Course Vector

Flashbug – An extension for Firebug

BETA Channel Update – 1.6.4 RC2

• RC1
• Better error message when unable to clear log file
• Correctly Clear log file
• Fix mm.cfg location on setups where My Documents is placed different than default
• RC2
• Fixed mm.cfg location on Vista (regression)
• Fixed Ubuntu Trust File
• Updated Player Version display

What’s New

• Fixed SharedObject discovery bug
• Fixed Mac OSX mm.cfg location, for real this time

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.

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/Response Data – View AMF data sent to and from the page to the server.

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Tags: debug, firebug, flash, html, optimization

Notes: CSS StyleSheets

Note: A text field with a style sheet is not editable. In other words, a text field with the type property set to TextFieldType.INPUT applies the StyleSheet to the default text for the text field, but the content will no longer be editable by the user. Consider using the TextFormat class to assign styles to input text fields.

Flash Player supports a subset of properties in the original CSS1 specification (www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS1). The following table shows the supported Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) properties and values, as well as their corresponding ActionScript property names. (Each ActionScript property name is derived from the corresponding CSS property name; if the name contains a hyphen, the hyphen is omitted and the subsequent character is capitalized.)

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Tags: css, html

Notes: HTMLText

This is the first of hopefully a series of posts of useful things I want accessible on my blog. Mostly for my own benefit but anyone else is free to use this as an easy reference for AS3.

Flash Player supports the following HTML tags:

Anchor tag

The <a> tag creates a hypertext link and supports the following attributes:

• target: Specifies the name of the target window where you load the page. Options include _self, _blank, _parent, and _top. The _self option specifies the current frame in the current window, _blank specifies a new window, _parent specifies the parent of the current frame, and _top specifies the top-level frame in the current window.
• href: Specifies a URL or an ActionScript link event.The URL can be either absolute or relative to the location of the SWF file that is loading the page. An example of an absolute reference to a URL is http://www.adobe.com; an example of a relative reference is /index.html. Absolute URLs must be prefixed with http://; otherwise, Flash treats them as relative URLs.

  You can use the link event to cause the link to execute an ActionScript function in a SWF file instead of opening a URL. To specify a link event, use the event scheme instead of the http scheme in your href attribute. An example is href="event:myText" instead of href="http://myURL"; when the user clicks a hypertext link that contains the event scheme, the text field dispatches a link TextEvent with its text property set to “myText“. You can then create an ActionScript function that executes whenever the link TextEvent is dispatched. You can also define a:link, a:hover, and a:active styles for anchor tags by using style sheets.

	var style:StyleSheet = new StyleSheet();

	var link:Object = new Object();
	link.fontWeight = "bold";
	link.color = "#FF0000";

	var hover:Object = new Object();
	hover.fontStyle = "italic";

	var active:Object = new Object();
	active.fontStyle = "italic";
	active.color = "#FFFF00";

	style.setStyle("a:link", link);
	style.setStyle("a:hover", hover);
	style.setStyle("a:active", active);

	var txt:TextField = new TextField();
	txt.width = 400;
	txt.styleSheet = style;
	txt.htmlText = "Visit: <a href='www.google.com' target='_blank'>Google.com</a> or call a <a href='event:link1'>function</a>";
	txt.addEventListener(TextEvent.LINK, linkHandler);
	addChild(txt);

	function linkHandler(event:TextEvent):void {
		if(event.text == "link1") {
			trace("hello!");
		}
	}
	

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Tags: html

Flash HTMLEntities Suck

So I ran into this issue at work where the client was trying to pass in HTML entities and expecting Flash to just take it in stride. Apparently Flash only handles about 5 different kinds of entities of the 300 or so. So to get around this I made a function to convert all the HTML entities to number entities. So if anyone else runs into this issue they can take advantage of this useful tool. Enjoy!

public function convertHTMLEntities(str:String):String {
	var htmlEntities:Array = ["&nbsp;", "&iexcl;", "&cent;", "&pound;", "&curren;", "&yen;", "&brvbar;", "&sect;", "&uml;", "&copy;", "&ordf;", "&laquo;", "&not;", "&shy;", "&reg;", "&macr;", "&deg;", "&plusmn;", "&sup2;", "&sup3;", "&acute;", "&micro;", "&para;", "&middot;", "&cedil;", "&sup1;", "&ordm;", "&raquo;", "&frac14;", "&frac12;", "&frac34;", "&iquest;", "&Agrave;", "&Aacute;", "&Acirc;", "&Atilde;", "&Auml;", "&Aring;", "&AElig;", "&Ccedil;", "&Egrave;", "&Eacute;", "&Ecirc;", "&Euml;", "&Igrave;", "&Iacute;", "&Icirc;", "&Iuml;", "&ETH;", "&Ntilde;", "&Ograve;", "&Oacute;", "&Ocirc;", "&Otilde;", "&Ouml;", "&times;", "&Oslash;", "&Ugrave;", "&Uacute;", "&Ucirc;", "&Uuml;", "&Yacute;", "&THORN;", "&szlig;", "&agrave;", "&aacute;", "&acirc;", "&atilde;", "&auml;", "&aring;", "&aelig;", "&ccedil;", "&egrave;", "&eacute;", "&ecirc;", "&euml;", "&igrave;", "&iacute;", "&icirc;", "&iuml;", "&eth;", "&ntilde;", "&ograve;", "&oacute;", "&ocirc;", "&otilde;", "&ouml;", "&divide;", "&oslash;", "&ugrave;", "&uacute;", "&ucirc;", "&uuml;", "&yacute;", "&thorn;", "&yuml;", "&fnof;", "&Alpha;", "&Beta;", "&Gamma;", "&Delta;", "&Epsilon;", "&Zeta;", "&Eta;", "&Theta;", "&Iota;", "&Kappa;", "&Lambda;", "&Mu;", "&Nu;", "&Xi;", "&Omicron;", "&Pi;", "&Rho;", "&Sigma;", "&Tau;", "&Upsilon;", "&Phi;", "&Chi;", "&Psi;", "&Omega;", "&alpha;", "&beta;", "&gamma;", "&delta;", "&epsilon;", "&zeta;", "&eta;", "&theta;", "&iota;", "&kappa;", "&lambda;", "&mu;", "&nu;", "&xi;", "&omicron;", "&pi;", "&rho;", "&sigmaf;", "&sigma;", "&tau;", "&upsilon;", "&phi;", "&chi;", "&psi;", "&omega;", "&thetasym;", "&upsih;", "&piv;", "&bull;", "&hellip;", "&prime;", "&Prime;", "&oline;", "&frasl;", "&weierp;", "&image;", "&real;", "&trade;", "&alefsym;", "&larr;", "&uarr;", "&rarr;", "&darr;", "&harr;", "&crarr;", "&lArr;", "&uArr;", "&rArr;", "&dArr;", "&hArr;", "&forall;", "&part;", "&exist;", "&empty;", "&nabla;", "&isin;", "&notin;", "&ni;", "&prod;", "&sum;", "&minus;", "&lowast;", "&radic;", "&prop;", "&infin;", "&ang;", "&and;", "&or;", "&cap;", "&cup;", "&int;", "&there4;", "&sim;", "&cong;", "&asymp;", "&ne;", "&equiv;", "&le;", "&ge;", "&sub;", "&sup;", "&nsub;", "&sube;", "&supe;", "&oplus;", "&otimes;", "&perp;", "&sdot;", "&lceil;", "&rceil;", "&lfloor;", "&rfloor;", "&lang;", "&rang;", "&loz;", "&spades;", "&clubs;", "&hearts;", "&diams;", """, "&", "<", ">", "&OElig;", "&oelig;", "&Scaron;", "&scaron;", "&Yuml;", "&circ;", "&tilde;", "&ensp;", "&emsp;", "&thinsp;", "&zwnj;", "&zwj;", "&lrm;", "&rlm;", "&ndash;", "&mdash;", "&lsquo;", "&rsquo;", "&sbquo;", "&ldquo;", "&rdquo;", "&bdquo;", "&dagger;", "&Dagger;", "&permil;", "&lsaquo;", "&rsaquo;", "&euro;"];
	var numberEntities:Array = ["&#160;", "&#161;", "&#162;", "&#163;", "&#164;", "&#165;", "&#166;", "&#167;", "&#168;", "&#169;", "&#170;", "&#171;", "&#172;", "&#173;", "&#174;", "&#175;", "&#176;", "&#177;", "&#178;", "&#179;", "&#180;", "&#181;", "&#182;", "&#183;", "&#184;", "&#185;", "&#186;", "&#187;", "&#188;", "&#189;", "&#190;", "&#191;", "&#192;", "&#193;", "&#194;", "&#195;", "&#196;", "&#197;", "&#198;", "&#199;", "&#200;", "&#201;", "&#202;", "&#203;", "&#204;", "&#205;", "&#206;", "&#207;", "&#208;", "&#209;", "&#210;", "&#211;", "&#212;", "&#213;", "&#214;", "&#215;", "&#216;", "&#217;", "&#218;", "&#219;", "&#220;", "&#221;", "&#222;", "&#223;", "&#224;", "&#225;", "&#226;", "&#227;", "&#228;", "&#229;", "&#230;", "&#231;", "&#232;", "&#233;", "&#234;", "&#235;", "&#236;", "&#237;", "&#238;", "&#239;", "&#240;", "&#241;", "&#242;", "&#243;", "&#244;", "&#245;", "&#246;", "&#247;", "&#248;", "&#249;", "&#250;", "&#251;", "&#252;", "&#253;", "&#254;", "&#255;", "&#402;", "&#913;", "&#914;", "&#915;", "&#916;", "&#917;", "&#918;", "&#919;", "&#920;", "&#921;", "&#922;", "&#923;", "&#924;", "&#925;", "&#926;", "&#927;", "&#928;", "&#929;", "&#931;", "&#932;", "&#933;", "&#934;", "&#935;", "&#936;", "&#937;", "&#945;", "&#946;", "&#947;", "&#948;", "&#949;", "&#950;", "&#951;", "&#952;", "&#953;", "&#954;", "&#955;", "&#956;", "&#957;", "&#958;", "&#959;", "&#960;", "&#961;", "&#962;", "&#963;", "&#964;", "&#965;", "&#966;", "&#967;", "&#968;", "&#969;", "&#977;", "&#978;", "&#982;", "&#8226;", "&#8230;", "&#8242;", "&#8243;", "&#8254;", "&#8260;", "&#8472;", "&#8465;", "&#8476;", "&#8482;", "&#8501;", "&#8592;", "&#8593;", "&#8594;", "&#8595;", "&#8596;", "&#8629;", "&#8656;", "&#8657;", "&#8658;", "&#8659;", "&#8660;", "&#8704;", "&#8706;", "&#8707;", "&#8709;", "&#8711;", "&#8712;", "&#8713;", "&#8715;", "&#8719;", "&#8721;", "&#8722;", "&#8727;", "&#8730;", "&#8733;", "&#8734;", "&#8736;", "&#8743;", "&#8744;", "&#8745;", "&#8746;", "&#8747;", "&#8756;", "&#8764;", "&#8773;", "&#8776;", "&#8800;", "&#8801;", "&#8804;", "&#8805;", "&#8834;", "&#8835;", "&#8836;", "&#8838;", "&#8839;", "&#8853;", "&#8855;", "&#8869;", "&#8901;", "&#8968;", "&#8969;", "&#8970;", "&#8971;", "&#9001;", "&#9002;", "&#9674;", "&#9824;", "&#9827;", "&#9829;", "&#9830;", "&#34;", "&#38;", "&#60;", "&#62;", "&#338;", "&#339;", "&#352;", "&#353;", "&#376;", "&#710;", "&#732;", "&#8194;", "&#8195;", "&#8201;", "&#8204;", "&#8205;", "&#8206;", "&#8207;", "&#8211;", "&#8212;", "&#8216;", "&#8217;", "&#8218;", "&#8220;", "&#8221;", "&#8222;", "&#8224;", "&#8225;", "&#8240;", "&#8249;", "&#8250;", "&#8364;"];
	str = str.split("&").join("&#038;");
	var i:uint = htmlEntities.length;
	while (i--) {
		str = str.split(htmlEntities[i]).join(numberEntities[i]);
	}
	return new XMLDocument(str).firstChild.nodeValue;
}

Tags: html, utility