Renaun Erickson

New = StructuredLogTestingSDK.swc, Old = RIALogger.swc

Renaun Erickson — Wed, 20 May 2009 18:07:30 +0000

Its come to my attention that there has been some confusion around getting the Structured Log Testing SDK up and running. The confusion has to do with the old code I used that was located along side the RIALoggerApp (an AIR application for viewing logs/structured logs). I have gone ahead an removed all the old RIALogger.swc code that was using the older RIAlogger class for logging. The new class to use is the SLog class and can be found in the StructuredLogTestingSDK.swc over on the http://structuredlogs.com site.

So in with the NEW (StructuredLogTestSDK.swc) and out with the OLD (RIALogger.swc).

Thoughts I missed in my Session

Renaun Erickson — Tue, 19 May 2009 13:57:10 +0000

If you didn’t catch all the good testing discussion’s we have had on the first day of 360Flex you’ll want to lookup whats going on with FlexUnit4 and Structured Log Testings.

Since yesterday and after my session there where some things that I didn’t touch on as much as I wanted to. First, Structured Log Testings was released in the wild yesterday. Structured Log Testings is meant to be a community project and any one wanting to get involved please let me know. Since the structured log format is really just JSON’d data with specific properties that need to be define this approach is not tied to a specific language. This also means its not just tied to client side but could be on the server side. For example think of gathering structured logs from your client as well as the server and then having a tool to view the data points in connection with each other. Then the next time someone has a bug they can send your the logs from the client, you find the logs on the server and see what went wrong.

A big part of this technology is the non-tech part, or the approach and mind set part. This is a new way of thinking about testing on a whole. Its meant to be very flexible in all phases of the project (development, deployment, maintenance). I hope to keep information and articles going on this progress and examples over on Structured Log Testings.

On the FlexUnit4 side if you are interested to see that project move forward with integration into next Builder release go vote.

PHP Script for Stratus Video Phone Sample Application

Renaun Erickson — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 23:50:52 +0000

Stratus is an Adobe technology up on labs that allows for Flash Player 10 and AIR 1.5 RTMFP real time communication connections. The most important features of RTMFP include low latency, end-to-end peering capability, security and scalability.

As part of the labs release there are an article and sample application.

Article 1
Stratus Sample Application

The Stratus Sample Application source files come with a cgi script for registering user’s identities (the NetConnection.nearId used for RTMFP net stream connections).

What this post is all about is a port of that cgi script to PHP. I was playing with the Stratus application on my own server and used PHP so I figured I would put the file out for others to use.

The file is renamed to a text file reg.txt but just download it and rename to reg.php to use.

Optimized Adobe Flash Player 10 for Devices

Renaun Erickson — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 22:17:07 +0000

More things are heating up around the Open Screen Project. At CTIA Wireless conference Adobe Systems Incorporated and Texas Instruments Incorporated announced a technology collaboration to optimize Adobe® Flash® Player and Adobe AIR® for the TI’s OMAP™ mobile applications platform.

This has always been one of my personal favorite areas Adobe is now more fully engaged in. Getting the Flash platform on devices, not just mobile but other devices, is a great opportunity with the full potential yet to be known. The last time I felt this type of opportunity was when Flex sdk changed their license from a server to be free (Flex 1 -> Flex 2). So far there have been a few announcements since MAX 2008 where they showed off Flash Player 10 on some different devices.

Looking forward to the future…

backgroundColor with showFlexChrome=”false”

Renaun Erickson — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 21:11:59 +0000

I came across a scenario that I wanted an AIR app to have a background color set while systemChrome="true" but showFlexChrome="false". Here is another post describing the problem. I tried to figure out what was going on and how the green-greyish background shows up (or white background in Flex 4) but couldn't figure out where that is created. But I did notice that when showFlexChrome="false" that the backgroundAlpha style was set to 0. So the workaround for the problem is to set the backgroundAlpha back to 1 after the application has created it self (on creationComplete event).

PLAIN TEXT

XML:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
:WindowedApplication
xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml"
layout="vertical"
backgroundColor="0x0000FF"
creationComplete="setBG()"
showFlexChrome="false"
>
:Script>
private function setBG():void
{
this.setStyle("backgroundAlpha", 1);
}
]]>
:Script>
:WindowedApplication>

Is there an easy way to do this? So the easier way of setting a background color withe showFlexChrome="false" is to set the background color of the SWF.

Cookbook link for setting SWF background value.

PS3 2.53 firmware update gives us fullscreen FP9 support

Renaun Erickson — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 00:29:55 +0000

So the updated is finally here. The fullscreen on hulu.com is working, but its a little choppy on the FPS. The fullscreen doesn't fill up my 1080p screen like watching fullscreen hulu on my PC. YouTube's fullscreen that was in a page was interesting. It worked but the quality was lacking.

Other cool feature support was my friend says he was watching hulu movies on his PSP with remote play.

Either way this is good progress for the Flash Platform. And remember to go get 2.53 right now....

PS3 Flash Player Version 9.0.124.0

Renaun Erickson — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 20:48:54 +0000

I was reading about some updates for the PS3 and notice mention about full screen flash. I was thinking that wasn't possible unless they had Flash Player 9, previously the PS3 only had Flash Player 7. The details on the web are all fuzzy and I couldn't tell what it really meant. But either way I power up the PS3 and in the browser went to:

http://www.adobe.com/products/flash/about

On that page it shows that the Flash Player version for my PS3 with firmware 2.52 has Flash Player 9.0.124.0. That is news to me, and I thought would be big news to alot of people. Well go try it out and let me know if I am not going crazy.

Note I tried Hulu.com and was able to play videos but clicking on the fullscreen button it didn't quite work. It didn't go into full screen mode but it did get rid of the menu buttons and became smaller in its original place, which was a little weird.

I guess PS3 firmware 2.53 is due out anytime now (it was leak that it was going to be release on Thanksgiving Day). The 2.53 release is suppose to fix the Flash Player fullscreen issue, I guess we'll see. Either way with Flash Player 9 you should be able to run Flex applications on the PS3 now.

Application.application.url in Flash AS3

Renaun Erickson — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 19:37:30 +0000

The solution to accessing the loader information url property is quite easy in Flash ActionScript 3. But when you Google for the solution its not obvious. Hence I am creating a post about it.

In Flex you can access the url of the SWF by accessing Application.application.url. What this value represents is the root.loaderInfo.url property. So in Flash and AS3 you would do this:

PLAIN TEXT

ACTIONSCRIPT:

var tf:TextField = new TextField();
tf.autoSize = TextFieldAutoSize.LEFT;
tf.border = true;
addChild(tf);
tf.appendText("params:" + "\n");
try {
var keyStr:String;
var valueStr:String;
tf.appendText(LoaderInfo(this.root.loaderInfo).url + "\n");
var paramObj:Object = LoaderInfo(this.root.loaderInfo).parameters;
for (keyStr in paramObj) {
valueStr = String(paramObj[keyStr]);
tf.appendText("\t" + keyStr + ":\t" + valueStr + "\n");
}
} catch (error:Error) {
tf.appendText(error.toString());
}

The important part is accessing the root's loaderInfo object. The above code also shows how to access the FlashVar parameters in ActionScript 3.

Example code referenced from here.

TestPoint example files

Renaun Erickson — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 18:06:49 +0000

I am still waiting for my session on the TestPoint approach to show up on the 360Flex Conference video feed. In the mean time I have put up the source files to the examples I used during the session. You can find them at - http://renaun.com/blog/testpoint/. As I get more time I'll be updating the TestPoint testing approach page with more information.

I also updated the RIALogger.swc and RIALoggerApp AIR application with some minor changes.

QTIndexSwapper v1.4.2 update

Renaun Erickson — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 21:56:37 +0000

This release is a bug fixed around reading atom's that are not more than 8 bytes. Thanks to Brandt Michael for pointing out the bug. I guess it affected mp4's coming from ffmpeg.