Just thought I'd post here because I took down my Japanese blog a while back when we changed servers.. and haven't got around to getting it back up.
On the site we manage for Japanese dev/des peeps (MediaCreator.jp) I've managed to get up a couple of AIR tutorials. One is the install procedure for the runtime and SDK and one is making a quick SWF application from a previously made SWF. Pretty much just showing how easy it is to put together apps in AIR.
Installing AIR and the SDK here
Making an app with the SDK here
Just a quick question here. Was going to just respond by email but thought that just maybe others might search for the same thing.
The question: Can I execute an external command or program from main.asc?
The answer:
Nope. The best you have for something like this is loadVars to load a web page that may have server side code in it to run a command. Flash Media Server alone on the server side can not run an external program.
Which sucks.. and a lot of people have made requests for this. Maybe we'll see it in future versions.
Lots of questions coming through lately, I'll try to keep up. Here's one that has no good answer unfortunately but may be good to know for others if they are thinking to do the same thing. Two questions here:
The question: Is there a command or a way to trim an FLV audio stream at a particular location? and, Is there a command to append or combine two audio streams without replaying them and recording them into a new stream?
The answer:
The answer to both of these questions is an unfortunate no. The only way to trim up an audio only (or even a file with audio and video) is to record that stream again to another FLV and just stop it where you want it cut.
Which leads us to the next question on combining two streams. This would sure be a nice feature if FMS could do it. Combining streams into one would be quite cool but I don't expect it in FMS for a while. Again the only way to combine some streams is to play one server side and record it to a new stream (you could just append to one of the files I suppose if you don't need to keep it as is) and when that stream finishes playing then just play the next stream and append it to that new stream.
I sorta covered that topic here.
I suggest for these items to make a request to the FMS team themselves from here: Adobe Wishform
This question actually comes up quite often on mailing lists and forums. I thought I had addressed it in the past here but it seems I didn't. Perhaps at a seminar or something...
anyways,
The question: How do you detect when a user loses connection to the media server via network connection loss?
The answer:
Lucky for this person there just so happens to be a new thread started up on flashcomguru.com's site.
Thread is here (detecting ungraceful disconnects)
Making a long story short for this blog entry, because the answer is in the post on the forum, FCS and FMS have had this problem since it first came out and hasn't quite been addressed in any updates. There supposedly were some improvements made in that area in the latest update but I've never tested because I have found that the workaround code (there are a few out there) works just as well.
Here is another post on the forum too just in case. It's a bit of an older one and covers more on keeping a client alive when they go idle or for some reason get disconnected for no particular reason. In a way, they both are the same type of problem.
A couple of posts back I was commenting on how slow MXNA is for me. Nothing has really changed even though I did take some advice like looking at only categories or smart feeds. It still is fast only on the first page or two and then it just gets dog slow. So much that sometimes I can wander over to get a coffee, come back and it's still trying to read in some data. I'm really curious as to why the first two pages only are fast and the rest aren't.
Anyways, I was reminded of Feed Squirrel actually. Our blog is on there and we do have a banner link on our blog but I had completely forgotten. They are aggregating over 1200 feeds and the site is fast. Nice, I think I'll use it much more often to keep on things.
I thought I'd just toss that out there in case there are others that are feeling the pain of slow MXNA and want to get their blog fix and aren't sure where to go.
Going through my emails, I found this lost and forgotten question that I had mostly likely thought to answer when I got a moment. Well.. now that it's almost midnight I think I have a moment
The question: Is there any way to get debugging when the application itself won't load?
The answer:
The good news first. Yes there is.
The bad news, you have to look through the logs to find where the issue is.
In the past with FCS 1.5 and the admin panel that was used with it (which in fact you can also use with FMS2 for this particular purpose), the debugging panel that showed the traces in the application would stay open even if the application failed to launch properly. That way, you would be able to see traces to see where the problem was.
In the case with the new admin application for FMS2, when the application shuts down, the application panel in the admin app would just close. This in turn doesn't let you see if there were any traces that might indicate where the problem was.
Unfortunately the only real way to debug FMS apps is to use traces.. it sucks, but that's another topic all in itself.
So the application logs are all sitting in the install directory of FMS in the logs directory. You will want to look in the application00.log for the latest stuff. In there shows everything that you have been looking at in the admin application panels.
So that's it.
I'm kind of curious as to how many people visit Adobe's MXNA blog aggregator. I mean, the actual page for it. My experience is that the first page loads really well, the second page a bit slower, the third is crazy slow and most of the time the fourth page and on never load.
Should I be viewing MXNA some other way? Like an RSS aggregator or something? Is it just the web version? Could it be a browser issue (doesn't seem to matter though if I use firefox or IE)?
Being that MXNA just never seems to work beyond the 20th to 30th entry (and there are a LOT of blogs being aggregated so new stuff goes by fast) I almost always just go to fullasagoog. But I can't tell the last time Geoff updated it with a new blog, it doesn't seem to get new blogs.. but I could be way off.
Anyways, any advice on the MXNA thingy would be great if you happen to have some. Thanks.
Well, slightly (very slightly) old news but Apollo is now going to be called AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime). Kinda neat. To top it off they're now going to run around North America in a bus..
Check that out here of course.
Anyways, that's pretty cool and I'm glad they can make it to Vancouver (the only city in Canada they can make it to) and I'll be there hanging out at the bar they'll be at.
This is a good question about Flash Media Encoder that has just recently popped out from Adobe. If you happen to have Flash Media Server, then this is free to use with it.
The question: How can I interrupt a stream from Flash Media Encoder to FMS and put in place a previously encoded stream?
The answer:
This isn't as difficult as you would think it is actually. The deal with the Flash Media Encoder (FME) is that you can publish to FMS. FME publishes straight to an application on FMS and then subscribe to it from any client side. Even though the encoding side (FME) needs the special player because it's encoding VP6 video, the Flash player can actually just play that natively and of course FMS can stream it natively.
So that's a bit of background.
What needs to be done is a bit of coding on the client side to play certain video streams based on what an "administrator" tells them to.
So the order of business would be so:
1. Create a SWF that takes orders from the admin side on what stream to play.
2. Create the SWF that gives the orders to all the clients to tell them what stream to play.
3. Setup FME to encode to a specific application that both the admin and client side connect to. Obviously setup the stream name to something static.
Now, to make this as easy as possible I think that no server side code is needed. You could just use a shared object. So, the admin side would set a value that would be the stream name. The client side would get the update that the SO has changed, or when they first login they could grab that value, and then just subscribe to that stream. Whenever that value changes by way of the admin side, the onSync method runs on the SO and each client changes which video they subscribe to.
This way, you would be able to change from live to saved FLV's rather easily I think.
That's about it.
On a side note, I've just chatted with a DevNet Adobe person and it looks like maybe I can write an article about this and post it up there. Could be useful? If so, then I'll write it out, but I suppose if there aren't any votes for it then it might just get tossed off to the side as something that just may not be required or wanted in the community. So let me know!
***Update, see bottom of post***
Use this at your own risk but I know I am and will for both computers I have here.
Here's the deal. If you happen to have a Japanese OS, Adobe seems that it would like it's software to recognize that even though you have the english version of the software installed (japanese version hasn't even shipped yet) it wants to default the input to Japanese IME. Very inconvenient because nobody really codes in Japanese. Maybe some comments of course but not the coding.
This kinda SUCKS.. to put it bluntly, and I have no idea who made this decision. But I'm going to go ask next week when I'm down in Adobe HQ and have a quick chat with that person :)
Anyways, there is a way to fix it. You have to mess with your registry settings (I couldn't find anything within the applications menus or prefs).
This is only for windows by the way, no idea if Mac computers have the same problem.
Open up the registry by running regedit. Head into:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Adobe\Flash9\Settings
In there is a:
UseJaZhIME value and it is set to 1. Change that to 0 and restart Flash. All should be good now :)
Now.. how do I fix Fireworks, Photoshop, Dreamweaver and all the rest??
***Update..
It only seems to work the first few times or something. Not sure what is happening but I'm still looking into it.
***Update 2..
Looks like that the registry setting does nothing. Let me try to explain why I was confused.
There are two ways to open Flash. One is by clicking the flash program in the programs list and the other is by double clicking on an fla file. I was doing one or the other but not just one of those.
That makes a difference because I'm using the trial version of the software and the trial screen doesn't come up for a few seconds. In those few seconds I can type normally in the actions panel which made me think it was now fixed, then when the trial screen comes up and I press "next" it then spits me back into flash where I'm now being forced to type in the Japanese IME. So, it seems the culprit is the trial screen. One of things that confused me was when I would open flash and start a new document, the trial screen comes up before I get to the actions panel (but not so when I open a document directly). Now I'm not sure what the above setting does because it makes no difference within flash.
So there you go.. trial screen is the bad guy. Now I understand why this wouldn't make it to the bug base during beta testing. Nobody is using the trial version during beta testing.. everybody gets a serial number.
hahaha.. I can't help but laugh at this silly creation of mine.
That's my cat, I made him sit on a green screen while I played with this fuzzy ball above his head.
Anyways, go ahead and mouse over him if you can:
Well I finally got around to installing a few CS3 apps (the release versions) and I like what I see. I can't say the installation process was difficult in anyway but cripes did Dreamweaver take forever or what? Even Photoshop went in faster than DW.
Flash, Fireworks, Dreamweaver and Photoshop so far. I'm really liking the direction fireworks has been taken. I was wondering if it would get squished under Photoshop's heavy boot but it has scampered to the side and is making good on it's word to do well in this world. I have a feeling I'll be relying a lot less on my overworked designer for doing flex apps design which is great.
Anyways, I haven't bothered buying the software yet because I'm waiting for the Master Collection to come out. I was kinda hoping to settle for a lesser version of the suite but it just so happens that I need them all.
Anyways, nice job Adobe! apps are looking good. I can't wait to mess with them all and see what new stuff can be created.
Actually, what I'm really looking forward to hasn't be released yet. After Effects, Premiere, Ultra (very cool) and OnLocation (very cool too). What a package of stuff there! Should be a lot of fun.
Too bad Audition got kicked out... what did Audition ever do to Adobe to be shunned from any and all suites? *sniff* poor guy. There's a new guy in town called Soundbooth now. Somewhat easier to use (dumbed down) than Audition but I say just add them both in and make everybody happy. Either way though, doesn't look like Audition is getting an upgrade just yet, that and it's Windows only.
Speaking of that, Premiere is Mac and PC now! Good stuff.
Well, sometimes some people ask me what the heck I do when I'm not building tons of flash and FMS stuff. So I thought I'd post a few interesting things that I do that also tie into the flash and FMS stuff :D
One of the things I'm doing is helping a friend build a 26' wooden boat. It's a catboat actually. I've gone ahead and put up a blog about it and been posting in it for the last couple of months.
http://www.periwinklecatboat.com/index.cfm
This blog currently runs on Coldfusion 7 by way of Ray Camden's CFC Blog. Thanks Ray for making such a great blog program. It certainly serves it's purposes for what we need.
The video was all done with one of my video cameras, a Sony TRV-30, and then pulled into Premiere 2.0 where I added the title then off to After Effects 7 to add any effects and the captioning. I thought about doing the captioning with Flash, but decided a more graphic approach looked better. In the case that I wanted to put the videos on a DVD the captioning is now done too.
The video player is of course done with Photoshop and Flash. Unfortunately due to lack of connection count I can't put the FLV's on FMS, so that is progressive, works fine though.
Anyways, building a boat is a pretty cool thing to get into I think, but not something I might start from scratch myself.
So if you are interested in wooden boats and boat building or even what the heck I am up to in my spare time, then head on over and check it out. Lots of information and good fun.
Do you work with Flash stuff, make cool apps or games or whatever? If so, then Adobe wants to hear from you. Here's the request:
***
Adobe's customer research team is collecting an assortment of SWF
content. We are looking to get a wide range of content for a variety of
purposes so that we can better understand the types of projects people
are working on, and better support those projects that are not always
posted on the web. We are especially interested in uses of SWF beyond
web sites and advertising - such as (but not limited to) presentations,
e-learning, character animation, prototypes, games, rich internet
applications, etc. We'd also like to get representation of a variety of
skill levels, so feel free to submit your project even if you are not an
ActionScript user.
For every 50 submissions we receive, we will select one at random to
receive an Amazon.com gift card for $50 (US dollars). You can submit as
many projects as you like!
For each submission, please send the following to
flashresearch@adobe.com by July 6, 2007:
*Your SWF or a link to your project or a screenshot of the project
*A brief description (3 to 4 sentences) describing the audience and
purpose of the project
*Descriptive tags to categorize the project's content and purpose - Use
as many or as few tags as you like, and feel free to make up your own.
Some examples tags are included below.
*Percent of all your projects that are SWFs
*Percentage of time you spend writing ActionScript
*Percentage of time you spend using the timeline
*Your name
*Your job title and company
*Your phone number (so a member of the Adobe's customer research team
can contact you for a quick 15 minute phone call if they need more
information)
Please feel free to forward this message to others who might be
interested or post it on your blog.
We are looking forward to hearing from you!
Adobe Customer Research Team ~-~-~-~
***
I know we've got a few for sure that we're going to send off. Amazon, here we come! (hopefully)
I have a Wii.. I have Flash too.. This looks very cool:
Although their site is super slow I recommend waiting for stuff to show up because it's a pretty cool start to getting the Wii Remotes to work on your PC.
I haven't installed it yet, but I think I will next week to see if I can get something working. I must have been living in a closet to not have heard about this, seems to be around for a bit now. Enough that they are on v0.3. That's only 0.7 away from being a v1.0 Beta. :)
I also happen to have two remotes. I wonder if I can get this demo working.
Here are the docs if you're curious as to what is available to the flash player.