So there are hundreds of Flash forums already on the net and why one more? So the focus of this forum is not going to be generic flash discussion but will focus on time saving techniques for Flash users. The idea of having a central repository of Flash hacks and tips & tricks was there in the back of my mind for a long time now and so I decided to bring the forum in my site back, with a new look and a fresh idea. The primary focus of this forum will be to exchange ideas, tips & tricks and hacks in Flash, this forum will also focus on some common issues in Flash and possible workarounds.

Last time I had to close out the forum as the spamming was unmanageable and I would spend hours just cleaning the spam and hence this time around only registered users will be able to post or reply to the forum. I am also looking at a way to hack the inbuilt ranking system of phpBB to include a point based system to rank users based on their activity or rather participation level. I have added a few common categories to the forum please feel free to suggest some more relevant categories.

What are you waiting for? Just go ahead and register yourself, it just takes a few seconds.

Posted by Last ActionScript Hero at 09:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

I am not going to give you gyans about Usability but just a simple way to make your Flash Navigation System more usable. How many times have you come across a site which has a flash menu system and desperately wanted to right click on it and choose "Open in New Window" - one hundred times may be? Yes, this is not a very big usablilty funda but adds value to your site especially if you rely on a flash based menu system for naviagtion. How long would it take one to create such an option for the flash menu, just a few minutes and a few lines of code.

Here is the code :

var cm:ContextMenu = new ContextMenu();

cm.hideBuiltInItems();

cm.customItems.push(new ContextMenuItem("Open in a new window", itemHandler));



function itemHandler(obj, item) {

    getURL(obj.__url, "_blank");

}

this.menu = cm;

this.__url = "http://www.macromedia.com";

Just add this to the timeline of your menu item movieclip.

Sample (Right click on the button):

Posted by Last ActionScript Hero at 08:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBacks (0)