Dynamic Flash

I just couldn’t let this one slide. The image below is a screen grab of the language selection screen for Dabs.com.

Quite why they felt it necessary to give you 6 different interface widgets to choose between just 2 languages baffles me. Every single time I visit the site I find myself confused by what should be a simple selection, and every single time I’m surprised that clicking one of the radio buttons forwards me to the site. What are those other buttons for?

I don’t want to beat up on whichever poor soul thought this was a good idea, but they might want to consider a change of career.

Finally we have a proper online ActionScript 2.0 Language Reference to rival other languages such as Java and C#. I can’t begin to tell you how much time this is going to save me, every single day of my life. Oh, and you can download it as HTML for offline viewing too!

My one suggestion would be to include documentation for the whole of the mx package – components and the like. I know all that’s available through Macromedia LiveDocs, but using that system is about as painfull as having root canal work done without the anesthetic. Seriously, anything that makes 20+ page requests to view a single page of help is in need of an overhaul.

Still, aside from the small omission, this news makes me a very happy developer. Thank you, Macromedia!!!

[via Jen deHaan]

Download MTASC 1.10b OS X and Linux binaries here

Never one to be afraid of going against popular opinion, I have to say that I’m more than a little disappointed with Macromedia Flash 8. While we have heard all about the new features of the Flash Player, the only news that I’ve head about the IDE was improved stability and a properly functioning Library panel. I was hoping that Macromedia had a few surprises up their sleeve. I was disappointed.

One of the things that I’ve been secretly hoping for is a component set that’s on a par to the one that ships with Flex. I always felt slightly neglected knowing that Flex developers get properly working, sexy and efficient components. Those who bought Flash MX 2004 Professional had to put up with a component set that didn’t quite measure up, either functionally or aesthetically.

Unfortunately Flash 8 Professional only ships with the same V2 components that we got with MX 2004. Given the small increase in the minor version number (2.0.2.x vs. 2.0.1.x) I presume that the new ones have been given the once over, and for that I suppose I should be grateful. But it’s a hard pill to swallow when I was looking forward to layout containers and a Tree component that supports drag and drop operations, amongst other delights.

Another disappointment was the omission of a command-line compiler. With Macromedia conceding that most people are using external editors to write their ActionScript code, I can’t understand Macromedia not providing such a tool. It would take some killer features to make me switch away from MTASC for most of my Flash work, purely because of the productivity increases I get from a command-line compiler.

It’s not all bad, though. One positive I’ve found is that the IDE seems much more responsive on a Mac than its predecessor. I’ve only had a few minutes to play with it today, but I was very pleased with the performance here. Of course, it remains to be seen if it’s still as crash prone as its predecessor. And the new features supported by Flash Player 8 – particularly file upload – are going to make a big difference to the user experience for Flash applications.

In summary, whilst I’m pleased with the advancements made in the Flash Player, the new IDE offers very little. It feels more like a bug fix release than a major release, which I guess is the root of my disappointment. I rarely use the IDE these days except for creating the raw assets for my applications, and I can’t justify buying Flash 8 Professional just for that purpose. With MTASC I can take advantage of the new features and speed increases in the Flash Player and all the other benefits of the Flash Platform, but without having to pay over the odds for an upgrade.

Download MTASC 1.10 OS X and Linux binaries here

What’s new in 1.10?

• fixed small problem with class case and import wildcards
• added exclude wildcards and exclude without file
• changed TRACE in “trace”
• added AS keywords as real keywords (including deprecated ones)
• fixed parsing of objects and array declarations and parameters lists
• fixed escape sequences in strings and added unicode escape sequences.
• fixed && and || precedence.
• fixed duplicate public/static/private qualifiers.
• fixed for...in variable forced as String
• no more private and static fields in interfaces
• implemented field cannot be private
• better error when same file referenced several times.
• delete now returns Boolean
• fixed getVersion() in TopLevel
• fixed problem in class replace when not -keep and -mx
• changed -main : now in DoAction and not InitAction
• fixed stack corruption in new var(expr).
• fixed break with several stacked for..in
• disabled variables in interfaces
• added error message when several classes in same file
• changed switch implementation
• fixed typing of ?:
• fixed stack problem with for
• separate directory and add keyword hack for Flash8