CSS layout – fix and fluid combined

I have been playing with the Dreamweaver layout sample: 2 column hybrid. The hybrid layout is quite a flexible layout as it would expand or contract based on the width of the browser window. Problem would arise if the browser window is too narrow and the layout will flow beyond what I want. I found out that setting the CSS min-width attribute of the #container class would solve the problem. Horizontal scrollbar will display if the browser window is too narrow.

I then added the max-width attribute to the #container as well to see what happen. The end result is very good. It would mean that page would expand up to the max-width. Beyond that the layout would fix the width. I consider this the best of both world, fix and fluild combined layout.

Tested with MS IE 8 and Goolge Chrome. Haven’t tested on other browsers.

Awesome Flash sites

Someone showed me the following sites which are simply stunning:

Philips Cinema TV: http://www.cinema.philips.com/?ls=gb_en

Panasonic PMA Show: http://www.panasonic.com.au/pmashow/

Hope you like these.

First Flash Player powered Android phone – the HTC Hero

HTC has announced the much-anticipated 2nd gen Android phone, HTC Hero which includes the Flash Player Lite player now. It is very cool! You can see a demo at : http://www.adobe.com/devnet/devices/articles/htchero.html

This is all part of the Open Screen Project. Details can be found at: http://www.openscreenproject.org/

I believe the Palm Pre phone that would come out soon will also have Flash Player 10 built-in.

It also looks like the public beta of Flash Player 10 for other mobile phones (S60, Windows Mobile, etc) would be available sometime this Oct. Can’t wait to test it on my HTC Touch Diamond.

Archos 9 – my dream tabletPC

I came across this beautiful gadget and love it very much. It pretty much tick all the boxes for a handheld computer I would want. I hope one day I can use that on the road (imagine demo-ing Flash on it) and when I am back home/office I would connect that to external monitor and keyboard and use it like a proper laptop. Personally I think this is even better than the typical netbook for students to use in their schools. Small and light. Check this out:

http://www.archos.com/products/nb/archos_9/index.html?country=au&lang=en

Finding the domain name where the swf is being served

There are fimes when I would need to verify the domain name where the swf (embeded in an html page) is being served. I have done some testing and it seems that the following client-side AS3 code would do the job.

import flash.net.LocalConnection;
var lc:LocalConnection = new LocalConnection();
trace (lc.domain);

When I uploaded the swf and the html page to a web server, it did return the domain name of the server where the page and the swf are being hosted.

I hope this tip is useful for you too.

Digistor seminar: video production and distribution

Digistor is one of the very experienced Adobe video partner and they will be hosting a seminar on Adobe video technology and related hardware platform. I like this idea as the entire ecosystem is made up of hardware and software. This seminar should give a very complete picture of the post production workflow. Interested? Check this out at:

http://www.digistor.com.au/content.php?s=4&p=992

Flash Catalyst and Fireworks workflow is non-existent

I am very disappointed with the so-called workflow between Fireworks and Catalyst as shown in the 2 video tutorials. It is clumsy and awkward to say the least. To bring in a simple graphics from FW, you would need to save as fxg and then import the fxg into FC. That should be a simple drag and drop or copy and paste action. And not round-trip editing with FW either

FW png suports multiple pages which is ideal to represent states of an app. FC would do well to support FW native png. What a waste opportunity!

Thumbs down

Twitter with Twikini

It seems everyone is twitting these days and I couldn’t believe I am doing that too. Yet twitting from a computer is a bit inconvenient. I need to be in front of computer and the computer needs to have internet access. Given that twitting is a bit impromptu, using a mobile phone to twit makes more sense.

I have been looking for a good twitter client for running on my HTC Touch Diamond and I found this Twikini. It is lightweight, fast and easy to use. Scrolling the list in WM6.5 is very fluid. You can find more info at: http://www.trinketsoftware.com/Twikini

As for my twitter, it is at: http://twitter.com/brianchau

Over-the-Air (OTA) installation of Flash Lite 3.1 player now in Australia

Today I have tested the OTA installation of Flash Lite 3.1 player on my Touch Diamond phone running WM6.5. It worked! I tested both when the phone was connected via Wifi and 3G (NextG from Telstra). It works like this:

When a flash lite app as a cab file is installed on the Windows Mobile phone, it installed and then checked if the Flash Lite 3.1 run-time is already in the phone or not. If not, it then asks to download and install the Flash Lite player. Click yes and the download and installation process will go ahead. No drama.

My colleague, Andrew Spaulding told me he  has tested the OTA successfully on his Nokia phone too.

I was at a MS breakfast event yesterday and MS was promoting their Windows Mobile Marketplace. I have a feeling that a Flash Lite application hosted at the WM Marketplace should work, just like any WM native apps. That may mean Flash developers should be able to develop and sell Flash Lite apps to the WM users via the Marketplace. If true, that is good news for Flash developers.

Update: Probably won’t pass the MS certification test. I was told that one of the requirement is for the app to have a clean uninstall. I tested Flash Lite 3 app uninstall and found that there are traces of files sitting on the program folder .

WebDU – Flash Media Interactive Server coding

Just finished the Flash Media Interactive Server session at WebDU and I have posted the slides and demo files at the below link:
http://pacific.adobe.acrobat.com/bchau_fms/