Dyteq.com Corporate blog: Socialmedia. -marketing, -gaming, Flash, Flex and more

So with the RC FlashPlayer 11.2, Adobe Alchemy does not function anymore.

Alchemy has become a very important part of all our Flash and Flex products. Try encoding a medium-sized JPEG file on a iPhone without it :/ …

I’ve been digging around for info on Alchemy 2, which has been announced in September 2011, but there is frustratingly little information available.

For a moment it looked like Adobe wanted us to use the Adobe Native Extensions, which would require re-writes of every library for every platform.

It’s the little pieces of info that you pick up here and there that help (barely) maintain my trust in Adobe / Flash / AS3

Pieces like this, hidden away at the GDC blog post:

“As we’ve previously communicated, Adobe will also productize “Alchemy,” an Adobe research project that allows users to securely execute high-performance C and C++ code with the reach of the Flash runtimes. The commercial release of Alchemy will offer significantly better performance and productivity over the Labs prototype, including full debugging support and up to 75% reduction in code size.”

That is the first time I have read anything about the new Alchemy, and the first time I am reassured that it will actually get here and that we can continue developing our products.

Alchemy + Stage3D = <3

Just a quick tip:

If you get an ioError when you debug your app on an Android device, make sure you put the device into “Charge only” mode and not into “USB disk”.

The camera needs the SD card to function (in my case), setting the device to “USB-disk” makes it impossible for the camera to access the SD card.

I don’t use the Away3D AssetLibrary because I use something of my own creation. This makes it difficult to parse an embbed 3d max .3ds file.

I use this little hack which makes it much more versatile.

You simply pass the .3ds class and a function:


[Embed(source="assets/models/box.3DS", mimeType="application/octet-stream")]
private var building1:Class;

function myCallBack($id:String):void{
switch($id){
case 'BOX.JPG':
// you can do anything here, as long as you return a Texture2DBase, which can be a BitmapTexture:
var bmp:Bitmap = (boxjpg() as Bitmap);
return new BitmapTexture(bmp.bitmapData);
break;
}
}


Now you can hook it up to your own library without changing anything in the Away3D code.

Two errors that cost us some time to figure out, hope Google lands you here safely…

Application failed codesign verification. The signature was invalid, or it was not signed with and iPhone Distribution Certificate
Unable to extract codesigning entitlements from your application
Not much info on this one because the normal iOS developers (with their xCode) don’t run into this one a lot.
We had a folder names “resources” with images that conflicted with the folder named “resources” that is in the final ios-package. So rename this folder to “assets” or something (and update your links!)

Exporting release build: Packaging for Apple iOS. This may take several minutes.
When you do a “fast” build for device testing, this will stay at 57%. If you want to “distribute” the app to the app store, this will just sit at 0% forever.
For us, there was an error in the p12 certificate. Make sure that the certificate in your Apple keychain access has a dropdown-arrow and that you export the correct item.

It’s on all the mayor sites, so you’ve already heard about this.

I think it’s a bad move. Here’s why:

The tablet-computer will replace the desktop computer as primary internet-device for consumers. Look at all the charts, tablets are outselling laptops. It’s just a matter of time.

Slowly but surely, Adobe will loose their 95% Flash-penetration and developers will stay away.

But Adobe know this, of course. So what is it they want from this?

Old trick I found while browsing some of my code:

If you have an array of Strings, you can get all the unique strings in just a few lines of code:


function array_unique_string($arr:Array):Array{
var o:Object = {};
for each(var s:String in $arr) o[s] = 1;
$arr = [];
for each(s in o) $arr.push[s]
return $arr
}


This function simply creates a temporary object with properties named after the strings in the array. A property is unique to an object, so setting it more then once will only change the value.
This gives us an object with all the strings from the array and by putting those back into a new array, we get an array with unique values.

You can use this for integers too:


function array_unique_int($arr):Array{
var o:Object = {};
for each(var i:int in $arr) o['_'+i] = i;
$arr = [];
for (var s:String in o) $arr.push(o[s]);
return $arr;
}


And Numbers:


function array_unique_number($arr):Array{
var o:Object = {};
for each(var n:Number in $arr) o['_'+String(n).replace(',', '|')] = n;
$arr = [];
for(var s:String in o) $arr.push(o[s]);
return $arr;
}


I have not benchmarked this, but I imagine some speed improvements when the array is long enough. Though I guess the substr and replace require a fair amount of CPU themselves.

According to this article, Ipads have already surpassed the Iphone when it comes to website visits.

Occording to this Chinese article, there will be a windows 7 app store.

There where some far fetched speculations of an app store for Windows 8 (based on the lawsuit that Microsoft and Apple got into over the name “App Store”). These screenshots, however, seem to be for Windows 7.

So, either a great photoshop, or a great leak.

You decide.

Handy little one-liner: Click the textfield to clear it. No need to write a seperate functions or anything.


<input name="email_address" value="Email address" onfocus="if($(this).val() == 'Email address') { $(this).val('')}" type="text">


Requires JQuery though.

The photo in this article (apparently) contains a part with the 30-pin connector for a sliding keyboard. I have to take these guys word for it, because I no speak Korean, sorry.

The apple.pro website has actually spread some rumors in the past that became true. This particular rumor fits in a strategy for Apple to release different types of iphone (iphone nano, iphone keyboard, iphone HD etc) to appeal to more consumers.

I use both the Iphone and the Andoird Desire Z (which has a full keyboard) and I have to say: I hate any kind of on-screen keyboard. I really do. I love the physical one.