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Adobe released an update to the FLVPlayback component (v2.5.0.15) for Flash CS4 and Flex 3.

Excerpt from  Kevin’s blog. Go there for more detailed information

Today(22-may-09) we released two free tools; the new DVRCast application for Flash Media Interactive Server 3.5, and an update to FLVPlayback component. You can find them both on the Flash Media Server productivity tools page: http://www.adobe.com/go/fms_tools/. You can read more from a new article from David Hassoun posted here: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashmediaserver/articles/live_dvr_pt2.html

DVRCast uses existing technology built into the server, DVRCast extends the server functionality with abilities to manage metadata, start and stop and scheduling of DVR-enabled streams.

Adobe  has updated the component to support DVR functionality. We now support this component in both Flash Professional CS4 and the Flex SDK.   The current version is FLVPlayback 2.5.0.15, and is included in the DVRCast download.   You can also download it separately.

So finally Flash CS4 gets it’s much deserved update, I’m glad some of the mayor bugs on it seems to have been solved according to Richard Galvan’s post, One of those bugs ( The Bad Fonts Problem) made us  scratch our heads and our hard drives (by formatting them ) at Grupo W, and thanks to the efforts of  Adobe’s Flash Team it’s solved now  here’s a little excerpt  of Richard’s Post:

Adobe Flash® CS4 Professional (10.0.2) addresses a number of performance issues. Some key fixes are:

• Fixed a performance issues when dragging objects on stage, scrubbing the timeline, or entering symbol edit mode in large AS 2.0 and AS 3.0 files.
• Fixed a performance issues when opening large files or files with many nested symbols.
• Fixed a performance issues when working in the library such as scrolling, selecting items in the library, dragging item to stage, or editing symbol from library.

It also addresses several crashes involving creating a text fields on stage and opening specific files with corrupted fonts.  The font issue was causing many people to suffer crashes because Flash was not handling inappropriate or corrupted fonts very gracefully.

Hurry up and download the update here !!!

And The complete list of Fixed Bugs on this release WOW  lots of things fixed :

Bugs fixed in this release:

• AS2 Doc Crashes CS4 when buttons not rendered correctly
• Auto Format beaks the code if encounters ++ or — with an array inside if statement
• Clicking through movie clip with large preview takes long to select in the Library in AS 3.0 file
• Scrubbing and pressing Enter to play timeline is not smooth, slower in AS3 documents
• W and H of instance incorrect after frame 2 if apply tween to instance with filter
• 3D tools appear incorrectly to a child movie clip when applying skew and rotation to the parent 2d movie clip.
• Changing W/H for nested 2d>3d movie clip from PI does not work. After scrubbing the hot text, it snaps back to the original size.
• Dragging from Library to Stage is slow in some files in CS4
• Selecting items in the library is slow in CS4
• Scrolling the library (vertical scroll bar) is slow compared to CS3
• In a FLA with lots of library items, double clicking a symbol “in the edit mode” hangs Flash on Mac.
• Library contents explode CS4 memory (CS3 sits at 75M)
• Performance issue with Stagecore (AS 3.0 fla) – scrubbing, moving, altering objects.
• Object visibility is compromised when created inside empty groups in AS 3.0 fla files.
• Double clicking symbol or symbol name in library hangs Flash; library contains a lot of items
• Text with device font disappears when it is selectable
• Component parameters don’t work for scenes greater than scene 1
• Selecting frames with textfields is a lot slower if the Components Inspector panel is opened
• Empty maskee incorrectly renders mask invisible rather than visible
• Crash when opening a  fla that uses a font symbol whose name was identical to the Postscript name of the underlying font and the font is missing
• Optimize a section within a shape leaves gaps in the shape
• Optimize opening and closing FLA files, frame manipulation for FLAs with many frames
• Win only: Crash on exit when the text field is in edit mode and clicking X button to quit without save
• Compiler errors when opening “Air Settings” while adl still running.
• (screens) timeline playhead can’t scrub and jitters when playing anything that spans frames
• gotoAndPlay(”framelabel”) compiles differently in CS3 versus CS4
• Scrubbing the timeline and selecting frames is much slower in CS4 than in CS3
• Crash when creating a text object on stage when there are corrupted fonts
• Graphic symbol looping setting changes when apply color effect to instance in PI
• Files with lots of nested clips suffer from performance issue (file open) in Flash CS4
• Edit in Place of 2d objects which has 3d movieclips nested inside is not functioning correctly.
• Edit in place is slow for complex instances in FP10 documents
• Breaking apart a nested movie clip erases instance name of child movie clip
• Efficient calculation between keyframes so dragging is faster and generally makes people happier if spans are long and complex.
• AS3 Components not compiling correctly when using the Component Definition dialog
• Window Only: Flash crashes when double clicking a fla to open while a current fla is opened with text block selected
• Can’t interact with Flash because modal dialog is up, but hidden behind the workspace when switching between applications
• From crash reporter: crash on Mac when double click to enter symbol edit mode (when the black dotted rectangle is drawn)
• Mac IDE flashes when right-clicking on Library after doing Test Movie
• Performance is slow after double clicking movie clip to enter edit mode and exit
• Setting an instance’s width and/or height to 1 makes W and H hot text unusable in the vertical PI.
• Hot text in the Vertical PI for X, Y, W, H displays only 1 decimal point while edit field displays 2
• Export image: Dimension values in Export dialog and Vertical PI do not match which is misleading to user.
• Crash when selecting text field on stage with many fonts on user’s system.
• Text PI is stuck and some controls on the PI are not drawn with certain fonts on user’s system
• The JSAPI that allows users to publish FLA files without opening them was inadvertently removed when the Project Panel was deprecated.  fl.publishDocument( flaURI [, publishProfile] ) is added.
• “Export classes in frame” behavior is different in CS3 than in CS4
• Drag and drop large nested symbol from library to stage hangs Flash
• Dragging from Library to Stage slow on subsequent drag or after scrubbing the timeline
• Scrubbing and pressing Enter to play timeline is not smooth, slower in AS3 documents
• W and H of instance incorrect after frame 2 if apply tween to instance with filter
• Large amounts of text nested in a symbol causes performance problems in non-AS3 documents
• Playback in authoring is not smooth (playhead skips frames), cannot stop it when hitting enter, eventually hangs and takes long to respond (both AS 2.0 and AS 3.0)
• Performance Creating Exported Symbol when the classpath contains lots of files and folder
• Create ease, undo after first edit removes ease
• Selecting and deselecting raw shape after convert to symbol spikes memory and/or crashes
• FLA crash on open when fonts loaded
• Mac only: User input resets to previous setting when attempting to change any value in Vertical PI input area
• Accessing a Windows SWF after it has been moved or deleted crashes Flash
• Crashing when re-opening FLA after canceling publish
• Crash in test movie when running a file with video and filters

I recently got interviewed at OdinJobs by Carl Williams for the careers blogs section of the site.

I found out that  Anand Vardhan who is a fellow  developer specialized in Rich Internet Application development. got interviewed there as well.

The interview was called Right Brain, Left Brain Approach to Adobe FLASH, and guess who’s got the right brain approach.

There we talk a little of  how the creative side and technical side of the Flash Platform get mashed together.

Check it Here

A little about OdinJobs:

Odin collects jobs from job boards, corporate websites, groups etc. At last count Odin is collecting over million jobs from 50,000 companies.

To fulfill the key part of our mission – get the “Right” It job, Odin features a matching technology that sifts through all the jobs and selects the right ones based on your qualification, experience and preference.

Instead of using keywords and displaying 1000’s of weak to irrelevant jobs, Odin employs language processing and artificial intelligence to determine the fitness of a job for you and shows you only the right ones.

We want you to find the right IT job. We want to make your search easier and faster and more relevant.

A new API for using  Google Analytics Tracking in Flash/Flex projects this API is developed in ActionScript 3.0 and can be used as a component or called in your ActionScript code, Google Analytics Tracking for Adobe Flash seems to solve a lot of troubles and the needed workarounds for making consistent user tracking in your Flash projects, keep reading for a more detailed explanation extracted from the implementation overview.

The Google Analytics Tracking for Adobe Flash component makes it easy for you to implement Google Analytics in your Flash-driven content. This component contains all of the functionality of the Google Analytics Javascript code, and is 100% compatible with the latest ga.js tracking code. The Flash Tracking component is a compiled tracking object native to ActionScript 3, making Analytics implementation intuitive in Flash, and Flex development environments.

You can develop Analytics Tracking for Flash in either Adobe Flash or Adobe Flex environments. Each environment requires a different component, which you can download from http://code.google.com/p/gaforflash/. These components are based on ActionScript 3 and can be set up in one of two ways for each environment:

In Adobe Flash

• Add and configure a simple component in the component inspector and drag it to the stage.
• Import the Flash Tracking libraries directly into your library and start coding.

In Adobe Flex

• Include an MXML component that you configure from am MXML file.
• Import the Flash Tracking libraries into your script tags/AS3 files.

How to use the Component in Adobe Flash

In order to use the Flash tracking component in your environment, you either use the visual tools inside Flash, or you set up the tracking object directly in your code. Regardless of whether you are setting up the component visually or via code, you provide the following elements:

• the web property ID—This is also known as the UA number of your tracking code and looks like UA-xxxxx-yy, where the x’s and y’s are replaced with the numbers that correspond to your account and profile information for the object you are tracking. See Web Property for more information.
• the tracking mode—Choose either bridge mode or AS3 mode. This mode determines how your tracking communicates with the Analytics servers and is described in detail below.
• the debugging mode—No matter which environment or tracking mode you use, you can turn debugging on to validate and test your tracking.

Installation for Flash CS3

Before you begin to use gaforflash to add Analytics tracking within Flash CS3,
you first need to add the gaforflash SWC to Flash CS3.

To do so:
1. If you have Flash CS3 currently open, quit the application.

2. Navigate to the location where you unzipped the Google Analytics zip
and find the swc (e.g. lib/analytics_flash.swc).

3. Create a “Google” directory in one of the following locations
and copy the SWC file there:
- (Windows) C:\Program Files\Adobe\ Adobe Flash CS3\language\Configuration\Components
- (Mac OS X) Macintosh HD/Applications/Adobe Flash CS3/Configuration/Components

Flash CS3 is now set up to support Google Analytics Tracking For Adobe Flash.

Alternatively if you want to use gaforflash in code-only mode
you can do the same as the above and add the lib/analytics.swc,
you will then need to drag the “AnalyticsLibrary” component in your Library.

Installation for Flex Builder 3

Before you can compile your code, you will need to link it to the gaforflash SWC file.

To do so:
1. select Project->Properties.
A Properties dialog box will appear for your project.
Click on Flex Build Path and then select the Library Path tab:

2. Click Add SWC… within the Library Path pane.
An Add SWC dialog box will appear.
Navigate to the location where you unzipped the Google Analytics zip
and select lib/analytics.swc file and click OK.

or

Just drop the analytics.swc file into your Flex project /libs directory

Here’s the link for the Google code project

The gaforflash direct download

More info on the API

Flash CS4

The new version of Flash has arrived along with the rest of the creative suite applications, this version of Flash comes with many  enhancements and it seems that Flash designers and Animators are going to love this version, for developers it’s not fresh news because they been able to download and test the new capabilities of the Flash Player 10 Beta from Adobe Labs.

To give a more detailed review I will have to test it first but here are some of the new features: