Don’t like Flash? Wanna block it from displaying altogether? Check out some Flash Blocking Software:

• FlashBlock

Flash, DHTML Menus and Accessibility
“It’s not uncommon to hear developers complaining that their DHTML menus, when triggered, have dropped behind the Flash movie below them. It’s also not uncommon to hear, “that’s just how they work.” Before Flash Player 6, that was true in many browsers. But nowadays, it’s become urban legend. With Flash Player 6, Macromedia introduced windowless mode for Netscape and Mac OS X (previously it was supported only for Windows). In the process, this also gave developers a way to completely hide Flash from older screen readers and the issues they can have with it. In fact, when Flash is purely used as eye candy, it’s wise to remove it from the flow of the screen reader’s page so that they don’t have to listen to Flash without a purpose.” - Stephanie Sullivan

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After looking into AJAX, you can’t deny the usage of javascript or xml, they’re in the DOM damn name! Check out my AJAX links when you’re done here.

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Creating a site doesn’t always mean you’re the expert on how people are using it, especially when it comes to a flash site - enter analytics, tracking, and stats.

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Much like the way you would subscribe to Mouse events using addListener, we can customize our own broadcasters using AsBroadcaster and BroadcasterMX. In Addition, the EventDispatcher can be used to create custom events for increased granularity.

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Getting started with Ajax as my new goal in life. AJAX is the new new, and is short for “Advanced Javascripting and XML” or “Asynchronous JavaScripting and XML. Essentially it’s DHTML with the xmlhttprequest object thrown in.
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Loading SWFs / Images

• Movie & Image Preloader Woes
• Generic Preloader less than 1k
• Reusable Preloader Using MovieClipLoader
• Tween/AS Preloader
• Including external JPGs (or SWFs) in a Flash movie
• MovieClipLoader.loadClip()
• MovieClipLoader
• Flash MX 2004 introduces MovieClipLoader
• Flash’s New MovieClipLoader Class
• MovieClipLoader Class - Adobe
• zeh.loading.ImageLoader (AS2) - .as

• QueueLoader AS3 rev 7 + Garbage Collection + SoundManager - Donovan
• Sequential Image Loading 2.0 - with php
• Sequential Image Loading
• QueueLoader Class
• LoadQue Class - flash guru
• LoadQue Class - prototype
• LoadQue Class v1.5? - prototype
• QLod-LoaderClass - documentation
• zeh.loading.LoadingQueue (AS2) - .as
• PreloadAssetManager - An Intelligent Preloading Queue

Loading Images

• Image Cache
• Smooth loaded images by default
• Dynamically loading bitmaps with smoothing in Flash Player 8

Loading CSS

• CSS in Flash MX 2004
• Adobe Live Docs
• Using CSS Styles

Loading XML

• Loading XML Into Flash
• BadassXML
• Overcoming XML.onLoad with the XMLLoader class
• XML Classes
• Load XML files with special chars

Loading in AS 3.0

• Load Systems for Actionscript 3
• Actionscript 3 (my sad standards, part 1) Loading
• Using the URLLoader and URLVariables classes
• More about preloading in Flash CS3

MovieClip._lockroot

• Adobe Live Docs

LoadVars

• How to use the LoadVars Class

URL Encoding

• URL Encoding: Reading special characters from a text file
• Generic Object from URL query string

HTML escape sequences

• Converting HTML escape sequences in a string - Darron Schall
• Escape Sequences

Best Practices

• Flash 8 Best Practices
• Proper Flash embedding: FlashObject Best Practices
• Mike Chambers shares some Flash Best Practices
• ActionScript 2 Coding Standards: The Method

Application Extensions

• gProject

Automated Documentation

• Natural Docs
• BLDoc 1.0 - Public Beta
• AS2DOC
• AS2API
• VisDoc

Export to HTML

• SEPY

HTML Based

• Zen Docs
• ASH: ActionScript Source Code Highlighter (Beta 2)
• Browse Server HTML Source Code

Is there one class to rule them all? Not yet, but many are trying.

• MC Tween - Zeh
• Fuse Kit - Mosessupposes
• MovieClip Tweening Prototype 1.2.0 - Laco
• AS2 Animation System v1.5 - Boostworthy
• Animation Package - Alex-Uhlmann
• Source Code: MultiTween Class - Grant Skinner
• mx.transitions.TweenExtended - George
• TweenLite - GreenSock
• TweenFilterLite - GreenSock
• Tween and Transition Classes in Flash MX - Adobe
• Twease - Andrew Fitzgerald

Speed Tests!

• Speed Test - Tweening Engine Comparison Tool -
  Tweener, TweenLite, Tweese, Fuse

When time is an issue, which method will you stick with? A recent article I read called Programming with Timers: Don’t be fooled had me thinking hard about my next project.

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