Projects
Compile Timestamp – Timestamp your SWFs!
- Compatibility: ActionSctip 2.0 / ActionScript 3.0
- File Size: About -Kb
- Change Log
Description
Compile Timstamp is a Flash extension that adds a new layer to your fla with a trace of the filename and compile timestamp. Used with FlashBug, this allows you to easily check the version of your online swf. This was created because the servers we used at work often cached our files on multiple servers. So it was difficult to tell which version we were actually looking at.
Sample
Try Compile Timestamp (You will need to FlashBug open to see the trace)
#### index.fla - 01/17/2008 11:46:39am
Features
- Seamlessly adds a timestamp to your SWF when published
- Contains the time, date, and name of the FLA
Black Box – Flash Secure Login
- Compatibility: ActionScript 3.0
- File Size: About -Kb
- Change Log
Description
BlackBox is a Flash-based login application. We built this much for the same reasons Comet was. We didn’t have anyway of doing a secure (read SSL) connection so we made our own next best thing. Whats funny is that in the end, the method we “ingeniously” came up with is almost the exact same method used with POP servers to send email.
This is an older project pulled from Labs and is currently password protected. This might change later, it might not. I wouldn’t hold your breath on this. This was made becuase a friend of ours worked at a company that didn’t allow any IM programs and we were too cheap to setup a server.
Features
- Secure login – Session based
- Easy to setup
Comet – Flash-Based Chat
- Compatibility: ActionScript 3.0
- File Size: About -Kb
- Change Log
What’s New
- New black theme
Description
Comet is a Flash-based chat application. It is a stand-alone application and does not require a server application in order to function. It does require PHP 4+ to function though.
This is an older project pulled from Labs and is currently password protected. This might change later, it might not. I wouldn’t hold your breath on this. This was made becuase a friend of ours worked at a company that didn’t allow any IM programs and we were too cheap to setup a server.
Features
- Muli-user chat without backend server
- Easy to setup
- Secure login
Flashbug – An extension for Firebug
- Compatibility: Firebug 1.05 (Firefox 2), Firebug 1.3, 1.4
- File Size: About 45Kb
Download from Add-ons for Firefox
Please post any requests/bugs to the comments, thanks!
What’s New
- Fixed regex expression for urls
- Fixed regex expression for urls in xml
- Fixed multiline XML with blank lines from AIR apps
- Fixed multiline XML traces not showing up
- Can now open the log file directly
- Read SharedObject
- (For Firebug 1.4+) Read AMF/Remoting Request Data – Not server Response, Firebug won’t have access to this possibly Firebug 1.6. Example: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/tourdeflex/web/#sampleId=13300;illustIndex=0;docIndex=0
Description
This will display any traces from any .SWFs running currently (in Firefox or outside of Firefox). All the traces are displayed in a Flash Console tab in Firebug. You can search using the search box in Firebug to highlight any matches. Another added feature is line highlighting and icons for errors, warnings, and info traces. Finally, for any urls that appear in the traces, you can right-click on them to open them in a new tab.
Like FlashTracer, it is required to have the Flash Player Debugger installed or you will not see any traces. Flashbug will tell you the version of Player detected on your system. If you do not have the Debug version, it will give you a link to download it.
Unlike FlashTracer there is no need to configure the flashlog.txt or mm.cfg files. This is all handled in the background by Flashbug so you can just get straight to working.
You can now open either the Trace or Policy log directly from Flashbug. This is to help allow people who want to either export or copy the raw traces directly.
Also new is the Shared Object inspector. This works by listening to all the SWFs that are loaded for the page you are on. It then checks based on the domain against the Shared Objects stored on your computer. If it finds any, it will list them in this panel.
Each row will list a Shared Object found, which you can expand to see the data stored within. You can also right click to open the file directly, if you have an editor installed. Or you can copy the path to the file, or even open the containing folder.
Finally, there is AMF decoding added to the Net Panel of Firebug. This is available only for Firebug 1.4+. If you visit a site that relies on remoting for data transfer you can now inspect the AMF Request being sent to the server. To do this, find the row in the Net Panel that is the AMF Request, and expand it. Once expanded you will see an AMF tab, clicking this will display the AMF message in it’s entirety for you to inspect. Please keep in mind this does not include the server *Response*. Currently I’m unable to get access to the binary response data. When this is available expect an update including that feature.
Features
- Utilizes Firebug’s built in search feature – When you search for any words in the logs, the words will be highlighted in real-time.
- Displays Trace logs – Displays the traces emitted from all Flash instances playing in any browser.
- Displays Policy logs – Displays the policy log traces emitted from the Flash Player. These traces usually occur when using cross-domain policies or loading assets from a different domain.
- Automatically setup Debug Player for logging – In FlashTracer you were required to manually configure the log file location. This is now handled automatically by the extension.
- Configure Debug Player settings – The Flash Player itself can be configured to trace out data differently. Those options are available in the preferences window.
- Trace filters – There are a few builtin filters to display your traces differently. If you want to trae an error, it will be traced out in red with an error icon. If you want to trace XML, using the xml keyword, Flashbug will format the xml in a readable and colored format. Below is the list of keywords currently built into Flashbug. In the future I plan on making this customizable.
- @@XML@@ : Formats it into ‘pretty’ XML with coloring
- @@HTML@@ : Same as XML
- @@INFO@@ : Displays a blue information icon to the left
- @@WARNING@@ : Background is a teal with an warning icon to the left
- @@ERROR@@ : Background is a light red with an error icon to the left - Built-in Links – Any URLs that are detected in the traces will be dot underlined. You can then right-click on them to open that URL in a new tab or copy the location to the clipboard.
- Read SharedObject – Read any Shared Objects associated with a page. You can inspect them just like object in Firebug.
- (For Firebug 1.4+) Read AMF/Remoting Request Data – View AMF data sent from the page to the server. Unfortunately viewing the response from the server isn’t available yet. When this is possible, Flashbug will be updated. I figured better to have half a feature than no feature.
Orion 2.0 Preview
It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything project related. It’s not to say I haven’t been busy, quite the opposite. One of the projects I’m ready to debut is the next iteration of Orion. I posted earlier about some of my findings in loop optimizations and this is the project that I learned them on. This is just a glimpse for now, I’ll be updating Orion’s page with the source and more details. Below is a comparison of Orion 1.0 versus Orion 2.0.
Orion 1.0 – 8.6k running about 1500 – 3000 particles at 30fps
Orion 2.0 – 6.7k running about 100,000 – 130,000 particles at 30fps
Edit: (Sept 22nd 2009) Turned off scaling on the 1.0 demo, and made some updates to 2.0 (it’s still a work in progress after all)