Categories
Flash FlashBox Open source / Freeware WordPress Plugin

FlashBox v1.1: fixed visibility bug FF2 (Apple)

Update #1: Tested on Opera on Apple and Pc

Update #2: Another bug seems to appear in Firefox 2 for the Mac: goto Flashbox directory, click on rel=”flashbox[test]” (you should see a mecha-robot with sword). If you scroll to the top of the page, FlashBox disappears and when you scroll down, you will see it again…

Update #3: Images of bug in Firefox 2 (Apple) [1] [2] [3]

Update #4: another bug, but for all browsers: if you type title=”bla bla bla, bla bla” (title with a komma) the images used in the won’t show.

I love feedback…. and the feedback on FlashBox was that it didn’t work correctly on Firefox 2 on the Mac.
This was a serious bug… and it took me some time to figure out where it was created.

You can follow my progress in the Flashbox directory. A gallery example: Badass Robots used in film.

Transformers Movie Optimus Prime
terminator
robocop
Robot B9 from Lost In Space
ABC Warrior from Judge Dredd
Cain
ed209
droideka
Roy Batty
cylon-centurian
cylons

So the code is tested on:

  • Firefox 2.0.0.2, Opera 9.10 and Safari 1.3.2 on Apple
  • Firefox 2.0.0.2, Opera 9.10 and IE 7.0 on Pc

Sadly I have no access to a Intel Mac with Flock

(Please let me know if it works / or not in other browsers)

Download WordPress Plugin – Download FlashBox v1.1

Download wp-FlashBox v1.1 wp-flashbox_v01.1.zip (19,2 kB)

I haven’t updated the link in wp-plugin.net, because I don’t want the same mistake (not testing on different browsers) twice

Categories
FlashBox WordPress Plugin

Flashbox is added to wp-plugin.net

For some shameless promotion of wp-flashbox plugin I added the plugin into http://wp-plugins.net/.

I hope the get some feedback soon. See if people are interested in “another box”.

Categories
Flash Flash experiments FlashBox Open source / Freeware WordPress Plugin

My second WordPress plugin: wp-flashbox

Update #1: There are some problems with the plugin in Firefox 2 for the Mac and Flock: FlashBox is loaded, the images are loaded into it, but FlashBox is not visible.
I am looking into it, sorry Mac users!
There is also a difference between Firefox for the PC and IE for the PC: it works perfectly, but in Firefox FlashBox will be restarted and in IE FlashBox starts where it left of (if it’s started before). These is not a bug this is a feature!

Update #2: A feature I forgot to tell about: you don’t have to change the rel="lightbox" tags, it will also work with FlashBox. If you’re planning to use both, you have to use rel="flashbox"– tag. But if you want to use FlashBox instead of Lightbox, you have te deactivate lightbox!

FlashBox is my attempt to create a simple, unobtrusive script used to overlay images on the current page.

Read more about FlashBox in detail, the different post about FlashBoxor you can follow my progress in the Flashbox directory where my experiments are.

But to sum it up: It had to be smaller then the other (Lightbox, Thickbox and Graybox), but with the animation (like Lightbox).
Or just another alternative for Lightbox / Thickbox / Graybox?

And because I wanted to use it on my own blog, I wrote a plugin too. And I’m not afraid to share it with you.

Download WordPress Plugin – Download FlashBox v1.0

Check the latest Flashbox version: the category FlashBox

Download wp-flashbox wp-flashbox_v01.zip (17,9 kB)

Categories
Flash Flash experiments FlashBox

Flash experiments: Flashbox – part 4

Update: Check the Flashbox directory or more post about FlashBox for recent update

Today I’m focusing on Flash.

  1. First task was of course the security-box from Flash (which seems to fail ???)
  2. Get the basic stuff in there (loader, navigation, image, caption)
  3. And get it to center after loading
  4. ….

Done
But ….
I’ve got everything working in Flash at this moment but to “copy” Lightbox I need to use animations.

Because the animations create with the default animations classes from Adobe (mx.transitions.Tween) are quite heavy, I was looking for an alternative.
Which I found in TweenLite an excellent piece op work by Jack Doyle.

TweenLite provides a lightweight (about 2k), easy way to tween almost any property over time including a MovieClip’s volume. You can easily tween multiple properties at the same time too.

And because size does matter in this project, this will be a life saver.

Preview:

[swf]http://www.matthijskamstra.nl/laboratory/flashbox/flashbox_v01.swf, 450,450[/swf]

View directly

Categories
Flash Flash experiments FlashBox

Flash experiments: Flashbox – part 3

Update: Check the Flashbox directory or more post about FlashBox for recent update

Lightbox Javascript to Flashbox Javascript
Bugs in the Lightbox script:

  1. Lightbox doesn’t follow when the window is scrolled, I’ve fixed this bug
  2. if no Image (broken link) is loaded, there is no way to stop this process, and you get no feedback

Bug #1: My fix for the scroll bug:


function onscrollChange ()
{
	var arrayPageSize = getPageSize ();
	var arrayPageScroll = getPageScroll ();
	var lightboxTop = arrayPageScroll [1] + (arrayPageSize [3] / 15);
	setTop ('flashcontent', arrayPageScroll [1]);

}

and in the showFlashbox function I started to check if the window is scrolled:
window.onscroll = onscrollChange;

Bug #2: This is a bug which will not be fixed in javascipt, but in Flash.

Lightbox HTML to Flashbox HTML

use this doctype in your html files, you need it if you want layers (

) to have a 100% width and height:



put the following lines in you directory structure and html:



Lightbox CSS to Flashbox CC


body,html  {height: 100%;margin: 0;padding: 0;}
#overlay{
	position: absolute;
	top: 0;
	left: 0;
	z-index: 90;
	width: 100%;
	height: 500px;
	background-color: #000;
	filter: alpha(opacity=60);
	-moz-opacity: 0.6;
	opacity: 0.6;
}
#flashcontent{
	height: 100%;
	position: absolute;
	top: 0;
	left: 0;
	width: 100%;
	z-index: 100;
	text-align: center;
	line-height: 0;
}
Categories
Flash Flash experiments FlashBox

Flash experiments: Flashbox – part 2

Update: Check the Flashbox directory or more post about FlashBox for recent update

Flash and crossdomain

The first obstacle is the security box / crossdomain in Flash.
If you want to know more about the security box and crossdomain.xml, visit Martijn de Visser blog, he has an excellent explanation (with images!!!).

But in short, if you want to load images/ xml/ etc from a different server then your own, you need permission (crossdomain.xml) from that server.

This information is given to us by Macromedia Adobe:
loadClip (MovieClipLoader.loadClip method) which explains about crossdomain, security box and the MovieClipLoader (this is the method I use to load the images).

And here I seem to run into a bug: it should not be possible to load from another server without a crossdomain.xml, but I can.
When I follow my HTTP traffic between my machine and the Internet (using Charles) I don’t come across a crossdomain.xml when I load images but when I load xml form that same server I don’t get permission to do so (it can’t find a crossdomain.xml and so it’s not allowed to load xml from that server).

Xml loading from another server is not allowed without crossdomain.xml, but images doesn’t seem to be a problem.

Categories
Flash Flash experiments FlashBox

Flash experiments: Flashbox – part 1

Update: I am not keeping files for historical purposes, so the Flashbox directory will be update. (This means: when you view the progress, explained in this post, there is a possibility that the files are already evolved some… and the description here won’t fit what you see )
Check for more recent post about FlashBox.

Introduction to Flash experiment: Flashbox

In “Flatpack toys other then ReadyMech” I started to experimented with Lightbox JS v2.0 to show images without using a popup or leave the page. I used wp-lightbox2.
And I was impressed! It uses prototype.js which is a JavaScript Framework. Until I saw that wp-lightbox2 plugin (lightbox.js, prototype.js, effects.js, images, css and php file) is a total of 86,6kB….

So I looked for a alternative, and found thickbox which was smaller (total 31kB) and more versatile (not only images and galleries but also inline content, iframes and AJAX content). Thickbox uses jQuery which is a JavaScript Library.
I used the wp-thickbox plugin (20,8 kB) and don’t forget wp-jQuery (19.5kB). So to get thickbox working on WordPress it will add up to 40.3kB total (less then half of lightbox).

And here comes the trouble:
A couple of days ago there was an update of WordPress: WordPress 2.1 Ella and this version of WordPress uses prototype.
And prototype and jQuery can live together but can cause problem.
Which it did in my case: Thickbox didn’t work any more, and a theme I was working on (using jQuery) stop working too.

Update: Not functioning of Thickbox had nothing to do with WordPress 2.1 or with the wp-plugin. I was to hasty with my conclusion. Read the comments

So I changed this blog (not update to wp2.1 yet) back to Lightbox again, because of the prototype/jQuery issues and future updates of my blog.

Categories
Flash Flash experiments

Flash experiments: the amazing cube

I decided to “share” my unstructured flash experiments:

And in this case it’s a flash application that creates flat, printable versions of cubes. Just print it, cut it out, glue it together and there you have it: the amazing cube:

[swf]http://www.matthijskamstra.nl/laboratory/swf_experiments/amazing_cube.swf, 450, 450[/swf]

Or just check the amazing cube full screen..

Categories
Flash experiments

Flash experiments: a new category

I added the category “Flash experiments” in which I will show you all my experiments.

Which usually lead to nothing, but I have fun making them.
And I have a lot of them, so this seems the best place to show them.

So to sum it up:

  • Little projects to fix a “itch” I have
  • Usually not very usefull
  • But fun to make
  • Sometimes animations
  • OOP

Soon more about this Category

Categories
Firefox extensions Flash Tools of the trade

Flash tools of the trade: flash-plugin switcher

Very recently I wrote about a Firefox extension: the FlashTracer written by Alessandro Crugnola. This extension will only make the hearts of Flash developers go faster, which it did in my case: I love this plugin! And although this is a relative new Firefox extension, it already helped me debug a application that I build.

Alessandro Crugnola is also the guy that gave us SE|PY (this is the editor I use for Flash programming)

Screenshot of Flash Switcher extension for FirefoxAlessandro created another Firefox extension: Flash Switcher extension for Firefox


Flash Switcher extension for FirefoxFlash Switcher – This extension comes with all the currently published flash player plugins (from the version 2 to the most recent 9,0,16) and allows you to easily switch from one plugin to another, or also to remove the currently installed plugin (maybe for testing the express install).

I used to use KewBee Plugin Switcher. Which is now for free, but if I remember correctly will be a commercial program. The big plus of that program is that it also works for IE, but who cares…. (and windows doesn’t like that you install / uninstall something without their knowledge, so it creates lot of ERRORS).