Tuesday, February 21, 2006
File Recursion
Ever wanted to get a list of all the files in a directory and it's sub directories? getFilesInFolderRecursively.zip
Saturday, February 18, 2006
Creating a "file type" for your application
Have you ever wanted to associate a file extension with your mProjector application -- i.e. launch your app when a user double-clicks a file of a certain type? Here's how to do it on Windows...
Friday, February 17, 2006
Alert / Toaster Popup Window using mProjector and Flash
Just finishing up a cool new sample -- an alert window application made with mProjector.
The app checks the user's status every 5 secs. When alertUser == true, it grows a window out of the lower right hand corner of the screen. It's a queak of some code I got from Dan Miller - thanks Dan :-).
Works great on the Mac too if you build it with v2.0.3 (shipping next week).
download: toaster (win exe) (code)
The app checks the user's status every 5 secs. When alertUser == true, it grows a window out of the lower right hand corner of the screen. It's a queak of some code I got from Dan Miller - thanks Dan :-).
Works great on the Mac too if you build it with v2.0.3 (shipping next week).
download: toaster (win exe) (code)
Friday, February 10, 2006
Why is my screen saver contacting the web?
Yet Undocumented Windows Feature ;-)
A lot of people are creating connected screen savers -- delivering dynamic content to the desktop. I'm a data guy and I love this.
One problem... more and more Windows users are installing personal firewalls that interfere with these well meaning dynamic screen savers causing the computer to locak up. The firewall pops an Alert window just after the saver launches. If passwords are turned "on", Windows will not let the user get back to the Alert window, computer locks up, and the user is screwed.
Our solution... the ScreenTime saver engine pings the Internet during installation, before the screen saver and firewall can lock up the computer. The ping occurs when the installer opens the Display control panel. We save the user's response (as "1" or "0") to a file named "ping.txt" in the screen saver's directory. If the the ScreenTime saver engine finds the file, it won't ping the Internet and saver is free to do it's thing.
If your saver is eye-candy and doesn't need to access the Internet, you can stop the ping by adding your own ping.txt file to the screen saver installer. The ping.txt file needs only one character -- a "1". Drop it on the "External Files" list box in the Content Panel, re-build your saver and you are good to go.
A lot of people are creating connected screen savers -- delivering dynamic content to the desktop. I'm a data guy and I love this.
One problem... more and more Windows users are installing personal firewalls that interfere with these well meaning dynamic screen savers causing the computer to locak up. The firewall pops an Alert window just after the saver launches. If passwords are turned "on", Windows will not let the user get back to the Alert window, computer locks up, and the user is screwed.
Our solution... the ScreenTime saver engine pings the Internet during installation, before the screen saver and firewall can lock up the computer. The ping occurs when the installer opens the Display control panel. We save the user's response (as "1" or "0") to a file named "ping.txt" in the screen saver's directory. If the the ScreenTime saver engine finds the file, it won't ping the Internet and saver is free to do it's thing.
If your saver is eye-candy and doesn't need to access the Internet, you can stop the ping by adding your own ping.txt file to the screen saver installer. The ping.txt file needs only one character -- a "1". Drop it on the "External Files" list box in the Content Panel, re-build your saver and you are good to go.
Fresh from the Lab -- Screen Capture Plug-in
A couple users have asked for screenCaptureToJPG functionality for Windows. Here is a beta version. Tell me what you think.
Capture Screen Plug-in
To use it do the following:
1) Put ScreenCapture.mfx (that's the plug-in) into mProjector's "Extensions" folder. The path will be something like:
C:\Program Files\ScreenTime Media\mProjector v2 build df\Extensions
2) Add the following ActionScript to your swf:
mScreenCapture.captureScreenToJPEG(filename, x, y, width, height);
If you pass "CLIPBOARD" as the filename it will save the jpg to the clipboard. The x, y, width, height params are optional. If you pass only the filename param you will get a grab of the entire primary monitor.
3) Compile it with the "mScreenCapture" plug-in checked in mProjector.
We've wrapped the MS CIMage lib to do this plug-in. Need anything else from CImage? Got budget ;-)
PS1 - I expect we'll change the name of the class to mImage when we release it.
PS2 - I think this version only works on the primary monitor.
Capture Screen Plug-in
To use it do the following:
1) Put ScreenCapture.mfx (that's the plug-in) into mProjector's "Extensions" folder. The path will be something like:
C:\Program Files\ScreenTime Media\mProjector v2 build df\Extensions
2) Add the following ActionScript to your swf:
mScreenCapture.captureScreenToJPEG(filename, x, y, width, height);
If you pass "CLIPBOARD" as the filename it will save the jpg to the clipboard. The x, y, width, height params are optional. If you pass only the filename param you will get a grab of the entire primary monitor.
3) Compile it with the "mScreenCapture" plug-in checked in mProjector.
We've wrapped the MS CIMage lib to do this plug-in. Need anything else from CImage? Got budget ;-)
PS1 - I expect we'll change the name of the class to mImage when we release it.
PS2 - I think this version only works on the primary monitor.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
mProjector Review
Flashmagazine.com -- " All in all a great update to an already great tool."
Application of the Day
"How to build an RSS Reader Quickly" -- a tutorial using mProjector. Cool. Thanks, Big Paw.
PS - The page looks a little weird because he's put ads right below the headline but keep scrolling and you will find the tutorial.
PS - The page looks a little weird because he's put ads right below the headline but keep scrolling and you will find the tutorial.
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
First Post
This is my blog. My name is Brian. I live in San Diego, CA. I've been spending a lot of time recently figuring out how to write desktop applications using Flash.
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