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I have collected some of the tools and resources that I find very useful when developing Actionscript applications that with the exception of one are free and/or open source.
If you are an experienced Actionscript developer you are probably already familiar with most of them, but there might be one of two that you have missed.
And there is probably a lot that I have missed that should be included, so if there is any you think should be placed on the list please give suggestions in the comments.

Actionscript 3.0 migration
Very useful AS2 to AS3 migration reference.

AMFPHP
PHP implementation of the Action Message Format. If you need to transfer large data sets between the server and your Flash application remoting enables you to use native Flash data types which cuts down on time and resources needed to parse and transfer data.

AS3 Optimizations
Collection of useful AS3 optimization suggestions and links.

ASUnit
Unit test framework for Actionscript.

Charles
Web debugging proxy which I find indispensable for inspecting traffic between server and swf files.
Has support for remoting (AMF0 and AMF3) and can do bandwidth throttling.
The only resource listed here that is not free, but definitely worth a mention here due to being extremely useful.
You can try the 30 day demo and see if you think it's worth the asking price compared to for example Fiddler which is a free alternative.

FlashDevelop
My favourite Actionscript editor. IMO the code completion is much better than FlexBuilder and it comes with MTASC and SWFMill to create AS2 swf's and integrates with MXMLC for AS3 projects so it very easy to get started using it as an all-in-one solution for developing Actionscript applications.

FlashTracer
Simple but very useful Firefox extension that enables you to view trace output in your web browser which is very handy when you need to debug an application while it's running on the server.

GAIA Framework
I have to admit that I haven't actually tried it out properly yet since it hasn't been applicable for the kind of projects I have been working on lately, but I had a quick look at it and it really seems like a very neat framework for certain types of projects.

MinimalComps
A neat little AS3 component set from bit101. As the name suggests it's very minimal but usually I find full fledged architectures, like ASWing or the ones that comes with CS3, to be a bit overkill in most cases and it's a great example to study if you like to make your own AS3 components.
They are drawn from code and hence have a tiny footprint but are not skinning friendly.
For AS2 I have mostly been using Bit101's commercial
BitComponentSet and I would love to see a similar set for AS3 but for now MinimalComps has come in very handy for simple little apps and prototyping.

Popforge
Open source AS3 audio library started by Andre Michelle and Joa Ebert.
If you want to be able to generate or process sound without using Flash Player 10 it will help you do that, but it's also possible to use the generators and processors with the new samplesCallbackEvent functionality of FP10 as well.
So if you are interested in Flash audio it certainly very worthwhile to check out.

Red5
Open source Flash server for media streaming and remoting. A very good free alternative to Flash Media Server.

SWFAddress
To implement deeplinking and back button functionality when possible on Flash projects have been a concern of mine for quite a while, both due to usability and SEO concerns. Back in 2005 I developed my own solution, but it was something I quickly hacked together and although functioning and better than anything I could find at that time I always thought it could be a lot neater and was hoping someone would step up and create a package that could gain popularity with a lot of developers.
Hence I was very happy when SWFAddress came along with a package that is solid, neat and easy to implement.

SWFObject
I guess there is not much to say here. You're probably familiar with SWFObject already, but in case you are not just get it and start using it to embed you swf with it now.
Not only is it a very convenient way of adding version detection, providing alternate content and passing on query parameters to the swf but it also has the benefit of avoiding the IE issues with activation of embedded content.

TortoiseSVN
Easy to use version control software for Windows.

TweenMax
The fastest tweening engine for AS3 with very neat syntax and always my first choice for tweening duties along with it's smaller siblings TweenLite and TweenFilterLite.
I have come across scenarios where it doesn't behave as expected (I guess due to the fact that it doesn't search for overlapping tween properties to overwrite only those properties) and then I stick with Tweener which has very respectable speed and equally neat syntax.
EDIT:Jack Doyle, the developer behind TweenMax, got in touch and had a look at my code to find the reason why it did not behave the same as Tweener. Basically TweenMax will not search through existing tweens to check what properties to overwrite and instead by initializing a new tween of one property you stop existing tweens of other properties. This is done to optimize speed but means that your code might have to be slightly different compared to other tweening engines.
In my case it was simply a matter of adding the property that gets overwritten to the new tween and issue was solved.

Tags: Flash, Links

Finally Flash will have built in ability to access the sound output buffer when using FlashPlayer 10 that just has been released.
Tinic Uro have posted a little information about the implementation.
So no more relying on complicated hacks, this is all the code you will need to generate a sine wave (snipped from Tinics post):

  var sound:Sound = new Sound();
  function sineWavGenerator(event:SamplesCallbackEvent):void {
    for ( var c:int=0; c<1234; c++ ) {
      var sample:Number = Math.sin(
               (Number(c+event.position)/Math.PI/2))*0.25;
      sound.samplesCallbackData.writeFloat(sample);
      sound.samplesCallbackData.writeFloat(sample);
    }
  }
  sound.addEventListener("samplesCallback",sineWavGenerator);
  sound.play();

Tags: AS3, Astro, Audio, Flash

Recently we have seen a lot of progress with the capabilities of Javascript to leverage the capabilities of HTML to do things that was previously only possible using Flash.
Thanks to for example mootools and jQuery you can now create sites that looks like they are made with Flash with nice tweening animations, and of course AJAX have already for a few years been an option to update the content without reloading the page.
Does this mean that the future of Flash looks bleak?
Somerandomdude seems to think so, and points to some of examples if the impeding demise of Flash. John Resig’s Processing.js and experiments with HTML 5’s video element.

First of all, does any of these developments offer improvements over what Flash have been capable of for years?
Maybe if a site that is heavy on information but you might want to jazz it up a bit with some nice transitions.
When it comes to presenting text HTML has some advantages, mainly due to the browser integration.
Using the browsers built in search or select and right click to google a phrase for example.
Usually those advantages are greater than the possibility to embed font outlines with Flash.
But most implementations I have seen of for example slideshows and menus does not offer any advantages what I can see. Implementing them in Javascript still performs worse, gives you less possibilities and makes it less accessible.

When it comes to video on the surface I cannot see any reason why a video playback native to the browser would be preferable.
Of course one could argue that since you have a limited choice of compression formats with Flash it would open up to more options there. But to deploy content you will still have to make sure you use a codec that is included with a majority of browsers. It remains to be seen if it will mean much of an improvement in practice, and personally I do think that h264 is quite satisfactory.
All the above is true for the HTML5 audio element as well.

Of course the technical merits is only a part of the parameters that decide the acceptance of a technology. There are a lot of developers that really dislike Flash for various reasons and they are just really happy that they now can do the same things as has been possible for a long time with Flash.
The fact that it can be more tedious to implement and performs worse is not as important as various factors like avoiding proprietary formats or using a environment they are already accustomed to.

But even if Flash is not necessary to do a lot of things that previously was it's exclusive domain to me it seems like it's constantly gaining acceptance with developers.
Flash is still quite far ahead of the capabilities of DHTML/AJAX and how long will it take before HTML5 is widespread enough to make it a viable option?
Flash is still developing rapidly and the new versions of the plug-in is spreading extremely fast, so by the time HTML5 capable browsers is widespread enough probably 95% will have the Flash 15 plug-in installed.

I think the main issue here is the different ways in which Flash and HTML is being developed.
A lot of the hate against Flash is based on the fact that swf is a proprietary format, and even if that is not entirely true any more it's certainly not based on an open standard.
And that what makes it possible for it to stay on the cutting edge, and that's why the capabilities of DHTML, XHTML, Javascript, SVG etc. always is one step behind.
Even if I prefer open standards in theory it just doesn't seem to work as well in practice.
Rather than being impressed how HTML and Javascript is catching up with the capabilities of Flash I'm continuously surprised at how slowly it's happening.

I have been fanatic about Flash since I first discovered it in 1999, and I really have trouble being completely neutral even I try. But IMO Flash is not going anywhere. With AS3, AVM2 and FLEX a lot of new possibilities has opened up that DHTML will not be capable of any time soon, like for example decent 3d engines, socket connections and sound synthesis.
Overall I do see a trend though that the web is getting less and less fixated with certain technologies.
On the server side we have seen Python and Ruby gaining acceptance. MS will be trying with Silverlight to present an alternative to Flash and HTML will be able to compete as well.
But it's not a war where anyone has to die...there is certainly room for more than either ASP, perl or PHP on the server and HTML, Shockwave or Flash on the client, which pretty much used to be the case.

Tags: AJAX, Flash, Flex, JavaScript, Ramblings, Silverlight

Well, the word in itself maybe not, I just made that up myself.
But as you probably guess I'm talking about using Flash and AJAX together.

After my last post that also involved Flash and AJAX, "Right tool for the job...or right job for the tool?", I came across the following blog entry: Ajax and Flash Together
Some good examples of AJAX and Flash integration and I couldn't help to ask myself a couple of questions.

In what way does it affect me as a user if the buttons controlling flash is in the HTML page or part of the swf?

Looking at Yahoo finance and Google finance I really have difficult to see that the user would have advantages or disadvantages from an AJAX mix compared to only Flash.
The only case would be if there is browser incompatibilities with JS or that they lack the flash plug-in.
Obviously buttons is no good without graph and vice versa, so not having to rely on two separate technologies being available as expected is better. But to me it could just as well be one big swf...I would not notice any difference apart from when I right click.

On the google page I can agree that it's neat how it highlights the headlines to the left when you click the corresponding box in the graph. Using HTML for those headlines makes it possible to completely retain their visual identity, even if the result in Flash could be made very similar looking.

In what way would it affect me as a developer having to implement one over the other solution?

I cannot see that it would have any advantages when developing to move buttons to control the graph outside of the swf.
Anyone who can make the graphing app can in no time add the buttons instead of making a handler to respond to JS calls from the HTML buttons.

What have I missed?
In what way does combining Flash and AJAX help the user in those examples?
In what way does it help developers?

Tags: AJAX, Flash, Ramblings, RIA

I'm glad to have discovered that someone made an effort making a script similar to my backbutton and deeplinking solution for Flash.
Maybe old news to many of you, but since I get some visitors here looking for such a solution I thought I mention it.

http://www.asual.com/swfaddress/

I haven't got a chance to try it out and only had a look at the info on their web page, but it seems to be a very good alternative to my own script.

Tags: Flash, JavaScript, Links, SEO

I've done a little update to my system for enabling the back button and providing deep linking/bookmarking functionality for Flash sites and applications.
It's now using Macromedias JS integration kit for Flash to JS communication.

Click here to download it.

Try the system here.

I was hoping I would solve issues with some browsers that it was not working with previously, but since there is more issues than if the browser supports the setVariable command to pass data from JS to Flash it seems like it will be very difficult to get a few browser/OS combinations to work.

Basically I found two different methods of approach.

One is using Rober Penners hidden frame method.
That's still what the system does for IE, but using an iFrame instead instead of a regular frame set and removing the need to create actual HTML files to load into the frame by using document.write().
With FF I did not have much luck with that approach.
Just using JS to write into the hidden frame worked fine and made the back button work, but when trying to also update the hash to enable the bookmarking everything started going wrong.

The other approach is to at regular intervals check the location.hash and if it's been updated cause a change of state in Flash.

Both approaches have various problems on different browsers.
For example Safari apparently will not record a history event when you use document.write() to update an iFrame.
Opera 8 will not record a history event if you update the hash, and after experimenting a bit with writing into the iFrame I gave up on getting it to work with that method.

It would be great with a system that works for every perceivable browser and OS, but as long as the system fails gracefully it's at least not doing any harm to implement and as it is now it will cover a vast majority of users.

So far I tested and confirmed it working with FF 1.0.6 and 1.5 beta 1, IE6, NS8 and Opera 8.5
Opera 8.01 does not show the hash and back button fails, but at least deep links are working.

I would be very interested to hear from mac users in particular to find out if NS, Safari and IE still is not working.

Tags: Flash, JavaScript, Source

Some nice additions to the big names making serious use of what flash can offer lately.

The most impressive that been blogged a lot about already is the IKEA matrix kitchen.
Clever and skill full piece of work that really uses the internet as a media in an efficient and inventive way.

The even bigger news that even more people blogged about is Googles adaptation to using Flash to deliver video.
It seems like a surprise to many people since it somehow seemed like they have an aversion to Flash considering the efforts they made building AJAX contents.
Maintaining separate versions for different browsers to get your RIA applications working I guess is something you only consider if you don't consider Flash
And using a proprietary video format that requires user to download and install your software can of course be seen as a similar attitude trying to avoid Flash at any cost.
But now they have finally come to their senses it seems at least.
Of course the service itself it's not anything revolutionary to get excited about. It's video, in flash. The big news here is the big name.
That google uses Flash can seem like a seal of approval for serious large scale deployment of Flash content.

Peugeot's use of flash is not all that exiting, although nicely done.
The animation work is stylish and well carried out, but a bit bland in my opinion.
Clicking on a key flying around to test the sliding of the doors is hardly especially fun and doesn't make me feel closer to the product really.

It's how close you feel to the product that I love about applications like the one IKEA done.
It shows the possibility that multimedia technologies like Flash give for taking communication to a new level.
A video or an animation can be extremely good at delivering an experience, but when people figure out good ways to use interactive multimedia it gives you a presence previously unseen.

A picture says more than a thousand words, but a Flash application says more than thousand pictures
And in IKEA's case I guess it makes sense since it wouldn't surprise me if the application actually use about 1000 pictures.

Tags: Flash, Links, RIA

I was looking around for some example code for how to implement full state management in Flash with both functioning back/forward buttons and deeplinking/bookmarking, but couldn't find any.

So I decided to put together my own and make it available in an attempt to silence the many Flash critics who, rightfully in my opinion, think that it is a major drawback with pure Flash sites.

It's only tested and working with recent versions of firefox and IE on windows.
Backbutton and bookmarking fails with Opera 8, but deeplinking works.
I'm quite sure someone with decent JS skills should be able to fix that though.
The problem is that "document[movieid].SetVariable();" does not target the swf correctly, which is a mystery to me since I have seen examples using the same syntax that does work.
Another solution would be to rewrite the code to use localConnection instead in which case most browsers should have no problem.

But for now at least you can easily have state management functioning for the very large percentage of users that use FF or IE, and other browsers should hopefully all fail gracefully and be able to follow deeplinks in to your flash site.
So there is no excuse to now implement state management into your Flash site now.

You can try the system with this little ugly example
Please leave a comment if you are using a browser other than FF or IE on windows so I can make a list of what browsers it is working on.

Get the download here.

Update:
I made a new version using Macromedia JS integration kit for communication between Flash and JS.
Get the download here.
It did not solve the issues with Opera 8.01 apart from getting rid of the JS error, and I doubt that Safari will work still.
So until I get some feedback on how it works with the Browsers that been problematic I'm not sure how much of an improvement it is.
I updated the example above, so try it out and tell me if it's not working with a particular browser.
So far confirmed to be working is FF 1.0.6 & 1.5 beta1, IE 6, Opera 8.5 and NS8. Not working so far is Opera 8.01

Tags: Flash, JavaScript, Source

I haven't found time to write in the blog for a few days.
The reason: www.dofus.com

It's a very well made MMORPG done with Flash.
Check it out if you like to see what Flash is capable of in the hands of good game developers.

Tags: Flash, Games

BlixtBlog is a simple GNU GPL licensed blog system for flash that can also be used as a basic CMS system for a whole flash site.
It uses PHP/MySQL for the backend.

Main features:

The package includes an example file of how to use the system for easy creation of a flash site manageable using your browser.
Just configure what pages you like to have on your site and add your own graphics.

Currently there is no HTML output generated, but that will be added in next release to enable search engines to find your content and deeplink directly into your flash page.
Other planned additions is slideshow for photos and mp3 player.

Get the download here.


Click here to see an example of the system in use for generating a whole site.
Also if you feel like testing making comments that is the prefered place to do it instead of posing a lot of asdsfdawasdf in here

If you have any problems, discover any bugs or like to provide feedback please use the comment function on this page.

EDIT:
2005-09-01
Now version 0.9.3 is up.
It includes some very essential fixes, and you a strongly recommended to upgrade if you are running 0.9.2

Apart from many major bugfixes a few new features was added:
Possible to use embedded fonts.
Display and loading of posts and comments split to pages.
Ability to double up as a guestbook.

Tags: Flash, Source