30 May 2009

Flash Lite developer challenge entry

I finally submitted my entry to the Flash Lite developer challenge.
Well...sort of...I'm very surprised to not be able to submit the application itself.
I submitted pictures, video and presentation but no entry field for the app ?

As I submitted yesterday, there is no way to contact NCC's people until monday...after the deadline.

I hope my entry will be valid......

29 May 2009

New SE capuchin phone : Satio

Sony Ericsson announced yesterday the coming soon Satio phone.

According SE's Phone Gallery, Satio is capuchin enabled...but no FlashLite ?
I doubt Phone Gallery data is correct because, on the press release we can see Satio is in fact a S60 5th Edition phone so I hope!

I remember SE told they'll contribute to Symbian Fundation with capuchin...Is it the first Symbian phone with capuchin ?! If yes, it's defintly the perfect phone for me !!!!!

It's even more possible since in Phone Gallery, Satio is on "SymbianFundation" platform...what does it mean ?!

New SE capuchin phone : Yari

Sony Ericsson announced yesterday the coming soon Yari phone.
According SE's Phone Gallery, Yari is FL2 & capuchin enabled.
The funny stuff about that one is
gesture gaming technology

For the one who played with the EyeToy on the PS2, here we go..EyeToy on mobile !
Don't know if capuchin will allows Flash content to access this 'gesture gaming' API but it could be fun !

New SE capuchin phone : Aino

Sony Ericsson announced yesterday the coming soon Aino phone.
According SE's Phone Gallery, Aino is FL2 & capuchin enabled.
The funny stuff about that one is

Control your PLAYSTATION®3 and access its media content on your Aino anywhere, anytime using Remote Play with PLAYSTATION®3

28 May 2009

Nokia's RDA tips

I'm only able to test my stuff on Nokia's RDA.
So I would like to share with you some tips I found playing with my daily 8hour/day on RDA (no, not EVERY day)

Quickly Test SWF (unique file)
Until recently, I had to transfer my swf to the device throught the File Browser then launch it from Gallery
I found a faster way : simply choose "Install", on the dialog box, select "all files" (its "sis, sisx, jar, wgtz" by default) and open your SWF...et voilĂ  !

Don't use 30 minutes when you only need 15 !
When you select your phone on the "Phones" main page, it's at most 30 minutes.
On "Reservation", you can take a phone by 15 minutes timeblock (even started timeblock, if you only need 10min and it's 08:20PM)

Check firmware
Firmware info isn't visible on the "Phones" page but if you roll over each phone on the "Reservation" page, you'll see their firmware. Actually, there are 4 5800 devices available : 2 with firmware v11 & 2 with firmware v20

Test as soon as possible
If a phone is available and you have some credit, test your app now! Never wait for tomorrow! Phone models sometimes disappear, without notice, from some day to forever

Ovi Store launched...hard debut

Well, I didn't check Ovi Store myself but, from what I read on the web (here and here for ex), Ovi Store launching wasn't that well received...

"Total Disaster", "a failure", "fiasco"...these are the words coming up when you googled "ovi store launch".

It seems this launch was so much wanted that users crashed Nokia's servers !
Nokia fixed the issues but they'll have to work hard to make people forgot about this day...

and I won't talk about all the angry posts on ForumNokia from individuals who can't submit their work or can't afford the money to symbian sign them !

I hope Nokia will find a way to make users like developers happy.

For Flash Lite developper, via Biskero, check OviFlash!

08 May 2009

GamesPlaza.mobi

Yesterday, BoosterMedia officialy launched GamesPlaza.mobi

GamesPlaza.mobi provides FREE mobile flash games.
You'll find games made by BoosterMedia and others developers...like myself ;)
They also plan to launch soon a developer zone.

It's a pleasure to have Poulpy's Game available on this platform.
Thanks again to Peter Moelker for his great support.

07 May 2009

Fun with S60 SVG icons

To publish the SIS version of Poulpy's Game, I needed a SVG icon.
When I asked for it to my friend, I didn't think it will be so difficult!

First difficulty : create a SVG file from Flash
All gfx for Poulpy's Game was made directly in Flash so we had 2 solutions :
- export gfx to a vector file
- export gfx to a bitmap file
- redraw gfx on Illustrator

I tried all the possible format to export a vector file
- AI : I was very surprised to find Adobe still uses an old library for AI export !
No CS2 nor CS3 export! And I won't talk about the colors ! Whatever I do, AI uses CMYB colors to render RGB value....==> not useable
- EPS : a solution....BUT gradient is converted to bitmap data! ==> not useable
- PDF : priting to PDF give me good result, but as soon as I open it on Illustrator CS3, it converts the gradient to bitmap data and I was unable to import it on inkscape ==> not useable

The quick and dirty way I found was to export a png of your gfx and embed it on a SVG. Dirty because it's a bitmap data and so scaling is very ugly (like bitmap gradients are!)

We finally choose to export to EPS and then redraw everything by hand on Illustrator

Second difficulty : SVG quality
I was very surprised by the SVG quality on my first try....so I tried with Inkspace ( see Third difficulty )

Illustrator :



Inkspace



Third difficulty : valid SVG
So we imported the AI's SVG in Inkspace.
Unlike AI, Inkspace doesn't directly save in SVGT but this guide on Nokia Forum gives you the exact process to follow.
I followed this guide and tried to make a first try with Nokia's beta packager : "Error : icon too big"

After some tests, I finally found these 2 links about SVG's viewbox :
- viewBox error on Inkspace
- Forum Nokia KISS0000398 : SVG rendering problems caused by missing viewBox attribute

In fact, AI defined its viewbox attribute from EPS size (Flash size : 320x240).
I was unable to find a way to correctly adjust it on Illustrator nor Inkspace so I adjusted the viewbox BY HAND on the SVG (which is a XML file).

And, finally, I produced Poulpy's Game final SVGT icon !
Ouf!

More (other) interesting info on SVG icon can be found on Ludicrous Software's blog

After AppStore and Ovi, Windows Marketplace

Via Mobile Games Blog, after Apple's AppStore and Nokia's OVI Microsoft opened its own mobile store. and we're still waiting for Samsung's Marketplace

You'll notice the ID price : 99$/y....like AppStore
So...
Apple --> 99$/y
Microsoft --> 99$/y
OVI --> 200$/y + 20$/app
Samsung --> ? still unknown ?

Sudoku Classic by Animion

Yesterday, Animion, who seems to release iPhone apps only until recently, added Sudoku Classic on GetJar.

I'll let you play the game, I'm more interested on how they used this free game to promote their not-free screensaver : apart the classic "more stuff" on the menu screen, a flashy "Get cool screensavers here" button is available on the game screen.

I'm good at Sudoku no ? :)



I would be very interested to know how many people actually click on this button.
It's a good idea to use a (now) classic game like sudoku, there is always a lot of people looking for mobile version. And I think the 2200 downloads on GetJar the first day is a perfect example.

I also notice they used a mobile payment solution I didn't know yet : Bango

03 May 2009

Stange static text width

I'm currently playing with auto layout.
My goal is to make an application handling any screen size.

I so managed to make an extended MovieClip class which change its _x & _y according screen size.
Unfortunatly I got some problems with MovieClip with static texts inside.
I so made some tests and, well, I'm very surprised with the result.
Test it yourself :

- create a new FLA for FL2.x+
- add ascode Stage.align="TL";Stage.scaleMode="noScale"; on first frame
- create a new symbol-movieclip
- in this symbol, add a textfield at 0,0 with a width of 200 for exemple, Arial, 48, "bitmap text"
- add a "HELLO" within
- add as-code trace(this._width) on symbol 1st frame which will give you the size of the symbol which, I thought, SHOULD be 200
- run it -> trace gives 152, which is NEAR the size you'll find if you break HELLO in symbol (2 * Ctrl+B)
- use "anti alias"
- run it -> trace gives 183.55, value I don't understand !
- use "device font"
- run it -> trace gives 225, value I also don't understand !
- now, make the same tests with a centered text
- traces will give you the exact same value
- convert it to dynamic
- run it -> trace gives 200

It comes from the fact than when Flash compiles the FLA, it transforms the static text to shape and so the width of the movieclip isn't from 0 to right of textfield in author mode but from left side to right side of the converted shape. In fact, the same way width is measured with shape and movieclip inside another movieclip.

So, the main problem is the way it measures it when you have centered text OR antialiased text OR device font. The value is for me totally unusable.
For example, imagine you have some thing like that

TITLE CENTER
What do you think Flash will measure ?



Flash will in fact measure something near

TITLE CENTER
What do you think Flash will measure ?

so if I want to center the movieclip containing this text, using _x = (Stage.width - mclip.width)/2, the result won't be the one I hoped for :(
Even worst if I use device font!


2 "workarounds":

use the dot method
add a 1x1 dot at (0,0) and another one at (textfield_width-1,textfield_height-1) so they will be used in movieclip measure
BUT remember antialias text/device font gives really poor result, so always make your textfield larger than your text
BUT doesn't work with centertext !!!! I don't understand why HELLO centered with dots give 208.7 in width !

use dynamic textfields
nonsense but measure will be perfect
BUT it will use more memory : HELLO use 129K in static, 132K in dynamic
BUT you'll need to include font, else height won't be correct (!!)