Actionscript

If you're a Flash/Flex developer, you've likely seen those Flash Player error dialogs resulting from unhandled ActionScript errors.These appear when you have the debugger version of Flash Player installed and you run a SWF with errors in the code that are not handled correctly, either through appropriate logic, try..catch blocks, or the correct event listeners. But what if you don't want them?

It's not often I run across something I didn't know as simple as this. In fact I'm a little embarrassed that I didn't know this, but it gives me comfort that some other people I talked to also didn't know.What is this of which I speak? Well it may or may not be fairly common knowledge that normally, when you place a bitmap from your library onto the workarea (a.k.a. "the stage" though technically, it's never really the stage, at least not the same stage ActionScript refers to) in the Flash Professional authoring tool, that bitmap becomes a shape, or a part of a shape consisting of other bitmap or vector graphics within the same layer or z-ordering group, once you publish your SWF. A quick test will reveal this behavior:Create a new FlaFile > Import > Import to Stage...Add the following frame script:trace(getChildAt(0));Test movieResult?[object Shape]If you didn't already know that, that's interesting enough. How then, you may ask, do you get an actual Bitmap instance on the stage in Flash? Until yesterday, I thought you couldn't except through ActionScript. But it turns out that is not true. Bitmap objects on the stage will become Bitmap instances rather than shapes if that bitmap image is exported for ActionScript (via library item properties).Edit the image imported in the above example to be exported for ActionScript and run again to get the following:[object Bitmap]In other words, that image on the timeline has become a true bitmap instance rather than part of a shape. The Flash GUI still doesn't give you options for things like instance names or anything at this point, but the object available in the display list is in fact a true Bitmap.

Part two of things I didn't know... And this has been something that has bugged me for years.Have you ever added text through ActionScript to a multi-lined text field created in Flash Professional (Flash Authoring) and frustratingly found that the text immediately starts one line below where you think it should? Me too! Thankfully glosrfc pointed out to me why that is...

Alan just posted an interview of me on Fireworks Designer. It focuses in large on my Burnout Paradise™ Paradise City Interactive Locations Map and how Fireworks was used to make it possible.Turns out I haven't touched the map in what seems to be exactly a year, which is sad because I just noticed a bug where map graphics defined within query variables were getting cleared out after the map graphics loaded. I quickly found the source to fix it only to notice I had a lot more planned for the project, including a race editor as well as other tools for users to define their own maps! Seems I never got around to hooking them up, and sadly probably never will.