JSAPI Snippets Editor Extension

I made this little Flash Panel, that lets you edit and run simple JSAPI scripts. You can also save and retrieve the snippets.

There are a few things that I cam across when building this. First of all, I found the TextArea to be quite unreliable in how it reports the scroll position of the text. I found it much more consistent to go straight to the TextField object inside and use its events and properties. (I needed these to correctly display line numbers in the field). The other thing I found is that there is a bug in Flash which means that the Enter key is blocked from docked panels, so you really need to undock it to use it properly.

I made it because I thought it would be useful to me. Let me know if it is useful to you or if there is something I should add to it.

update: This is now available through the Flash Exchange. I have removed the download from my site, since it is easier for me to manage it in just one location.

guest post: Vera

Vera visited me for the weekend, so I thought it appropriate that she should post:

This is Vera Fleischer reporting live from Peter Hall's flat in London, UK. I am on vacation in Germany right now and decided to do a sub-trip to London to say hi to Peter. So far he has made lots of tea, taken me sightseeing to a few pubs, and made me laugh about once every 30 seconds. No complaints in the entertainment department.

Yesterday we went to see Aral Balkan and his wife Emilie. It was a lot of fun. Aral showed us some of the things he has been working on, such as Opal and the resurrections of What is Flash and aralbalkan.com. Then somehow we launched into a discussion about the seagulls in Finding Nemo. The debate was whether they say "Mine! Mine! Mine!" or "Mate! Mate! Mate!" Aral and Emilie were convinced that it is "Mine" since they only shout when there is food nearby. Peter and I insisted that it was "Mate" since the seagulls are Australian. Aral and I thought the issue important enough to go to the bookstore and find out. So we all went to the Finding Nemo section at Borders and looked at some of the Finding Nemo books.

Peter, Aral, Emilie

And wouldn't you know it, Aral and Emilie were right. According to one of the books, they do indeed say "Mine! Mine! Mine!" Now that that is settled I think I am almost ready to head back to Germany.

Flash extensibility in your workflow

Vera writes about how she could use the Flash extensibility layer to make the same Flash movie much faster. As her simple example shows, Flash's new JSAPI is not just for writing polished extensions for distribution, but can also be used directly as part of your workflow to relieve the tedium of repetitive tasks or to accomplish things that would be impractical to build by hand and too CPU-intensive to generate at runtime.

those crazy Swedish folk

I jut got back (around 2:40 am) from Malmö, Sweden, where I spent a long weekend in with Jer and his lovely lady. Far from giving me a nice rest, they have tired me out. From my short stay, the thing about Sweden, most similar to England, is that everybody speaks English; the most different thing is that ATM cards and phone cards go in the machines data side up. I will post some photos, maybe even some video of Jer in a drunken stupor, when I am properly functioning again.

Anyway, must sleep... I can't remember if I said I'd be at work tomorrow — I think I did...