Let them eat cake – Coffee & Walnut

This is the first of our cake of the month posts. Today we found inspiration from an M&S Coffee & Walnut cake. Whilst discussing the finer details of our ongoing redesign we enjoyed moist coffee flavoured sponge with just the right amount of buttercream. Highly recommended by the whole team.

Future cake of the month reviews will consist of a wide variety of butter filled, sugar coated blog posts. Our intrepid team of eaters will be happy to accept free dessert based gifts from readers who wish to raise the profile of their cake making enterprises. Sponge, pie or flan; biscuit, Battenburg or birthday. We will eat it all. Stay tuned.

This post was written by Gareth on July 9, 2009 at 6:11 pm

Flex Builder 3 – Internal Build Error bug

I’ve been struggling with a Flex Builder 3 bug for the last two days where an Error is dispalyed which rotates between:

An internal build error has occurred. Right-click for more information.

&

Classes must not be nested

..neither of which specify a file or line at which the error occurs. Very helpful.

This is not a new bug by any account and from my research seemed to be particularly prominent in Flex Builder 2. This article which lists a few of the reasons which this may happen is very useful and I’ve just noticed that in the comments there is the solution I was looking for. I however didn’t get that far through the comments and have had to painstakingly comment out my code, line by line until the error dissapeared. To add to the fun, it was a possibility that leaving comments within conditionals could have been the cause of the problem as well. Eventually I discovered that the cause of my bug was an empty switch statement:

switch(pageId){

}

…..why I dont’ know.

Anyway I thought I’d add to the documentation about this as it is a very annoying time consuming bug. I hope this will be resolved in Flash Builder!

This post was written by Gareth on June 24, 2009 at 9:35 am

AIR app review: Doc? and Polaris

I have recently been researching small scale desktop application design for a video project we are producing in Flash. The obvious place to start in this instance was with showcases of Adobe AIR applications. Due to the ease with which applications can now be deployed using the AIR runtime, it already seems to have encouraged the development of applications with greater focus spent on the usability and aesthetics of the user interface and experience. Critics of this low threshold may say that this will lead to a lower standard of overall application functionality and perhaps to dirty code powering inefficient and buggy applications. I’m sure there will be many examples of this but considering the small scale and usually simple nature of AIR apps, I think this will not be the case in the long term.

In any case the main reason I wrote this post was in order to make note of two applications that I found during my research, which are notable more for their utility than their design.

Doc? Air Local LiveDocs
As an Actionscript developer without a photographic memory I am forced to regularly visit LiveDocs for Actionscript3 and Flex component references. If I’m unfortunate enough to be coding in the Flash IDE then I use the built in help docs which are slow and clunky and in Flex Builder 3 they are not much better. Doc? enables you to access LiveDocs for Flash CS3/CS4 and Flex all in the one application providing you have those applications installed (you have to point Doc? to the location on your hard disk where the reference files are installed – instructions for this are on the site FAQ). You can also create bookmarks for the pages which you use regularly.

Polaris
Polaris is quite simply a desktop application for viewing you Google Analytics accounts on your desktop. It’s incredibly compact and easy to use plus you still get all the lovely graphs and visuals which you’ll be used to from the Google Analytics web interface.

These are currently my two favourite AIR apps but I’m sure there’s a plethora of others which I’m yet to find. Feel free to present us with any further contenders.

This post was written by Gareth on June 15, 2009 at 1:09 pm

Brilliant brilliant colour

It is almost comical how long we have had a holding page where our website used to be, a true laugh or cry moment. In my wisdom I decided that taking it down would incentivise us to design and develop our new site in a prompt fashion………incorrect. Despite this there has been a recent spark of activity in this drawn out redesign – the colour scheme. Probably not the largest chunk of work in the entire process, i grant you, but still essential.

During our meetings quite some time ago we discussed where our main skills lie and what kind of work we would like to procure in the future. We performed some pseudo-branding exercises to try to discover the desired words/images/emotions we wished to evoke and associate with Ultraviolet (Uv^d). Although this was not guided by a branding professional I believe it was beneficial and has helped us at this stage to gauge what is and isn’t appropriate for the site aesthetically.

Due to our strong background in technical areas of digital media production and the associations with the name Ultraviolet we decided to keep in mind a theme of science when creating a logo, site visuals and colour schemes. I believe that discounting the purple shade, the cool greys and blue are evocative of this. Another reason for deciding on this schema is that I believe effective use of shades of grey/black are (if used correctly) very effective in web design.

Either way I think it’s winning. Kudos to Patrick our designer. Next we have the layouts to look forward to…………

This post was written by Gareth on April 16, 2009 at 7:54 pm

Creative Tools for e-assessment

One of our most recent projects has involved developing a set of creative tools in Flex / AS3 which are part of a larger academically funded project in which digital tools are used in Design and Technology to encourage creativity and teamwork. This is part of broader discourse in education as to the value of the pen and paper, exam structured methods of assessment which we are all familiar with.

The main point of contention between the traditionalists and those wishing to push the bar on technology in education is whether or not traditional exam assessment is indicative of a students abilities in a certain subject areas. Throughout modern education ICT is used to support and enhance learning yet when it comes to the all important exam assessments students are forced into sweaty school halls and, in isolation, encouraged to recall facts and figures under pressured circumstances. I think I may be showing my opinion in this matter however this is not an academic paper so never mind!!!

The project which we have developed these tools for enables students to be assessed for their Design and Technology course work through various different means; photographs, voice recordings, drawings, written work and mind-mapping. These tools are all controlled through a parent/client application which leads the students through predefined questions or requests which require them to use the creative tools to evidence parts of their work. e.g. Sketch your initial designs for new type of pill holder / Take a photo of your prototype / Mind-map some ideas for new features.

Whilst the work is being created it is being immediately stored in the individual students online portfolio. The evidence and work collected facilitates a more subjective approach to student assessment called ‘Comparitive Pairs’.

Although this system is currently being piloted for Design and Technology only, I hope that further down the line that this type of assessment could be used more widely and potentially offer an alternative to archaic pen and paper type assessment.

The creative tools we have developed at Ultraviolet can be viewed here. All the tools were created in Flex / AS3. As concepts they are in no way groundbreaking, in fact at some points during development it seemed a little fruitless re-inventing the wheel, but the functionality for each tool is prescriptive to the project and clients needs.

Feel free to play and let us know what you think. Or if you find any bugs!! *Gulp*

This post was written by Gareth on December 18, 2008 at 2:01 pm

Importing a swc into Flex Builder for pure actionscript projects

I have previously written a post about the potential bug which seems to occur when importing multiple swcs into Flex Builder 3 for pure actionscript projects. Despite this I cannot express how handy it is to be able to import swcs into Flex Builder; for one reason because it renders the Flash IDE even more redundant (which is a good thing).

Whilst talking to a friend who has recently started using Flex Builder for AS projects I discovered that he hadn’t as yet used the method of importing swcs to gain access to graphics, sounds, animations, etc which have been created in Flash IDE.

So far he has been using the Loader class to import the swf at runtime and then to gain access to the individual items in the fla/swf library. There are obvious advantages to this method, for example loading the swf at runtime avoids the increased file size of your project which you will incur from importing the swc which will add the graphics/sounds at compile time.

However for smaller projects where file size isn’t an issue or for importing the fundamental graphical elements which will be re-used throughout the project a swc is a quick and easy solution.

Firstly when creating you or a designer is creating the graphical elements in the flash library you can also add a class path to each movieclip or asset in the library.

1) Right click on the assets in the library and click Linkage…..

2) Tick the checkbox marked Export for Actionscript

3) Enter a class path which relates to the path structure of your application into the Class text field e.g. uk.co.ultravioletdesign.graphics.ThisAsset - nb If you just put a simply identifier/class name without a full class/package path (e.g. ThisAsset) the item will be available throughout your application which sounds useful but is the same as making classes public which if avoidable is good practice and good for application performance.

This also enables you to organise your assets in the Flash library into convenient packages. For example putting all sound assets in uk.co.ultravioletdesign.assets.sounds and all graphics into uk.co.ultravioletdesign.assets.graphics. You don’t need to worry about creating the equivalent folders and packages within Flex Builder because they will be discreetly generated when the swc is imported.

4) Go to Publish Settings (File > Publish Settings) and then click the Flash tab. Providing the Fla is AS3 the checkbox Export SWC will be available. Check it!

5) Now once the movie is published a .swc file will be snuggling up next to your .swf which you can promptly delete (if you feel the need).

In Flex Builder:

6) Right click on your Actionscript project in the Flex Navigator window and click properties. Click on Actionscript Build Path and then on the Library path tab.

7) Click on the Add SWC button and browse to your newly generated .swc file.

Flex now adds your library assets to your project and these are made available within classes using the import directive:

import uk.co.ultravioletdesign.graphics.ThisAsset;

var thisAsset : ThisAsset = new ThisAsset();

Using this method in my experience has been invaluable and a massive timesaver. Despite this it is very useful to have the knowledge to be able to import assets from swfs at runtime. There is very handy for other strategies and techniques such as the importing fonts at runtime. This article by Chris Rebstock has been very valuable.

This post was written by Gareth on September 26, 2008 at 12:20 pm

Issues using multiple swcs in Flex Builder 3.0

As most of the Flash development here is now pure object-oriented in AS3 my IDE of choice is now Flex Builder 3.0 for all ActionScript projects. We left behind Flash IDE for the same reasons as most: it’s text editor is inadequate and the code visualisation for pure object-oriented projects is not sufficient; it also enables us to bring in line our development tools with other languages such as Java. Let’s face it, the Flash timeline IDE was never going to cut it as a serious development model!

An aspect of not developing in Flash that I had to adjust to was coping without a convenient library of graphical assets to drag into my application. There are various ways of importing or loading graphical assets into a 100% code application which nearly all involve and temporary return to Flash IDE. My preferred method is to create my graphical assets in Flash IDE, giving each of them linkage names relevant to the class/package structure of my application. I then publish a swc and import this into my ActionScript project within Flex Builder (project Properties > ActionScript Build Path > Library path > AddSWC).

So far everything works like a dream. All of my graphical assets are appearing within code hinting in Flex and are totally accessible. During a large scale project I decided to try to segregate my graphical assets into different swcs to help me organise my assets. This alone did not present any problems however I occasionally needed to go back into Flash to change or add a graphic to a swc. On exporting the amended swc, I returned to Flex Builder and found that all of the graphics contained in this swc where missing from the project. I tried renaming the swc and re-exporting it in Flash and also removing it in Flex Builder and adding it again. The only solution to this problem was to create and entirely new Flash file and copy all the graphical assets from the old (broken) fla file into the new one and re-export it again.

In a later project the same issue occurred again and this time it only began when I added more than one swc. That is essentially the solution I came to however it does not by any means explain the problem in the first place. Anyone who can fill in the gaps please feel free.

This post was written by Gareth on September 1, 2008 at 4:56 pm

Wordle – Clever Java Tag Clouds

Lovely lovely words. Wordle is a java app developed by a guy from IBM. It generates “word clouds” from a sample of text you provide or generates it dynamically from your blog URL (with an RSS feed) or del.icio.us user name. Above is the the cloud from this blog. Ten points for spotting Climatron in there.

This post was written by Gareth on August 26, 2008 at 10:01 am

Climatron, air conditioning unit!

Since Kirsten seems to be firmly in control of our work related posts, I’ll continue to wax lyrical about the weather and temperature in here. After some long drawn out conversations with the management of the building, it was agreed that the hosting company downstairs (there un-ventilated sever room is just below us) was the cause of the tropical climate in here. After admission of blame they have agreed to rent us an air conditioning unit which arrived yesterday *whoops and claps*. Our office has a maximum capacity of 4, at a push, and as you can see from the photo the air con unit (aka Climatron) is an industrial strength behemoth. It has pop up, eyes like kit in Knightrider and quietly hums away in the corner. Safe to say, we are now cool, calm and collected.

This post was written by Gareth on August 1, 2008 at 6:23 pm

Hot in the city!

I’m not going to be that person who moans about the weather in England when its rubbish and then also when it gets a little sticky if the sun comes out……..but it’s damn hot in our office and the air conditioning isn’t working.  This being the first Ultraviolet blog post I thought I’d make it informal and non-work related. Further down the line we may talk about what we do. =)

This post was written by Gareth on July 25, 2008 at 5:29 pm