You will not be allowed to access some content on Apple devices regardless of its merit. Apple will apply this content censorship at a hardware level based on nothing more than the format content is published in. This censorship will include the music, videos, games, books and applications that you consume, use and own now and those you may want to access in the future.

You will pay whatever Apple tells you to pay for Apple sanctioned content, but will only be able to purchase it through an Apple sanctioned mechanism. You will put up with this because Apple says it's going to be better that way, easier, it will just work.

This will all be fine, because the content that is deemed worthy will all be based on 'open' standards and technology.

Welcome to the AppleNet.

Steve.

The last Mobile Design UK event was really well presented and provided some great insight into the technical and cultural challenges faced by designers and interaction designers when trying to target mobile platforms.

You can get the full details and registration information of the upcoming Mobile Design UK event from the Mobile Design UK website.

To get a feel for the target of the Mobile Design UK events and there content you can read my post on the previous Mobile Design UK event.

The evening was introduced by Arabella David from Nokia. She outlined the growing importance of user experience in the mobile space and how Forum Nokia is pushing to support Designers and User Experience experts through the Forum Nokia Channel. More information can be found at the Design and Media section of the Forum Nokia Site.

Scott Weiss (@sdweiss) of Human Factors International kicked of the presentations with a dissection and walkthrough of the usability and information architecture considerations when developing mobile applications that use XHTML to reach a broad user audience. It was good to find out that with XHTML as well as many mobile technologies there is often a trade off between features, richness and audience reach.

Antony Ribot (@ribot) from Ribot provided a fantastic presentation on the speed and growth of the mobile information age, and it's subsequent effects on physical trends, culture and behaviors. Also provided some great ideas on how we as producers might need to change the way we approach concepting, brain storming and designing to target these new user expectations.

Gil Kahana of Seren Partners presentation provided an enthusiastic insight into the challenges faced when dealing with the barriers that mobile applications present to users and the ways developers should research, test and experiment to break down those barriers. There was some great discussions that followed Gil's presentation around the fragmentation of some of the technology in the mobile space.

The final presentation by Marek Pawlowski (@marekpawlowski) from PMN - Mobile Industry Intelligence showed some brilliant dissection of the minutia of user value that can be extracted by mobile users and audiences from some of the most innocuous of details, the value of battery life conservation, the range of colours a phone or application is available in or how an application provides user feed back when scrolling.

The Mobile Design UK group offers a refreshing and much needed alternative view of mobile development. At the end if the evening I caught up with Bryan Rieger, one of the event organisers, to find out what types of content they were hoping to present at future meetings,

we don't want to show code

was his first reply. I for one think that's a brilliant mantra to hold true to. In a space dominated by massively varied technologies, huge numbers of acronyms and a huge range of user audiences and platforms I found it a very comfortable evening of knowledge sharing in a format that felt like a well organized brainstorm.

If you are interested in designing & producing content targeting any mobile platform I would look out for up coming Mobile Design UK events. Thanks to organisers for putting together a great line up os speakers and also a big thank you to Forum Nokia for the sponsorship of the evening.

blog.rive.be

This memory information is viewable from Adobe Device Central in the Memory Panel, where device central provides a graph showing memory usage over time, separating Static Heap and Dynamic Heap consumption of the player as your Flash Lite application runs.

Testing for memory use, loss and leaks is currently not present as standard in ASUnit for ActionScript 2. In order to include this form of testing at a basic level we have employed a trick I picked up at Max San Francisco this year (If you are the person that explained the trick, please leave a comment so I can credit you). The technique makes use of the FlashLite SharedObject as a way of measuring the file size of objects and classes before and after you think you have destroyed them in your code.

The premiss is a simple one. In your test as part of the test setup create a local SharedObject create an empty data property and save the SharedObject to disk, then call the SharedObject.getSize() method and store the size of your empty SharedObject. The code should look something like this.

// size variation threshold for the SharedObject
private static var SIZEVARIANCE:Number = 5;
private var iS:SharedObject;
private var iSSize:Number;
// standard ASUnit test setup
private function setUp():Void
{
instance = new TestableClassObject();
iS = SharedObject.getLocal("iS");
iS.clear();
iS.data.iS = undefined;
iS.flush();
iSSize = iS.getSize();
}

Some things to keep in mind are the following. The length of the SharedObject name and the length of the data property name will have an impact on the result of SharedObject.getSize(). In the above example I have limited both these values to 2 characters ('iS'). All that remains is to link the value obtained from this setup function into a standard ASUnit test which looks something like this:

public function testDestroy():Void
{
instance.destroy();
iS.data.iS = instance;
assertTrue("testDestroy : test that the TestableClassObject 'instance' is destroyed successfully by checking size variation (" + SIZEVARIANCE + ") in SharedObject", ((iS.getSize() - iSSize) < SIZEVARIANCE));
}

In this test I am simply calling the target class instance's destroy method, which should manage the removal of any stored references, arrays and object present in the class. I then save the locally stored instance back to the existing shared object, re-call SharedObject.getSize() and compare the size difference to the value of our initial empty SharedObject (iSSize) from the test setup method.

If the file size of the SharedObject is greater than the SIZEVARIANCE threshold then the test will fail. If that is the case then you have the ability to inspect the shared object using a SharedObject viewer (I use the free Solve by Darron Schall). In the viewer you will be able to see what items are not being properly removed from your class instance oronject. A common issue I have seen is the failure to destroy arrays that are prpperties of my classes for example. Some time over the holiday break I will put together a full example for download.

The Platform Services enable flash application to access Device Capabilities and services that were previously only possible through third party solutions Such as Kuneri lite.

Here is a list taken from the Using Platform Services section of the new Flash Lite Developers Library.

The S60 platform allows Flash Lite applications installed on S60 mobile devices to:

• Access and launch applications on a device using the AppManager Service API
• Access and manage calendar information using the Calendar Service API
• Access and manage information about contacts using the Contacts Service API
• Access and manage information about landmarks using the Landmarks Service API
• Access device logging events using the Logging Service API
• Access device location information and perform location-based calculations using the Location Service API
• Access information about media files stored on a device using the Media Management Service API
• Send, retrieve, and manage messages such as SMS and MMS using the Messaging Service API
• Access data from the physical sensors of a device using the Sensor Service API
• Access and modify system information on a device using the SystemInfo Service API

These new API's are supported through FlashLite 3.x on Series 60 5th edition devices. Flash Lite applications use the S60 Platform Services through Service APIs. The Service APIs are supported through a Nokia-proprietary ActionScript 2.0 library. Before you can create Flash Lite applications that use platform services, you must install the library for use in your Flash Lite applications.

Here is a run down of updates from the Change History section of the Flash Lite Developers Library.

Change history Flash Lite Developer's Library 1.1

• Added information on the S60 Platform Services, the corresponding ActionScript Service APIs, and the ActionScript Service object required to access the APIs.
• Added section "Flash Lite API reference". This section describes the ActionScript APIs provided by the S60 platform for use with Flash Lite applications.
• Added section "Flash Lite authoring and optimization tips". This section provides tips and guidelines for authoring Flash Lite applications and optimizing their performance.
• Added section "Flash Lite with S60 touch". This section briefly introduces the touch UI and Flash Lite touch keypad of S60 5th Edition devices and provides instructions for disabling the touch keypad.
• Added section "Flash Lite example applications". This section contains links to example Flash Lite applications that you can download to your computer and then to a mobile device or emulator.

Check out the Flash Lite Developer’s Library Here.

Last week I took the time to find a way to work around this issue in order to get back to my development tool chain when developing Flash Lite content. For those users that are more experienced with this form of development the only answer seems to be to create a symbol in the library of your fla associate any classes that make use of the FSCommand2 to the new symbol. Make sure the Clip is exported in some fashion, either by physically placing it on the stage, or setting it to export for ActionScript. Next export a stub SWF from the fla. In eclipse, or when using MTASC you will need to use the '-keep' switch on the command line when you run MTASC to compile your Flash Lite content, this will also make sure the Flash Lite swf header will remain in tact as well. This forces MTASC to keep any assets that are already in the target output swf.

It is also worth mentioning that in your application code you will not be able to refer to the class that contains functionality using the FSCommand2. So applications like FDT will think there is an error as you will be unable to define the 'type' of your class. A second note is that MTASC will flag that there is a movie clip associated with a class, but that is has not been compiled.


Warning : The MovieClip KeyController needs the class { Class path containing FSCommand2() function } which was not compiled :
Please force compilation of this class by adding it to the commandline.


I have not been able to completely remove the FLA or the Flash IDE completely from my tool chain, but in all honesty I think there are alot of use cases in Flash Lite development that still require a level of timeline usage, so I happy with this compromise.

I have created an example package of files that you can download from here or in the download area.

Mobile Summit
November 16, 2008 at the Marriott from 1pm-6pm
Join Adobe and our partners — Nokia, Qualcomm®, Verizon, Sony Ericsson, GetJar, Thumbplay®, and Zed — to learn about new opportunities for mobile developers this year. Get a sneak peak at what you will see and hear at MAX before anyone else does! Hear from Adobe partners and key industry players as they present the newest mobile solutions, technologies, and distribution opportunities for mobile developers. To learn more and RSVP for this event go to: http://www.eventsadobe.com/mobilesummitmax08/invite.html

Mobile Fast Pitch Networking Party
November 19, 2008 at the Thirsty Bear from 6:16pm-9:30pm
Adobe is hosting a special Mobile Networking Party to allow developers to showcase their mobile applications using our Adobe® Flash® mobile technologies. If you already have a web-based application and are thinking of going mobile, you can also present your idea and get feedback from our industry leaders. Join us to support fellow developers or to present your ideas. For more RSVP and presentation information for this event go to: http://www.eventsadobe.com/mobilenetworkingparty/invite.html

In addition to these 2 events there are also a number of great sessions on at the conference tailored to Mobile:

• Open Screen Project: Delivering Rich Internet Experiences Across Devices
• Creating Mobile Applications: A Real-World Example
• Mobile Workflows with Creative Suite® 4 and Adobe Device Central CS4
• Flash Lite 3: Learn How to Package and Distribute Mobile Content
• Spotlight on Finetune and Teknision™: Building a Multiscreen Application
• Create Unique Browsing Experiences on Nokia Phones
• How to Build a Mobile Business
• Developing the Ultimate Flash Cast™ Channels
• Project Capuchin – Bridging Adobe Flash Lite and Java ME™

Remember the most popular MAX sessions fill very early, so be sure to register today to secure seats in your preferred sessions. You’ll be surprised by what real live Adobe Flash Lite applications exist today.

Full details of the event have already been posted bt Mark Doherty at flashmobileblog.com.

Headline Numbers for this update:

261 profiles included
57 new devices
updates to 204 existing profiles
In total that makes 525 device profiles for you to create content with

Download Adobe Device Central Update 7 from here.

The training course was held in Paris which meant a broad mix of different european mobile developers were attended. Its the first training course I have attended and I was surprised at the breadth of experience of the other attendees. A range of backgrounds from designers, lectures, flash developers, service operators and also mobile Java developers.

The wide range of knowledge and experience made for great discussions regarding development practices, the future of mobile, and also the part that Flash, Flash Lite or Flash Platform might play in the emerging mobile data and services market place. I imagine it also made for a real challenge to present to us at times!

These are exciting times to be involved in Flash Lite and mobile development in general. Battle lines still seem to be being drawn between a number of companies, technologies, services and a whole mix of different mobile phones and other devices. Training courses and conferences and gatherings like this and LFPUG which bring together such mixed skill sets offer a great chance to get under the marketing hype and speak to the people actually involved.

Very enjoyable and informative, thanks everyone involved.

So with all these 'new' flash lite components available what can you expect from each component set?

Nokia Flash Lite 2 Components
Nokia have provided their Flash Lite 2 Component set as an MXP file for simple installation into Flash CS3, the components are easily accessible from the components panel once the MXP has been installed. Included in the zip file you download is a full readme.txt explaining how to install the MXP file through Adobe Extension Manager. The components also include full usage instructions in the form of flash help files and usage examples. Flash Lite Components that are included in the distribution are:

• Signal Level display, including network generation.
• Battery level display.
• Dynamic List Component.

The Signal and Battery indicator components react to softkey placement/screen orientation. All three of the components have easily accessible skin components in the library, and also allow limited visual control from the properties panel. Mark Doherty noted that the components appear to be quite memory hungry. The Signal and Battery Indicators seem to use in the region of 600k according to Adobe Device Central, the Dynamic List Example reports around 800k although the actual memory usage of the list without a demo data set is closer to 700k.

Download the Nokia Flash Lite 2 Components

Adobe Flash Lite 1 & 2 Components and UI Examples
Over at flashmobileblog Mark Doherty has released some UI components as well. These are provided for both Flash Lite 1 and Flash Lite 2 projects. There is limited documentations for the examples, the Flash Lite 2 examples look like they should be easy to integrate as long as you intend to use them 'as is' in this case they would simply require the addition of key listeners to control them. If you needed the components to be used in a more dynamic fashion, there would probably be some work to do. Included in the Flash Lite 2 component examples are:

• List, this offers similar functionality to the Dynamic list in the Nokia Component set.
• Slider, This offers a horizontally scrolling icon menu.
• Gapper, This is a vertical variation of the slider.
• TileGrid, Shows a gridded icon menu with scrolling screen control.
• NavModel, this demonstrates a full application screen control system, also included are working Signal and Battery indicators and a list components.

The examples in this file are certainly easy on the memory, all of them use less than 500k, this is particularly impressive of the Nav Model example given the amount of interactivity and feedback that is demonstrated.

As with any Flash Lite 1 work, making use of the earlier versions will be a little more fiddly than the Flash Lite 2 counter parts. But the code in each of the examples is clearly identified and if you know your way around ActionScript 1 you should find incorporating the 'components' easy enough. Included in the examples are the following Flash Lite 1.1 components.

• Carousel, A full screen horizontal slider.
• Displays, demonstrates the various device stats you can access from Flash Lite 1, also included are battery and signal indicators.
• IconMenu, offers a FlashLite 1 version of the Slider component in the Flash Lite 2 set, this is similar to the functionality produced in the tutorial here.
• Menu, actually seems to be a Flash Lite 2 example, an alternative dynamic list example.
• Story, This is an example of scrolling text in flash Lite 1, similar to the scrolling text component I have released.

Agin the Flash Lite 11 components are very efficient when it comes to memory usage. None used more than 400k when published, and most were below 300k. The trade of with both these example sets from Adobe seem to be the slight increase in the amount of work you would need to do to integrate them. The other thing to note, is that these examples do offer examples of far more compelling UI methods than simple lists.

Download the Adobe Flash Lite 1 & 2 Components and UI Examples

Shuriken Open Source Flash Lite 2 Components
The last set of Flash Lite components are those that

Its a little hard to make complete sense of the post from EETimes.com. But some interesting quotes from the short, slightly cryptic article:

By using our new IP, one can design a portable device capable of processing Adobe Flash Lite several times faster, when compared with using a processor.

Also in the announcement is a hint of better video quality as well.

After reducing the number of gates required for an IC and further tuning the video quality output by Adobe Flash Lite, NEC will start offering its IP in August this year.

One thing that does seem to be missing is an explanation of which Flash Lite version they are supporting, although the mention of video implies this is based around the FlashLite 3 player.

You can read the full (breif) announcement of NEC's new Flash Lite IP over at EETimes.com.

One further interesting thing is that I could find no mention of NEC being involved with the Open Screen Project from its press release.

Credit where its due: EETimes.com

Interestingly this is a concept I began to scratched the surface of with my presentation at Flash On the Beach Last Year, and over the last few months has been a subject I have continued to keep close to hand both in my day job and my personal development projects. At the moment the Flash Player Fragmentation offers a considerable challenge to any developer wanting to design and or develop for multiple devices and multiple screens.

Articles like the one posted over at ADC on adaptive screen layouts offer a great foot up. But before we get to visual display we need to know what player version we are targeting. And to do that, we have to hit the time machine button and roll back all the way to Flash 4.....

The Following code should be exported as a Flash 4 ActionScript 1 .swf. This will ensure it can run on the broadest client base. The resultant .swf acts a cross platform redirect that should work within both stand alone and browser based flash clients. Once the .swf loads it will identify the player variation and then redirect the viewer to the appropriate content for there player platform by loading a replacement content swf at the main player level.

 
/**
Declare flash platform player strings here. As more devices are discovered this list will grow, the strings are from the getVersion() function
*/
// FlashLite 1.1 player platform string
FL1PLATFORM = "5.2";
// FlashLite 2 or 3 player platform string
FL2PLATFORM = "FL ";
// psp Flash Player Platform string
PSPPLATFORM = "NF3";
// Wii Player Platform String
WIIPLATFORM = "WII"
// windows Flash Player Platform string
WINPLATFORM = "WIN";
// mac Flash Player Platform string
MACPLATFORM = "MAC"
/**
Declare files names for flash files of different device configurations
NOTE! Include the full path name here
*/
flashLite1 = "fl_fl1.swf";
flashLite2 = "fl_fl2.swf";
flashLite3 = "fl_fl3.swf";
flash6PSP = "flash6PSP.swf";
flash7WII = "flash7WII.swf";
flashFull8 = "FullFlash8.swf";
flashFull9 = "FullFlash9.swf";
// get the player version
flashVersion = getVersion();
// display full player information
trace(flashVersion);
// test for existence of player version for very early players
if(flashVersion == "")
{
	/*
	Player does not support $version so is VERY early Flash PLayer
	Decide how you wish to handle this case here
	*/
}
// crop the player version to store the platform
playerPlatform = substring(flashVersion, 0, 3)
// Assign a player version for testing
// playerPlatform = PSPPLATFORM;
// display platform information
trace("playerPlatform");
trace(playerPlatform);
// use flashLite 1.1 file
if(playerPlatform eq FL1PLATFORM)
{
	// launch a FlashLite 1.1 version of the file.
	trace("Launch FlashLite 1.1 player version");
	loadMovie(flashLite1, "_level0"); //+"?stgWidth="+Stage.width+"&stgHeight="+Stage.height);
}
else
{
	if(playerPlatform eq PSPPLATFORM)
	{
		// launch a PSP or Flash 6 version of the file
		trace("Launch PSP player version");
		loadMovie(flash6PSP, "_level0"); //+"?stgWidth="+Stage.width+"&stgHeight="+Stage.height);
	}
	else if(playerPlatform eq WIIPLATFORM)
	{
		// launch a PSP or Flash 7 version of the file
		trace("Launch WII player version");
		loadMovie(flash7WII, "_level0"); //+"?stgWidth="+Stage.width+"&stgHeight="+Stage.height);
	}
	else if(playerPlatform eq FL2PLATFORM)
	{
		// grab the player version number for flash lite
		playerVersion = substring(flashVersion, 4, 1);
		// display version information
		trace("playerVersion");
		trace(playerVersion);
		if(playerVersion == "7")
		{
			// launch a FlashLite 2 version of the file.
			trace("Launch FlashLite 2 player version");
			loadMovie(flashLite2, "_level0"); //+"?stgWidth="+Stage.width+"&stgHeight="+Stage.height);
		}
		else if(playerVersion eq "8")
		{
			// launch a FlashLite version of the file.
			trace("Launch FlashLite 3 player version");
			loadMovie(flashLite3, "_level0"); //+"?stgWidth="+Stage.width+"&stgHeight="+Stage.height);
		}
	}
	else if((playerPlatform eq WINPLATFORM) || (playerPlatform eq MACPLATFORM))
	{
		// grab the player version number for desktop player
		playerVersion = substring(flashVersion, 5, 1);
		// display version information
		trace("playerVersion");
		trace(playerVersion);
		if(playerVersion == 8 )
		{
			// launch a desktop version 8 of the file.
			trace("Launch desktop player version");
			loadMovie(flashFull8, "_level0"); //+"?stgWidth="+Stage.width+"&stgHeight="+Stage.height);
		}
		else if (playerVersion == 9 )
		{
			// launch a desktop version 9 of the file.
			trace("Launch desktop player version");
			loadMovie(flashFull9, "_level0"); //+"?stgWidth="+Stage.width+"&stgHeight="+Stage.height);
		}
	}
}
stop();
 

The below zip includes the full source and example 'redirection' movies. If you have any other Client version strings that can be added please let me know and I will try and keep the script updated. For example I would love to know what the Sony Ericcson Java client version reports.

Identiying Flash Client Versions

All you need to do is open the apple script editor.

"/Applications/AppleScript/Script Editor.app"

Then paste a similar line of code to the commands that Macca and Anders mentioned:

do shell script "ifconfig fw0 down" with administrator privileges
do shell script "ifconfig fw0 up" with administrator privileges and password
do shell script "/System/Library/StartupItems/CiscoVPN/CiscoVPN  restart" with administrator privileges and password

Feel free to run the apple script to test it, just note you will be asked for an administrator password for the script to run.

Once you are happy you should compile and save the script to keep it safe, or "save as" and choose application. Alternatively, you could just download the AppleScript Fix for the "Error 51: Unable to communicate with the VPN subsystem" problem, that I have pre compiled as an application.

Credit where its due.
Ian Talks Tech for jogging the grey matter.
Anders.com for solving my problems when I had them.
Apple for showing me how to do shell scripts in Apple Script.

My session is scheduled for Friday afternoon.

Flash Video Nokia Masterclass - Dave Williamson (Adobe)Learn how to create live video applications with the most popular online video format on Nokia devices.

Over the Air is all sold out now, but you can find all the information about the event over at the Over the Air Blog

I look forward to catching up with you if you are there.

PlayerVersion: FL 8,1,55,0

You can see a FlashLite version test movie here..

Related to this I found myself in the situation where the Nokia Software Updater would not allow me to install the new firm ware, my t-mobile branded phone was just such a device. A quick search and it seems that devices on certain service providers are locked from the update. However there are always round such restrictions. Below is how to modify your Nokia N95 product code so that it is unlocked for applying new firmware updates.

WARNING THIS PROCESS MAY BRICK YOUR PHONE, VOID YOUR WARRANTY AND ANY NUMBER OF OTHER TERRIBLE THINGS. DO NOT DO THIS IF YOU ARE IN ANYWAY UNSURE OF THE CONSEQUENCES. I ACCEPT NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY NASTY THINGS THAT HAPPEN TO YOU, YOUR DEVICE OR ANY ACTION YOUR SERVICE PROVIDER TAKES AFTER FOLLOWING THESE LINKS AND INSTRUCTIONS

That said, I only had one minor hiccup in the whole process, and it seems I am not the only one to have experienced it. I for got to mention that to Mike on MSN

Right with that out the way, on to the fun.

1. First off BACK UP YOUR DEVICE! make sure you have a back up of the memory card and also the device memory.
2. In order to install the new 21.0.016 firmware you will also want to make sure you have the following software.

* Download the latest version of Nokia PC Suite.
* Download the Nemesis Service Suite.

3. Next read this post, it provides a list of the available product codes for the N95.
4. Finally you should make sure you read this post, it covers how to update the product code on the N95.

As I began to progress through the steps outlined on changing the product code of my Nokia N95 mobile phone there were a couple of items where I was left to 'take a leap of faith'.

1. When installing Nemesis Service Suite I left the device connection as the default virtual USB device. And that seemed to be the right thing to do.
2. When deciding on a new product code for the device I chose the one for EURO1 Plum, this appears to have worked fine for my location and device. I have a silver/grey Nokia N95 and am based in the UK.

Once the product code was updated on the mobile phone the Nokia Software Updater worked fine to allow me to upgrade to the latest 21.0.016 firmware.

Curse my slow blogging skills, beat to the post.

Well, you really believe that Flash is synonymous with the internet and frankly, anybody who wants to browse the web and experience the web's glory really needs Flash support. We were very excited about the announcement from Windows Mobile, adoption of Flash on their devices and the fact that we've shipped 0.5 billion devices now, non-PC devices. So we are also committed to bringing the Flash experience to the iPhone and we will work with Apple. We've evaluated the SDK, we can now start to develop the Flash player ourselves and we think it benefits our joint customers. So we want to work with Apple to bring that capability to the device.

If the mountain wont move to you..

Go Adobe!

Read the full ZDnet article here
Read the SeekingAlpha transcript here

Read the Full Press Release here

Initially available for Internet Explorer Mobile on Windows Mobile 5 and 6 devices, mobile web app developers have already started integrating Gears for mobile into their online services.

also

if you're not a Windows Mobile user, stay tuned -- we're working to roll out Google Gears for other platforms with capable web browsers, including Android.

you can find out more at the Google Gears on Mobile Devices developer site.

Separately, today came news from Nokia that they are to add support for Silverlight on S60 and Series 40 devices on Symbian OS and Nokia Internet tablets.

This is an important relationship on so many levels. Working with Nokia means we are easily able to reach a huge number of mobile users, including customers of all S60 licensees. This is a significant step in gaining broad acceptance for Silverlight and ensuring it is platform agnostic. This is critical since we want to make sure developers and designers don't have to constantly recreate the wheel and build different versions of applications and services for multiple operating systems, browsers and platforms

said S. Somasegar, Senior Vice President of Microsoft's Developer Division.

Exciting times ahead

credit where its due:

• cellular-news - Nokia Adds Support for Microsoft Silverlight to Their Handsets
• Google Mobile Blog - Shifting Google Gears to mobile

One of the most enjoyable features of FlashLite 1.1 is its (lack of) ability to measure the height, width or any metric of text once it is displayed on the screen of your shiny new Nokia N95. This makes efficient text scrolling a particular joy to produce. To this end I have produced a simple example of a fairly flexible scrolling text component for FlashLite 1.1.

Below is a comprehensive (hopefully) tutorial describing how to create such a component.

Creating the component project
The first thing to do is to create a new FlashLite file, in this tutorial I have based the development on a QVGA mobile phone, such as the N6110 or N95. To do this simply set the stage size to a width of 240 pixels and the height to 320 pixels. I haven't altered the default frame rate. In the flash publish settings "File > Publish Settings" set the Flash version to FlashLite 1.1, this will automatically set the ActionScript version to 1.0 (is there a 1.anything else?) after that we are good to go!

Creating the scrolling text field

1. Create a new symbol in your Library and name it "TextArea".
2. On the stage of this symbol create a dynamic text field with a width of about 220 pixels and a height of 280 pixels.
3. With the text field selected put "text" in the Var field in the properties inspector. We will use this later to assign text to the field, remember no instance names on text fields in FlashLite 1.1.
4. Next create a new symbol in your Library and Name it "ScrollingTextArea".
5. On the stage of this symbol drag an instance of your "TextArea" symbol and position it to position X:0 and Y:0 and give it an instance name of "textArea_mc", for clarity you should name the layer this instance sits on "TextArea" or you might prefer "textArea_mc".
6. Add a new layer to your "ScrollingTextArea" symbol and name it "ActionScript". On this layer in frame 1 add the ActionScript command stop();.
7. Create a new layer folder and name it "CallFunctions".
8. Inside the "CallFunctions" folder create a new layer and call it "init", on this new layer create a blank key frame on frame 2 and give it the frame label "init".
9. On the new "init" frame add the following code that will be used later to initialise our scrolling text field.

   
// store maxScroll Locally
maxScroll = textArea_mc:text.maxscroll;
// if max scroll is greater than 1 we know we need the text to scroll
if(maxScroll > 1)
{
// store the current scroll position loccally
currentScroll = 1;
// set scrollPercent to 0.
scrollPercent = 0;
//set the scroll bar height to the height of the text field
scrollBar_mc.trackHeight = textArea_mc._height;
//set the scroll thumb height
scrollBar_mc.thumbHeight = 30;
// init the scroll bar
call("scrollBar_mc/:Init");
// show the scroll bar
scrollBar_mc._visible = true;
}
// otherwise hide the scroll bar, its not needed.
else
{
scrollBar_mc._visible = false;
}


   At this stage most of the values in this code block will not function, but they will be required in a later step.

10. Inside the "CallFunctions" folder create a new layer and call it "setText", on this new layer create a blank key frame on frame 3 and give it the frame label "setText".
11. On the new "setText" frame add the following code that is used to populate our text field component.

    
// set the text value to the text field
textArea_mc:text = text;
// call init to reset scroll parameters
call("init");


12. Inside the "CallFunctions" folder create a new layer and call it "scrollUp", on this new layer create a blank key frame on frame 4 and give it the frame label "scrollUp".
13. On the new "scrollUp" frame add the following code that is used to scroll the text in our component up the screen.

    
// increase the text scroll
textArea_mc:text.scroll++;
// store the current scroll position locally
currentScroll = textArea_mc:text.scroll;
// if the current scroll position is the same as maxScroll scrollPercent is 100
if(currentScroll == maxScroll)
{
scrollPercent = 100;
}
// other wise calculate the percentage scroll position
else
{
scrollPercent = Math.ceil(((currentScroll-1)/maxScroll) *100);
}
// set the scroller scroll percentage
scrollBar_mc.scrollPercent = scrollPercent;
// call the scrollBar setScrollPercent function
call("scrollBar_mc/:setScrollPercent");


14. Inside the "CallFunctions" folder create a new layer and call it "scrollDown", on this new layer create a blank key frame on frame 5 and give it the frame label "scrollDown".
15. On the new "scrollDown" frame add the following code that is used to scroll the text in our component up the screen.

    
// decrease the text scroll
textArea_mc:text.scroll--;
// store the current scroll position locally
currentScroll = textArea_mc:text.scroll;
// if the current scroll position is at 1 then there is no more scrolling to be done, so scrollPercent is 0
if(currentScroll == 1)
{
scrollPercent = 0;
}
// other wise calculate the percentage scroll position
else
{
scrollPercent = Math.ceil(((currentScroll-1)/maxScroll) *100);
}
// set the scroller scroll percentage
scrollBar_mc.scrollPercent = scrollPercent;
// call the scrollBar setScrollPercent function
call("scrollBar_mc/:setScrollPercent");


16. Finally add code to frame 1 of the actionscript layer so it looks like this:

    
// by default hide the scrollbar
scrollBar_mc._visible = false;
// call the text field init function
call("Init");
stop();


Thats all there is for the development of the text field, and also for the scrolling functionality. You will notice that in our text field "scrollUp" and "scrollDown" call frames we reference a scroll bar clip, we will now create that scrollbar.

Create a simple FlashLite 1.1 scroll bar component

1. In your library create a new symbol and call it "square".
2. On the stage of your new "square" symbol draw a square with no stroke give it a width and height of 50 pixels, place the graphic at X:0 and Y:0.
3. In your library create a new symbol and call it "scrollbar".
4. Label the layer in your new "ScrollBar" symbol "scrollTrack". Bring an instance of the "square" symbol on to this layer and position it at X:0 and Y:0 change the symbol instance's with to 10 pixels and its height to 100 pixels. Also give the instance an instance name of "scrollTrack_mc" and apply a colour tint of your choice.
5. Create a new layer above the "scrollTrack" layer name this new layer "ScrollThumb" and add another instance of your "square" symbol to it.
6. This time set the instance name to "scrollThumb_mc". Position it at X:1 and Y:1. Set the new "scrollThumb_mc" width to 8 pixels and its height to 50 pixels. Again apply a colour tint, making sure it is different to the one you applied to the "scrollTrack_mc" instance.
7. Add a new layer and name it "ActionScript". In frame 1 of this new layer add the following code:

   
// call the scroll bar init function
call("init");
stop();


8. Create a new layer folder and name it "CallFunctions".
9. Inside the "CallFunctions" folder create a new layer and call it "init", on this new layer create a blank key frame on frame 2 and give it the frame label "init".
10. On the new "init" frame add the following code that will be used later to initialise our scrolling scroll bar.

    
// apply padding to the scroll thumb
scrollPadding = 1;
// call the set scroll height function
call("setScrollHeight");


11. Inside the "CallFunctions" folder create a new layer and call it "setScrollHeight", on this new layer create a blank key frame on frame 3 and give it the frame label "setScrollHeight".
12. On the new "setScrollHeight" frame add the following code.

    
// resize the scroll track
scrollTrack_mc._height = trackHeight;
// resize the scroll thumb
scrollThumb_mc._height = thumbHeight;
// set the tscroll thumb position to the padding value
scrollThumb_mc._y = scrollPadding;
// store the max scroll position
maxScroll = (trackHeight - thumbHeight);


13. Inside the "CallFunctions" folder create a new layer and call it "setScrollPercent", on this new layer create a blank key frame on frame 3 and give it the frame label "setScrollPercent".
14. On the new "setScrollPercent" frame add the following code.
    
// set the scroll position based on a percentage value using math.
scrollThumb_mc._y = Math.max(((maxScroll*(scrollPercent/100))-scrollPadding), scrollPadding);


This completes the development of the simple scrollbar component, all you need to do is to add it to the "ScrollingTextArea" clip we created earlier.

1. Return to editing the "ScrollingTextArea" symbol in the library. Add a new layer above the "TextArea" layer and name it "ScrollBar".
2. Drag an instance of the SrollBar symbol out onto the new layer. Position the new instance at X:225 and Y:0.
3. Give the new ScrollBar instance an instance name of "scrollBar_mc".

This completes the development of the scrolling text field component. All that remains is to show how it can be used within a project. To do this we need to add the scrolling text field to the stage of the main time line, add some ActionScript to populate the text field component, and then add a key press handler.

Completing the project

1. Re-name the layer "Layer 1" on the main movie time line to "textArea".
2. Drag an instance of our "ScrollingTextArea" clip onto the new "textArea" layer. Position the new instance at X:0 and Y:19. Give the new instance an instance name of "scrollingText_mc".
3. Create a new Layer above the "textArea" layer and name the new layer "ActionScript". On frame 1 of this layer add the following code:

   
// dummy text to populate our text field
textVar0 = "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Fusce non urna. Ut leo metus, euismod non, semper et, ultrices at, nisl. Fusce non orci vitae dui blandit sagittis. Vestibulum laoreet feugiat leo. Suspendisse malesuada. Maecenas ultricies fermentum mi. Proin nulla. Mauris at dolor a nisl cursus congue. Maecenas id justo tincidunt augue molestie commodo. Donec nec metus eu tellus cursus mollis. Cras justo. Nunc sapien arcu, luctus id, porta sit amet, ultrices non, metus. Donec cursus. Aenean eleifend facilisis odio. Sed suscipit, odio eu fringilla ornare, eros metus eleifend quam, eget facilisis nulla turpis at tellus. Ut et massa a est faucibus fringilla. Nam nisl magna, condimentum non, lobortis et, porta non, ipsum. Aliquam ultricies augue sed urna. Sed ligula magna, vehicula at, scelerisque id, luctus eget, tortor. Donec aliquet purus ut neque.\n\nCras porttitor facilisis sem. Praesent cursus nulla euismod lorem. Donec vitae nunc. Quisque nec quam. Integer nonummy nisl vel mauris. Aliq\n\nam sed felis eu risus scelerisque scelerisque. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Sed tortor nisl, sodales et, eleifend sed, porta eget, urna. Sed adipiscing dolor sit amet dolor. Vestibulum fermentum lorem quis nulla. Donec id ligula. Suspendisse potenti. Aenean ac quam quis sapien sollicitudin dapibus. Cras vitae neque nec ante pharetra hendrerit.\n\nDonec ante lectus, gravida non, nonummy et, pulvinar ut, lectus. Ut sem nisi, dapibus non, scelerisque at, convallis sit amet, dolor. Cras vitae velit et lectus rhoncus ullamcorper. Sed sodales adipiscing tortor. Curabitur non dui ut ligula laoreet mattis. Ut vitae lacus quis enim placerat tristique. Donec ornare mauris eget sem faucibus lacinia. Vestibulum hendrerit diam et neque. Vestibulum imperdiet. Maecenas tincidunt felis vitae lectus. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Nam suscipit hendrerit felis. Mauris convallis elit vel justo. Nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Etiam vel mi. Phasellus ultrices porta felis. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos hymenaeos. Ut sed metus vel erat ultricies egestas. Pellentesque et ligula.";
// alternate dummy text to try, this should hide the scroll bar
textVar1 = "Test Text";
// set the text var we want assigned to our text field
scrollingText_mc.text = textVar0;
// call teh set text function on our scrolling text field
call("/scrollingText_mc/:setText");
stop();


This provides some dummy text with which to populate the text field component that has been developed, it then assigns one of the text variables to the components "text" value, and calls the "setText" function in the call frame of the scrolling text field component.

At this point you could export and test the movie, you should see the field is populated, and the scroll bar is correctly scaled and displayed to indicate that the text will scroll. Finally we create the controls to make the textscroll.

1. Create a new button in your library and call it "keycatcher".
2. In the "up" frame of this button I have put simple text label with the string "KeyCatcher" so I can identify the symbol on stage.
3. Return to the main timeline and create a new layer above the "textArea" layer, name this new layer "KeyCatcher".
4. Drag an instance of the "keycatcher" button onto the stage on this new layer. Position it off stage at X:-110.0 and Y:0.
5. With the "keycatcher" button still selected add the following key handling code to the button:

   
// assign our down key press handler
on (keyPress "")
{
// only cal the scroll function if the test is not at its maximum scroll
if(scrollingText_mc.currentScroll < scrollingText_mc.maxScroll)
{
call("scrollingText_mc/:scrollUp");
}
}
// assign our up key press handler
on (keyPress "")
{
// only cal the scroll function if the test is not at its minimum scroll
if(scrollingText_mc.currentScroll > 1)
{
call("scrollingText_mc/:scrollDown");
}
}


All that should remain is to save, export and test you new component in Device Central.

Download the source files of the scrolling text component for Adobe FlashLite 1.1

NOTE: If you have used embedded fonts in your text area and are seeing no text appearing, try using device fonts (non embedded) instead. Apparently there is a know isue with Flash CS3 exporting embedded fonts in FlashLite 1.1 swf files that are viewed in Device Central. More information is discussed briefly on the Adobe Device Central forums

Credit where its due:
Into Mobile
Internet Tablet Talk
Tablet Blog

So why you waiting? download FlashLite 3 for N95 Already

I hope that clears up the confusion.

The specs say the N96 will ship with FlashLite 3 built into the browser.

Unlike the 8 gig N95 you also get your microSD memory card expansion back and 16 Gig of internal memory and DVB-H video support as well!

The full specs of the leaked device and even a photo can be found over on the NokiaBlog

Stepping back into FlashLite 1.1 (flash 4/5) scripting has been a nostalgic experience. The halcyon days of ActionScript 0/1 were where I broke my teeth, so to speak, on flash. It has been an eye opener also to return to using Perl as well in order to format data efficiently for consumption in my simple FlashLite 1.1 applications.

In these days of XML, SOAP, SQL, and huge component frameworks, it has been nice to go back the the "demo days" of flash and try and eak every byte out of my data format. Remember of course, no XML or SWX support in FlashLite 1.1.

So what have i been playing with? How about a Live London Tube Status FlashLite 1.1 application?

The Data format?

lnID0=0&lnID1=0&lnID2=0&lnID3=0&lnID4=6&
lnID5=0&lnID6=0&lnID7=1&lnID8=0&lnID9=0&
lnID10=0&lnID11=0&itemLoaded=true


The lack of native structured data in FlashLite 1.1 means you have to think differently about what you are conveying, where best to store it, and how to access it. The example format above allows me to form references between pseudo-arrays in the FlashLite file that store much bulkier text labels, those strings can then be used multiple times in the application.

First I have a pseudo-array with my representation of the London Tube Lines.

lineNames0 = "Bkrloo";
lineNames1 = "Cntrl";
lineNames2 = "Crcle";
lineNames3 = "Dstrct";
lineNames4 = "Est Lndn";
lineNames5 = "Hmrsmth & Cty";
lineNames6 = "Jblee";
lineNames7 = "Mtropltn";
lineNames8 = "Nrthrn";
lineNames9 = "Pcdilly";
lineNames10 = "Vctria";
lineNames11 = "Wtrloo & Cty";


Also I store my interpretation of the common tube status' in a similar pseudo-array.

lineStatus0 = "Normal Service";
lineStatus1 = "Short Delays";
lineStatus2 = "Long Delays";
lineStatus3 = "Suspended";
lineStatus4 = "Part Suspended";
lineStatus5 = "Part Closed";
lineStatus6 = "Planned Closure";


Then once the data has loaded, note the last name value pair (itemLoaded=true) it allows my load script to spot when all the data is in the application. I perform a little loop operation to link my labels to line id's and then use the value of the loaded variable to set the frame of a "status" movie clip.


itemTotal = 0;
i = 0;
/*
loop through the loaded data, we know that there are not more than 11 Tube lines in London, at the moment.
*/
while(i < 12)
{
serviceLine = "/serviceBoard/serviceLine";
lnStatus = eval("/channelData_mc/:lnID" add i);
lnLabel = serviceLine add i add "/:_serviceItemLabel";
stLabel = serviceLine add i add "/:_serviceStatusLabel";
lnItem = serviceLine add i add "/serviceItemLine";
stItem = serviceLine add i add "/serviceItemStatus";
set((lnItem add "/:lnNum"), i+1);
set((stItem add "/:lnNum"), (lnStatus+1));
eval(serviceLine add i add "/:_serviceItemLabel") = eval("/channelData_mc/:lineNames" add i);
eval(serviceLine add i add "/:_serviceStatusLabel") = eval("/channelData_mc/:lineStatus" add lnStatus);
tellTarget(lnItem)
{
gotoAndStop(lnNum);
}
tellTarget(stItem)
{
gotoAndStop(lnNum);
}
++i;
}


The Result?

Download the Live London Tube Status FlashLite 1.1 Application for Mobile Devices.