Today is the day I released my FIRST FLASH GAME EVER! Normally I create RIAs and this is something way different but it is interesting and especially fun to do.
First of all I know that there are more games like this one, but I like it very much and that’s why I chose this one to make.
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Sorry to say that FlickrBabes.com is still off the air

So, it’s been a while…
To make it up to you I asked myself the following question:
What is interesting for them and me.

Obvious AIR is something interesting to play with, and (maybe you know it) www.flickrbabes.com is interesting to. Seems to be a perfect match! Therefore I created an AIR application which shows you your daily dosis of FlickrBabes. And to make sure you don’t forget it, it has the option to start at login!

It will probably have some issues (hope not) and because it seems to be a trend to release everything in BETA, I will do it to. Here’s Flickrbabes in the AIR app BETA :P

In the sidebar there’s an automated installer ! While FB is offline I decided to remove it.

I wanted to combine the power of Cinema4D and Flash (in a relatively short period) and see what happens.

I started to create a simple 'lava planet' in Cinema4D, made a video of it and put it on the timeline in flash (I know on the timeline is not a best practice but it will do for now). Next I came up with a nice effect with dynamic particles and decided to get lava pouring out of the sphere.
What it does:
- Every frame
1. It creates a bitmap of the video.
2. It "reads" every pixel (of the bitmap) and looks for a specific color range.
3. When there's a pixel located, a new particle is added.
4. The particle starts to live its own life untill it reaches a specific y value and dies.
5. From all the particles one bitmap is created
6. Put some filters on the particles bitmap.
7. Place the particles bitmap on top of the video and your done.

So I encountered a really weird, but probably "explainable" problem in AS2 yesterday.
We all know that
trace("200.1" == 200.1) //true
and
trace("200.2" == 200.2) //true
trace("200.3" == 200.3) //true

trace("200.81" == 200.81) //true
trace("200.81" != 200.81) //false


This above works fine...but the following is what scares me the most....
trace("200.82" == 200.82) //false
Why the hell is the above false ???? And the really weird thing is
trace("200.82" != 200.82) //false
also false ???
So... it is NOT the same and it is NOT NOT the same?...wtf is it. AS doesn't seem to know what it is.

Ok, bear with me a second. The following:

trace("200.83" == 200.83) //true
trace("200.83" != 200.83) //false

...that seems alright

At this point, I tried to make some sense of it and applied the following rules....
If a string has one decimal....it turns out to work fine...
If a string has two decimals....it only works fine if the last digit is uneven...

The next thing to check is a string with three decimals and...there seems to be a different stupid rule here...check...

trace("200.811" == 200.811) //true
trace("200.811" != 200.811) //false

trace("200.812" == 200.812) //true (should be false according to last "rules")
trace("200.812" != 200.812) //false


Hmmm, it seems that we can erase the above rules from our head. It works fine at this point...what is that about?

One more sample...the second decimal after decimal point is an even digit.

trace("200.821" == 200.821) //false
trace("200.821" != 200.821) //false

trace("200.822" == 200.822) //false
trace("200.822" != 200.822) //false


Oh my god.....the second digit after decimal point is even and it is always false?? I can't seem to make sense of it....sorry...
I can probably go on and on with more samples (four / five / etc. decimal digits) but the point is clear....it's fucked.

If I trace typeof, it all seems to be a Number

trace(typeof(parseFloat("200.81"))) //number
trace(typeof(parseFloat("200.82"))) //number
trace(typeof(parseFloat("200.821"))) //number

Converting the String to a Number or use parseFloat doesn't work....so don't bother trying.

Maybe it has something (the way it parses a string to a number or visa versa) to do with rounding Numbers...see what Arno has to say...

Jaap

I'm sorry to say the above out loud, but I just have to.
Personally I don't like the standard flash components. Why? They are heavy and mostly unusable because we use flash to build custom interfaces and the standard components aren't made to be custom easily. Take for instance a button and try to make a fade between off state and on state. Anyway, once in every couple of years I grab a component (as with the FLVPlayback in an earlier post) and start playing with it. The conclusion: I always get a little disappointed.

I know, I know, in a moment I'm going to tell you what I want, keep reading

Now with Flash CS3 Adobe has thrown away the one component that could be of any use and that's the accordion component. Well that said.... I still think the components set shipped with Flash CS3 is wrong. I have my own custom AS2 components which do exactly what I want, when I want. I name a few: Button, DropDown, Accordion, List, Pane (which is Box in Flex), Scroll, Pager, and so on.... You noticed something? There are similarities in the standard Flash components set and mine! But I still (and many others out there) create my own, mine are very customizable and do exactly what I want. So for me the flash components are obsolete and ready to be thrown overboard.

So, what do I want...

...the basic, but apparently unappealing (I mean not selling) layout components (which are shipped with Adobe Flex Builder). I think these would be helpful. I know these would be heavy to, but at least they are usefull and I will use them. The layout components could have sober functionality and they probably do what I want anyway, layout other displayObjects. The great thing is that skinning is not needed. Though the components have to be somewhat extendable, like in Adobe Flex. A few important components I'd like to see in the standard Flash Components Library: Container, Box, VBox, HBox. Devider... So Adobe, if you please could make these suitable for flash (or tell me why they can't, please), I would be a happy man. For now I will just create my own layout components...again.

Jaap Kooiker

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