ScottKing.com.au

I’ve added a new tutorial to The Tech Labs, “SWFObject and Best Practice Implementation”.

In this tutorial I cover best practice embedding of SWF movies using SWFObject with a custom function for adding browser scrollbars for smaller browser windows.

View the article here:

http://www.thetechlabs.com/tutorials/flash/swfobject-and-best-practice-implementation/

Flash has built-in functionality to allow a user to tab around the page elements using their Tab key on their keyboard, just as you would with a normal HTML site.

Flash highlights the focused Flash element with a 2px yellow border around the element.

Often designers will want to disable this highlighting effect so as to not disrupt their design. This can be achieved witha  few simple lines of ActionScript:


Button.prototype.tabEnabled=false;
for(var obj in _root){
_root[obj].tabEnabled = false;
_root[obj]._focusrect=false;
}


Tonight I did a “soft’ launch of my new personal project site, Papervision Showcase. After a few hours it was linked to by the guys at http://dev.papervision3d.org, picked up by Twitter and Google Reader and I’ve seen ove a thousand hits to the site in around 3 hours. I’ve also recieved a slew of new project submissions to add to the site. Now I’ve just got to finish up the actual site itself for it’s final launch.

Check it out at:

http://www.papervisionshowcase.com

Two more banner games I created for Glaxo Smith Klines range of anti-smoking products, Nicabate.

This time I took on Pac Man and Space Invaders, Nicabate style.

• ActionScript2 (Flash Player 7)
• TweenLite
• AutoPlay timeout features
• Build time: 2 days per banner

Pac Man

Space Invaders

Olympus have released a revolutionary new camera and required a new mini-site to be built to conincide with the launch of the new camera named the PEN. Unforntaly, we were only given 2 days to build the mini-site which included a online competition for photographers to upload pictures int a competition. A good job on a very tight deadline.

View the site at:

http://pen.olympus.com.au

The Sun Herald asked my work to come up with a 1/4 page advertisement to “re-brand and re-market” Australia. We literally only had a few hours, and I spent perhaps 30minutes on my few ideas. It was reworked by one of our creatives and the finished product was selected by a panel of judges as a finalist. Here is the ad as it appeared in the Sun Herald.

Read the full article here.

Some other ideas that didnt make the cut, these are rough concepts by no means polished executions:

Tag line: “Obsessively Australian”

Tag line: “Obsessively Australian”

I have been asked to join the writing staff of two of my favorite blogs, The Tech Blog (http://www.thetechlabs.com/) and Flash Enabled Blog (http://www.flashenabledblog.com/) by the very talented owner Carlos. I will be writing new tutorials and articles focusing mainly on Flash ActionScript, but also hope to write some articles for building Flex, Air, MDM Zinc, Widgets and few other web related technologies.

I have been reading Flash Enabled Blog and The Tech Labs for quite a while and am very honored to be joining their talented team.

If you have any requests for articles or tutorials you’d like to see, lets here them.

http://www.flashenabledblog.com/
http://www.thetechlabs.com/

Dynamic SEO tags for your Flash site using PHP

To include Google Analytics tracking into your deeplinked flash site configure your SWF address like this:

       <script type="text/javascript">
            var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");
            document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));
        </script>
        <script type="text/javascript">
            var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-XXXXX-1");
        </script>

        <script type="text/javascript" src="swfobject/swfobject.js"></script>
        <script type="text/javascript" src="swfaddress/swfaddress.js"></script>

Substitute UA-XXXXX-1 with your actual UA number (available in your Google Analytics control panel), make sure you’ve got the var pagTracker set before including the swfobject.js & swfaddress.js files.

Remove any original Google Analytics code you have in the page and you should be set.

In your Google Analytics control panel you will now see your deeplinks being tracked such as /#/page.

I created this site for Ocean Sound Studio company who wanted something with advanced animations that they could update themselves, on a relatively small budget and restricted timeline (build time was around 4 days). I created this full Flash site for them with a custom CMS, featuring the ability to add new Sounds and Audio Tracks, Images and to update all of the content.

http://www.oceansoundstudios.com/

Design by the talented Aliza Nordin.

This a new banner I created for Glaxo Smith Klines range of anti-smoking products, Nicabate. It is another Flash banner game, this time the classic arcade shooter “Helicopter”.

• ActionScript2
• TweenLite
• ~30kb