Loading Images Programmatically in Flash

This tutorial explains how to load images using the MovieClipLoader and how to grow its size when mouseover.

Watching for New Files in Python

Here is a comparison of three techniques in Python to watch for new files on Windows. The polling approach is portable across platforms.

Launching the Camera App from Flash Lite

The fscommand can be used to launch applications. For example, to launch the camera app on Windows Mobile 5 phones:

fscommand("Launch", "\\Windows\\Camera.exe");

To find out the path to the camera app on your Nokia phone, try the 2 methods mentioned here.

Accessing JSON from Flash Lite

See this post about accessing JSON in ActionScript 2.

Nokia Camera Photo Location

Nokia N90 stores photos taken by the built-in camera in "c:\Nokia\Images" using the phone's built-in memory and "e:\Images" on the memory card.

Launching Flash Lite v2.x Content on Nokia phones

There is a serious, documented issue with launching Flash Lite v2.x files (SWF) on Nokia phones. In short, v2.x content can only be launched by opening the SWF file within the v2.x players. If you just open the SWF file from the file browser, it will be played back by either the player in the ROM (typically v1.x) or you will get a "unknown file format" error. For more details, see the discussion at the Adobe forum and Nokia blog. One workaround is using the SWF2Go Professional tool (not free) to build an SIS installer.

On Windows Mobile 5, opening SWF files launches Flash Lite (v2.1) player as expected.

Flash Lite Examples

View hundreds of Flash Lite apps on Adobe Flash Lite Exchange.

Nokia Screen Resolution

Useful explanation of the various screen resolution of the S60 series and S40 series phones.

Remote Nokia Device Testing

Want to test your app on as many phone models as possible without spending lots of $$$? Nokia just opened up their Remote Device Access service for free to the registered Nokia developers. There are a few limitations: for example, no SIM cards are provided so no messaging (SMS/MMS) is supported and only devices that are WiFi capable are networked.

Flash Lite 3

The mobile flash player, Flash Lite 3, is "expected to be available in the first half of 2007". The major feature it introduces is support for the Flash Player video format, which ensures video format portability across phones. Compared to Flash Lite 1.x and 2.x, the formats they currently support are only those natively supported by the phones.

I hope FL3 will also introduce access to some fundamental functionalities to the underlying mobile phones, such as API for the camera, bluetooth, SMS, etc., eliminating the need to write platform specific workarounds. This will make FL3 a much more exciting platform beyond games and multimedia players.