dispatchEvent » Rants

A review of popular tweening library (UPDATED)

Mims Wright — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 04:28:48 +0000

The goal of next version of my (your) animation engine KitchenSync, is to be arguably the best and most complete library for animation and sequencing out there. To do this, I’ve spent the last couple of months analyzing the top existing tween libraries trying to pinpoint their strengths and weaknesses. With lots of help from the Draw Logic Blog, I think I’ve identified the contenders and put together a decent list of what (in my opinion) are their highest and lowest points. The next step will be to create a product backlog for KitchenSync based on matching these features and fixing the problems. I know there are other tween engines but these seemed to be the most prolific ones at the time. The tween engines analyzed were:

Tweener
TweenLite (and flavours)
Boostworthy Animation System
FuseKit
Go
and KitchenSync 1.1

Note: After some helpful feedback from readers (THANK YOU!) I added TweenLite to the list of libraries I reviewed. I should add here that these are fairly superficial observations about how things work and don’t go into incredible detail. If I steal any features, I’ll look closer ;-D

Keep the comments coming!

Tween Engine Comparisons (updated)

Pimp my ‘clipse - a list of must-have Eclipse plug-ins for Flex/Flash Development

Mims Wright — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 16:00:18 +0000

FlexBuilder may have its ups and downs but it still remains my pick for best AS3/MXML editor on the market (with TextMate not far behind). Part of the beauty of FlexBuilder is that it’s built on the Eclipse SDK, one of the most versatile and powerful IDEs available, which is not only free and open source, but boasts a wealth of third party plug-ins for every kind of (mostly Java) development. This article will take a look at some must-have plug-ins for doing Flex development as well as some tips for tricking out your development process.

As with all of our entries, your feedback, suggestions, corrections and additions are all more than welcome.

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Good Websites have Good Content

Mims Wright — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 09:01:24 +0000

Tonight I wanted to check out some information about a video game so I turned to a site that both Roger and I worked on while at Schematic – Game Invasion. I think this site is great but I’m not here to toot my own horn. We built this with Flash 8 in under 2 months and it certainly isn’t technically perfect. However, even though this site is two years old and takes a while to load, I still really enjoy using it. I started wondering why.
The reason is simple – content (the graphic design is pretty good too). What makes this site great was not the work we did but the incredible amount of really high-quality content. There are HD videos, big crisp graphics and something new every time I visit. There are other sites that I’ve spent way more time making perfect that I’d never look at again since there’s nothing really worth seeing.
Another example is the NBC episode player. It’s buggy as hell and the ads are annoying. I much prefer the ABC player. However, I really like the show ‘Heroes’ so I pretty much forget about those things in the end.
What I’m trying to say here is that technical brilliance and good design are great but what will keep people coming back to your site is some really great content so if you’re making a website make that your focus.

Discussion - Is OOP for OCD?

Mims Wright — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 23:24:45 +0000

[Repost from Jan 31 2007]

Recently, I’ve been playing around with compiling ActionScript 3.0 with strict mode turned off. This makes everything much more loose. Type checking is thrown out, classes can be dynamically altered - essentially, you sacrifice speed and rigourousness for flexibility and forgiveness. In other words, it’s compiled more like AS1 was compiled.
I’ve also been spending some spare time looking at Objective-C (the language used for Mac programming). Obj-C adds functionality to C which makes it sort of object oriented but in reality, it’s very loose. The book I’m reading seems to glorify the dynamic nature pointing out how nice and flexible it is to try to access something that might not exist within an object. Obj-C programmers tend to break the “is a” rule using inheritance to gain functionality rather than identity. Even though it all curdles my blood, it’s hard to deny that this is a system which allows you to very quickly (and fairly elegantly) create working applications.

So my question to you is this.
Is all of the effort that we as developers put into creating object oriented, well defined, interface driven, decoupled code worth the effort?
Is there a value in keeping things loose and dynamic?
Should we shun languages that make this impossible or difficult?

Video game trivia : COLECO = COnnecticut LEather COmpany

Mims Wright — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 18:28:11 +0000

Yes. It’s true.

Coleco, as in the ColecoVision video game console, actually stands for Connecticut Leather Company. Surprisingly, there were not any S&M games for the system.

Skrypt Kidz 3000 Podcast

Mims Wright — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 15:17:40 +0000

Update: We’re up on iTunes!

A few weeks ago we asked you what you would want to hear from a new Flash podcast. The votes came in with a tutorial based podcast in the lead with 44%, followed by a discussion by experts with 18% and a healthy chunk of you (16%) thought it was irresponsible for us to bring another new podcast soul into this cruel world.

You told us what you wanted to hear and we listened to you.

But then we decided to ignore your suggestions and do something completely different.

It’s my pleasure to present Skrypt Kidz 3000 — a new semi-regular podcast where a barbarous crew of Flash and Flex developers get together to spend our precious weekend hours yakking about Flash issues. In our inaugural episode we discuss the pros and cons of using Flex over Flash. We also talk about Flex and FDT pricing and Adobe’s new wireframing tool Thermo.

Flash / Flex podcast

Mims Wright — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 22:55:04 +0000

I’ve been kicking around the idea of starting a Flash / Flex podcast. The plan is to get drunk and talk about Flash but maybe you have a better idea.
Do you care? Would you listen? What should we call it? What should we talk about? What topics would you like to hear discussed?
Please leave us any feedback you like.

What would you want to hear on a Flash / Flex podcast?

Mongolia and Mims’ no-Flash diet

Mims Wright — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 00:36:01 +0000

I’m sure the question is burning on the minds of all (seven) of our avid reader’s minds – Why haven’t I heard any juicy Flash-related gossip from dispatchEvent™ this summer? The answer may surprise you!

I (Mims) have taken the summer off to participate in a race from London, UK to Ulaanbataar, Mongolia with two other friends from Brooklyn. In fact, I’m writing from Kraków, Poland right now! You can read all about our misadventures on our team website, Mr Dinosaur Drives to Mongolia - the website.

The plan is for me to return around the middle of September. Until that time, I’m going to be on a strict no-Flash diet so you won’t be hearing much from me. However, when I return the Bible should just be hitting the shelves and I’ll probably even see you at Flash Forward. Meanwhile, Roger will hold down the fort.

Thanks as always for reading. Until next time… Dziekuje!

Getting Made Fun of by Nerds on Gizmodo for Being Nerds

Roger Braunstein — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 22:33:38 +0000

Look, flying toasters! Me and a few of my coworkers make disparaging comments about an Adobe CS3 advertisement that’s a big, somewhat interactive, video wall. See it here and call us douchebags too! Gotta love the internet.

For the record, I think it’s all right. Wish you could interact with it in more than one dimension, and it really suffered from being choppy. Brand New School did some awesome animation for it that you can’t deny.

Previously: More Roger on Gizmodo.

On the Irony of Net Censorship

Mims Wright — Wed, 02 May 2007 06:29:07 +0000

Back in February, a hacker called Arnezami discovered a code which has something to do with hacking HD-DVDs. However, I, and many others, had no idea that this was going on until today when the MPAA (I guess they’re behind this) started killing off blogs and diggs and posts etc. that contain the number. How ironic.

Taking bets on how long till the kitty gets pulled.

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