to add node collapsing and make it so projects can be viewed. I’ll try to post a working example soon.
PHP5 + JSON + as3corelib = a beautiful thing
I’ve decided to play around with an experimental front end for viewing projects in Flash. Since I OOPified (yes, that’s a technical term) the site and modeled the data, all of my objects can be easily serialized into JSON strings and passed back to the front end. Then using the as3corelib’s JSON classes, I can deserialize those objects and blammo. So much easier than having PHP output XML, then parsing that XML in flash, and then creating objects from… yeah, that sucks.
So I’ve got all of my stuff coming back into Flash in a format that’s really easy to consume and use and did it with very little work. I like that.
If I wanted to pass back a project object to the front end. I would make a request that would execute something like the following in PHP:
$prj = Alien109DAO::getProjectByPageRef($_REQUEST['p']);
$key = Alien109DAO::getKeywordsByProjectId($prj['id']);
$results = ProjectFactory::createProject($prj, $key);
print_r(json_encode($results));
First I get the project from the database. Then I get all of the associated keywords for that project. I then pass both of those results as arguments to my ProjectFactory which is a static class whose primary job is to just return a full Project object. Then the object is serialized, and returned in the response.
In Flash, in my event listener, I simply deserialize the JSON string back into an ActionScript object using the as3corelib’s JSON decoder class.
private function dataLoaded(e:DataReadyEvent):void
{
var projectObject:Object = JSON.decode(e.data);
...
w00t!
Free web based imaging software
Aviary has recently released another web-based application. Raven, which is still in beta (all of their applications are. that’s so web 2.0!), is a web-based vector editor. Their product suite consists of four applications at the moment:
- Peacock – a visual laboratory
- Raven – vector editor
- Phoenix – image editor
- Toucan – colors watches
Peacock is kinda cool. Image generation is done by patching together generators, effects, controllers and resources. Fun to play with, I must say. Pretty amazing use of Flash. Pretty cool to have this sort of development going out there…
The products, at the moment, are all free to play with. Go check ‘em out: http://aviary.com/
Flash is (or is not) coming to the iPhone
Somewhat of a sore spot for Flash and iPhone developers, the hope that the Flash player would make its way to the iPhone is still very much up for debate. A recent quote from Adobe CEO, Shantanu Narayen, has some left some believing it’s very much on its way and others thinking it’ll never make it.
“It’s a hard technical challenge, and that’s part of the reason Apple and Adobe are collaborating,” [Adobe CEO Shantanu] Narayen told Bloomberg Television at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “The ball is in our court. The onus is on us to deliver.”
Some claim the Flash Player could never be written in a way that would sit well with the ARM processor. The power requirements of running such an app would be too much for a mobile device. Others have said it’s a political/business decision on Apple’s part.
Who knows. I just hope it finally makes its way to the iPhone platform. I think it would open development up to a lot more people that don’t feel like trying to wrap their brain around Objective C. Apple still has very strict control over what applications make it to the iTunes store, so the concern about quality of apps shouldn’t be an issue.
I personally feel that it’s more political than anything else. But, I’m a cynic.
8BitBoy – Andre Michelle
Karsten Obarski invented 1987 – twenty years ago – the MOD format for his Ultimate Tracker running on Amiga computers. Since then, countless songs are created, especially for the demoscene.
MODs have special attributes. All samples are stored in 8bits and the number of voices is limited to four. To have something similarly to chords, the three notes of it are repeated very fast. This makes MODs sound so freaky.
Finally 8BitBoy brings those songs back online.
Saffron UML in AIR
Saffron is a pretty slick looking and powerfull UML modeling tool built on the AIR platform. Can’t wait to see the final release!
Top features:
- Wireframe editor allows both developers and/or designers to create wireframes for their projects
- Allows for Actionscript 2, Actionscript 3, PHP4 and Java Code generation directly from the app.
- Sports an entirely customizable UI which contains several dock-able panels that can be placed anywhere by the user.
- Enterprise level capability having the ability to support models with hundreds of classes without performance degradation
- Beautiful UI
- Integrated Version Control
- Sophisticated printing options give you complete control over how your diagram is printed
- Cross Platform on both OS X and Windows
- Full round trip support for both AS2 and AS3 (Java will soon follow), always keeping your model and code in synch every step of the way.
Wicked Pissah Games
Check out Bit-101’s new project Wiked Pissah Games. There’s only one game so far, but I expect good things to come.
Onslaught 2
This game is a total time suck! Prepare to get nothing done today 
iPhone advertisement remix
BIT-101 Wins an Emmy
I love seeing this. Credit where credit is due. Congrats to Keith.
http://www.bit-101.com/blog/?p=1037
Project Tracker – Apollo Application
Nifty and useful little Apollo-AIR-whatever you want to call it app.
http://www.withincode.com/ProjectTracker.air
Moock’s EAS3 Now Available
Colin Moock’s Essential Actionscript 3 is now available. You can order your copy here.