Life of a Glasgow Flash Developer

A few months back I had a play around with the Google map flash api and built this guestbook, another example of it can been seen here.
Well I’ve not had a chance to go back and tie of some loss ends on the guestbook map though it works perfectly well.
There is 3 things that would make this complete
1. Marker clustering
2. Geocoder, some kind of quick find me button
3. Update marker position with the edit feature.

I think if you are proficient in flash AS3 you should be able to get these done in no time.
With so many other things to get on with I’ve decided to make the source available for download .

Included are:

• Flash 9 Flash File
• Caurina tweener classes
• kharon4a_mini font
• index.html
• guestbook.swf
• AC_RunActiveContent.js
• map.php
• common.php
• but.as
• gMapEntry.as
• gMapForm.as
• guestbook.sql
• help.html

Font(s) used:

• kharon4a_mini

http://www.orgdot.com/aliasfonts/

Features include:

1. Email notification upon someone signing the guestbook
2. http check for urls in comments and web address fields
3. badword filter check. Replaces bad word if found in an array of word to filter to ****
   $changeto = ‘****’;
   $message = str_replace ($badwords, $changeto, $message);
   return $message;
4. CMS Feature that allows you to edit/delete any of the submissions
5. Map will stretch to fit available screen size

All the information to get you setup and running can be found in the help file included.
The guestbook requires a server running php+mysql

It’s only taking just under a couple of years. A lot of start stop and restart. Finally I can say “Damn it I am done!”

Yes it was about this time 2 years ago that I decided I would take the leap and start learning/using AS3. I did have 8 years of prior code experience with AS1 and AS2 but AS3 would be a whole different ball game. As it turned out it wasn’t that bad. Once I discovered how things I took for granted in AS2 where done in AS3 things got a lot easier. I am now at the stage where if something doesn’t work then it usually doesn’t take long to figure it out or find some other way of doing it.

There is still so much to learn and I don’t doubt for a second that version 4 code have been coded better but hey it runs error free and dose what it is supposed to do.

Version 4 has lost some sections and gained some new features. I wont bother going through them all you can just visit the site and check it out.
I have to say a special thanks to Richard Leggett and Michael Lawrence (byteface). Both these guys where on hand to give help and advice when I asked  for it and without them I would not got to the point I am at now.

I do plan to continue adding new sections and features to the site. I’ve already started working on a new section when done will hopefully see a nice little shopping cart where i can sell my flash files from.

So go visit my new flash site and sign my guestbook and possibly leave some nice comments.

With the Simple flash AS3 contact form recently seeing over 5000 downloads I’ve decided to add a new one.

Bit better looking than the last with help file and all code commented

Included are:

• contactForm.fla (Flash 8 )/contactForm.fla (Flash 9 )
• caurina tweener classes AS2/caurina tweener classes AS3
• contact.php
• kharon4a_mini font
• index.html
• contactForm.swf
• AC_RunActiveContent.js

Features:

• Three different sized forms
• All fields validation
• Email validation
• No reference to root. Simply drag the required form on to your project from the library
• Courtesy thank you email sent to the form submitter, can be turned off
• IP address capture and display link to ip look up tools in sent email
• Nicely formatted html email. Can be set to send html or none html formatted email
• Only 3 variables to be set in the php script and your good to go

Font(s) used:

• kharon4a_mini

http://www.orgdot.com/aliasfonts/

How to modify the file:

Instruction 1: Open the contact.php script and go to line 11 and add your email, sitename and your name

Once that is done you can upload the script to your server

Instruction 2: There are 3 other options found between line 16-21. $sendHtml, $sendCourtesy and $fColour

These option can be left as they are.

Instruction 3: Simply drag ‘n’ drop the required form mc from the library onto your project. Also make sure to copy over the caurina tweener classes to your project folder and the contact.php script.

The php script has been tested on a linux based server and windows dedicated server with php support.

I had to create a function where by I could avoid the button being pressed to quickly as some clicks where not being registered.

Some people will click a button as quickly as they can to see if they can break it lol.

New Country location flag (AS3) selector added to Activeden files

Country location flag selector (AS3)

All 244 locations/flags/country images follow the ISO 3166 -1 alpha-2 country codes.
All flag data is stored in an xml file. Easily customizable add and remove locations as you like.
No reference to root so can easily be added to existing forms/applications. Single variable (flagStr) is setup for form/application verification if needed.

Included are:
Flash 9 Flash File
flags.xml file
244 png flag images
xmlLoader.as
Click here to purchase the Country location flag selector (AS3)