Courtesty of thebadtiming.com. It seems that the Japanese crowd is a little unhappy with MM Japan's site. No surprise there really.. I don't know how many times I've gone there thinking that something looks like crap (fonts are off... size is too small... can't find something). Good to see some voices on this.
I truly wish that MM Japan would take a better look at what they create, instead of just copying MM USA. The fonts are way different, and there are some things you just can't fit in the same space that you can in English (and vice-versa).
There are also some comments on the quality of the translations. I've seen this with Colin Moock's books too in the reviews on Amazon Japan. Supposedly a couple of guys in MM USA did the translation but from the reviews.. they aren't very good.. which sucks for Colin, because his two books RULE. I can't wait till the next one. The subject of translation from English to Japanese does come up a lot, and I really really wish that MM would get in more quality checks on these things... it's extremely important I think and should definitely take precedence.
First off, I have to say I am quite disappointed in the performance of FlashMX2004. I'm a dev'er so most of my work is in the actions panel and it is soooooo irritating to work in, due to the sloooooowness of it. *Especially* typing in Japanese. And when it gets over 150 lines of code or so, it's just not even worth using. Now I'm sure there are a few of you out there going "Did you install the updater?".. well, I just bought Studio MX2004 the other day so it should be the updated version, and it does say 7.01. Which brings me to a quick point about MM's Japanese online store... it sucks. I couldn't buy the upgrade. I even went ahead and registered (which I've already DONE on the US one) but no go. It kept telling me that there was no upgrade download version.. 20 mins later...I ended up going to the US/Canada one. Now I have to pay Visa's exchange rate on the USD.
Either way, for ANY major apps I work on, I have to go back to MX just because the actions panel sucks so much.. what a bummer. I do actually like the look of it though, and the data components rule! Though I'm not sure when a project that uses them will come in. Going to have to make something up. :) All in all.. performance sucks and I'm really looking forward to the next update (if there is one).
Moving on to Dreamweaver, I have no complaints whatsoever. This is a great upgrade in my mind. It looks good, clean, ..the buttons are a bit different and having the tabs on top threw me off for a bit there, but the performance is great, and I was actually pleasantly surprised to see all the pages that I had up when I closed Dreamweaver in a hurry when going to have dinner, and coming back to open Dreamweaver and they're all there. Nice touch.
I haven't messed with Fireworks yet just because I'm more of a Photoshop kind of guy, but I really like the inline (what is that word they use in the intro's on MM's site?) editing feature. It was good in MX, but seems much better in MX2004. For basic stuff I use Fireworks, so my tute pages are going to get that much easier to mess with.
I can't say I regret buying StudioMX2004 mainly because Dreamweaver has got just so much better, but if I were to rate it on Flash... Could it be my drivers? Don't other people have the same problem? I did hear from a fellow flasher that "FlashMX2004 rox!" so I'm assuming this shouldn't be a problem.
On a last note, has anybody noticed the difference when using the mouse scroller in the actions panel, and in the main panel when editing an .as or .asc file? I like the movement I get out of the actions panel, but the main one increments by like.. 0.5 of a line for every click my mouse scroller makes... quite weird.
If anybody has any tips for me on getting better performance out of the actions panel.. please post in the comments if you have a moment.
One of my regular activities at the office is creating Flash content for the Docomo 505i/505is and 900i series of mobile phones. I am rather lucky (or cursed) to have access to all (17) of the handsets for testing. While the Flash players for the various phones are all basically the same, the hardware specifications are not, so, what works on one phone may crash the browser of another. Sounds similar to developing for any platform I guess, however the phones are far pickier than their Pocket PC/PDA mobile cousins.
When creating Flash Lite content for the Docomo phones there are a lot of restrictions and idiosyncrasies that you have to learn to work within, or better yet, exploit. While it is fairly easy to stay below the file size limitations (20k for the 505i/is, 100k for 900i), tolerate the 8-10fps and avoid unsupported Actionscript (think flash 4 with limitations), the biggest issue is system resources. As you all know, Flash does not have a monitor for system resources and the various FP players will pretty much take whatever they can get their code on. While not generally an issue on desktops and notebooks, it is a huge problem for mobile devices, especially in phones that lack the processing power of Pocket PCs and PDAs. This is one reason that the phone simulator should only be used for the most basic testing and otherwise be avoided. While it provides a way to test screensize and basic interaction, the simulator has the full resources of the computer at its disposal, so does not realistically portray how a movie will play. To be perfectly honest, I NEVER use it, but I understand that many designers/developers have no other choice, so it is better than nothing.
Another issue that serves to complicate matters is the lack of details given by the phones during error reporting. It consists of basically three message (I know I am simplifying things here).
1. The file is unsupported
2. The file is too big.
3. The file (image) is not functioning correctly
While number 1 and 2 are easy to solve (export as flash 4/lite, make the movie smaller), number 3 is the BIG ONE. This can be anything from misbehaving Actionscript to the phone hanging on processing the number of vectors present. I have found that more often than not, it is an issue of resource availability. Through extensive testing (coupled with a good share of cursing in English and Japanese), I have found a good way to pinpoint if it is an issue of resources and how to detect potential problem areas during development.
The Bandwidth Profiler is your friend.
When testing Flash Lite movies, I set the bandwidth profiler to show the Frame by Frame Graph and to mimic a connection of 2.4kbs. (This is not to portray how the file actually loads when online, because the phones download raters are much faster.) While running a movie, look for spikes in the bandwidth usage above 7 kbs, especially in a movie that has any animation, much Actionscript or is entirely vector. A single bitmap that causes a spike is not as big an issue, as the phone is not having to process vectors, although there is a whole other area of problems associated with bitmap graphics (something I will try and write on later). These are areas that will make the slower phones crash due to a lack of resources. Generally 6-7kbs is fine, but over that and you are asking for trouble. A way to double check if it is resources is see where the animation encounters an error on the phone. If is corresponds to a frame with a bandwidth spike, you most likely need to stagger the graphics over a few frames. Below is a “real world” example of a project I am doing right now.
The project is a Flash “machiuke”. Basically this is an animated desktop/standby screen for the phones. The piece in question is fairly simple, with only a small amount of animation and no scripting beyond a stop().When our testers ran it through all the phones, it encountered problems on almost all of the 505i/is handsets (I do direct testing on my 900i during dev, which tells me they actually increased the phone specs in the 900i series and not just the file size of SWF supported). It weighs in at 13 KB, so file size is not the issue.
I opened up the file to see what might be causing the problems and it seems I was a bad little designer and have it all in one frame, causing 13kbs to be processed all at one time, in an entirely vector design. I got sloppy due to a tight deadline and multitasking on projects and only focused on file size. Bad me! Bad Designer! No cookie! (Sorry, lack of sleep and all).
So, what I did was spread the three main elements out over three frames. Background and border load in the first frame, one animated element in frame 2 and the second animated element (a character) in the third. This dropped the bandwidth consumption to just over 4k per frame and it runs with no problems on all the phones.
Hope this helps someone out. I will try and post more on the topic of Flash Lite design and development in the future, but until that time, feel free to contact me with any questions.
Kris
As I mentioned in my last post, I was looking to post something new this weekend on "Central in Japan". Well, it finally happened, after some major studying, testing and writing... *whew*
I have found the best way to become good at something is to 1. Do it. 2. Teach it. So that's what I did. I built up 5 tutorials on Central (for the beginners of course) and at the same time started work on a new app, that I actually wanted to get out a long time ago that would be standalone, a mini application/site for my current community site that I have up. I kept thinking it would be so cool to be able access the site without having to even open up my browser. So far I have the forum entries coming into the Central app and they are browsable. Unfortunately I haven't got any farther yet, like being able to post from Central, and I still want to get a tutorial and download file search, and live chat section up. In the future I can imagine adding in a section where I'll teach a group of people live (with FCS), should be fun to build.
I put up a poll last week on Central, here are the results so far out of 42 people who have entered the poll:
Central:
1. is something I really know - 10%
2. I've heard of it, and am interested - 19%
3. I've heard of it, but am not interested - 5%
4. I've heard of it but.... - 19%
5. Never heard of it - 48%
As you can see... Central isn't well known yet in Japan (my site gets over 1000 users a day so I think it's a pretty good judge of Japan's des/dev guys and gals).
So, what tutes did I get up you ask (I'll link them for any of you that understand Japanese)?
1. The basics on Central - what it is, how to use it, good and bad stuff
2. About the product.xml file - what it is for, how to edit it and why
3. Making a basic app - making, publishing, writing the product.xml file and posting/installing
4. How to use notices - how and when to use them, engaging, closing
5. How to open/make a pod - how to make them (both ways), and why
And of course my app :) Though it sucks still... so don't bother if you don't have time to blow on nothing.
I've got quite a few ideas for some future tutes but I need a break from Central for a bit. I think I've read the documentation at least 10 times in the past week and am tired of testing... but will most likely get back on my app soon as it is sitting at version 0.3....
Got a forum up to support the tutes too, so we'll see what questions come in about Central (or if they don't come in..).
So this puts the number of tutes on MM's products alone at 70! Holy crap... and for some reason, no matter how many times I ask MM Japan to link up to the site as a resource for MM products they won't do it.. even though they say they will... I can't figure it out, blows me away (MM can only gain right?). ah well.. I do have to say though, that this has been a great experience, and I can now say from that experience what I would like to see new/changed in Central instead of working off of just info or other people's comments.
Yes, you don't see so many of these anymore. Mike's moved on to more flash and Flex posts, even though he says "I can already do that stuff in Flash".... are MM employees supposed to say stuff like that? ;) . David seems to be running a bit low on new material but he's got an idea for a contest, if you have any thoughts on that, make sure to post in his comments if you can. ash's last post on Central was about 3 weeks ago! what's going on guys? Last but not least, be sure to check out John Robinson's new FCS admin app. Very impressive stuff! You can find that in the app finder.
I've been messing with central quite a bit lately and have found that even if I can't make money off of it yet, I'm learning a new way to get apps up and running in a new environment. This is good in itself as it is so easy to get into a pattern/style of development that may be good, but can be made better by trying out new and different ways to produce apps. I recommend to any that do develop to at least check out what Central can do and code up a couple of apps or so. Pretty interesting stuff if you have the time to spare.
I should have some more interesting news coming up on "Central in Japan" in a day or two so will hold off on half-posting here right now.