andrewlucking.com

on the Flash team blog Mike Chambers is soliciting input on improving the trace() functionality in Flash. He seems to have gotten a few insightful comments in response. Personally, I’m on side with the keep it simple type feedback however Authorware has a couple of handy Trace() options that I tend to use a fair bit:
Trace(#off) causes any subsequent traces to be ignored until Trace(#on) is called.
Trace(#clear) clears the contents of the trace window.

Could it be that Flash has a few things left to learn from good old Authorware?

Grrr.

My install of IE6 began misbehaving shortly after I installed a couple of fairly common utility apps (I’m not sure which is the culprit so will not refer to them by name). Among other things I was being presented with Incompatible version of RPC stub errors when trying to open the find dialogue. Pretty much the only time I browse with IE these days is when reading docs on MSDN so “find in page” is a pretty important feature for me. Anyhow, a quick google turned up this MS Knowledge Base entry which seems to have resolved things:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;321915

So, obviously I’m a little grouchy today - it wasn’t that big a deal to fix - but I really don’t think it’s all that cool to overwrite files required by other software just ’cause some silly feature in your help depends upon a different version.

Microsoft recently made a new Community Technology Preview (CTP) of Avalon available to MSDN subscribers. (Avalon being the display engine that will be a part of the upcoming Windows Longhorn). There’s an interesting MSDN article here titled Introducing the March 2005 CTP: What’s New in “Avalon”. The XAMLPad tool sounds kinda cool, allowing developers to edit XAML, the markup used to represent the application’s UI, and see the results in realtime.

As well, designerslove.net is a fairly new blog from a member of the Avalon team focusing on Avalon from a designer’s point of view. Looking at the Flippin’ CD button entry (I had to dig for that permalink so it may not hold up) I can’t help but wonder if Avalon will be in danger of going through growing pains similar to the early “skip intro” Flash days. Folks were so caught up in the razzle-dazzle, look what I can do type of libertation that Flash provided they lost sight of the user experience. As both a developer and a user I find the phrase with great power comes great responsibility would fit well here. There’s still alot more to be played out with Avalon so perhaps my concerns are unfounded at this point. We shall see.

Speaking of concerns, I came across this bit of confusion in the Longhorn Developer FAQ:

Will my existing Win32 and .NET apps continue to run under Longhorn without modification?

The goal is that apps written against the documented Win32 APIs and the .NET Framework will absolutely run well without any modifications under Longhorn when it ships.

Isn’t one of the main beefs about WinAPI it’s shortage of documentation? What the hell does “absolutely run well” mean? Again, perhaps me being overly skeptical however it could do with a little clarification. Besides that particular item was written 18 months ago and the Win32 question is probably a little clearer now, right?

Got that designerslove.net link from Robert Scoble.

Eric Mayer has some interesting thoughts concerning the focus the Acid2 browser challenge has on Internet Explorer over other browsers.

The Acid2 test, issued last week by the CTO of Opera, is a challenge to Microsoft to improve support of CSS2 standards in the upcoming IE7. Apparently, it will be sponsored by the Web Standards Project and will consist of a test page (to be built) that will …”use features Web designers crave, such as fixed positioning of elements“.
That test page will be hosted here:
http://webstandards.org/testsuites/acid2/

Slashdot had its perspective too.

With tongue in cheek I put together a toolbar button for Internet Explorer that unselects the Yahoo toolbar checkbox on the Flash Player download page. That’s right, it’s a toolbar that helps you to opt-out of the Yahoo! toolbar offer from Macromedia. Call it statement-ware. Basically, it runs a bit of javascript on the page to set the checked state of the “also install” checkbox to false when the IE toolbar button is clicked. Really this provides no added functionality to the page (nor removes any).

What’s the point you ask? There is no point except to make a statement. I’ve followed (and participated in) the Yahoo! toolbar debate that has recently been waged and while I feel encouraged by the way Macromedia have reacted to the developer community feedback I continue to disagree with the offer’s opt-in status. Of course, the absurdity of a toolbar item to deselect an option to install a toolbar is also part of the point. As another explanation I’d suggest that perhaps I have too much time on my hands but that really is far from the truth.

I’ve assembled the files in a zip here. It contains the following:
y_opt_out.ico - the toolbar button’s icon (a rather lame effort…).
y_opt_out.js - the script file that is executed when the toolbar button is clicked.
y_opt_out.reg - a reg file to assist in the toolbar button installation (direct linking a reg file just seemed wrong). Basically it adds a registry key in
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Extensions\
Before merging it you’ll need to edit the directory location for the values it contains to point to the location on your pc where the above files will be located (currently pointing to D:\y_opt_out\).

Here’s a screengrab of the toolbar in IE6:

And this is a link to the MSDN docs for Internet Explorer browser extensions:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/browser/ext/extensions.asp

This entry on actionscript.com by Carlos Rovira is getting some attention in the Flash community. Carlos discusses the state of open source Flash development and walks through setting up the Motion Twin Actionscript2 Compiler (MTASC) with the Eclipse IDE. He also notes some of the current shortcoming such as an open source component framework as well as the inability to embed images and the various other media that Macromedia’s Flash IDE provides for.

Coincidentally, there was some interest expressed on flashcoders recently in regards to tackling the component framework. They were actually discussing such a project as a response to performance and bug issues with the V2 components from Macromedia so it should be interesting if the two motivations can bring it together. Simply based on the number of flashcoder folks who claim to be rolling their own in house I’m a little surprised such an initiative hadn’t taken off earlier.

microsoft-watch.com share some “insider” rumours about Internet Explorer 7.0 in this article. The point about the focus on security comes straight form Microsoft however tabs, transparent png support and a built in news aggregator are fresh off the “anonymous sources” grapevine. Of course they’re all rumours but the list sounds more like IE is simply playing catch-up with Firefox rather than planning to blow ‘em out of the water. Or maybe that’s just me taking the easy cynical-toward-Microsoft route? Oh wait, IE7 will only be for XP SP2+. Ahh, cynicsville. Looks like this is my stop. Anyhow, the IEBlog is probably worth keeping an eye on too if you’re interested in this.

I picked the link up from Dave Winer.

Two new technotes have been added to the Authorware support center on macromedia.com:
Linked media fails behind proxy server
Variable values in Key Expression field do not always trigger key press responses

Well this is pleasant news. Thanks for listening Macromedia.

Tom Higgin mentions in this post that the WeatherBug will no longer be offered with the Shockwave Player installer. I had a thought about this last month when the installer first started including the WeatherBug desktop weather application offer to users in the United States. That was prior to the Flash Player and Yahoo Toolbar brouhaha and in that light I see this announcment as having added significance (reassurance).

Who wants to be the first to call me a naif?