Northcode Inc.

Tray Icons, Mouse Clicks and Popup Menus

Fri, 08 May 2009 14:35:14 GMT

I frequently run into lost souls using our competitors' tools asking how they can control what happens when they click an icon in the system tray. The answer they get is almost universally "you can't control that, Windows handles that for you" but that just isn't even close to true.

So, if Windows doesn't control what happens, how are clicks on the icons supposed to work? There are User Experience Guidelines you can follow, but there are no rules. Ultimately the decision is up to the application that receives the mouse clicks.

I'm going to show you just how much control you have over the behavior of your tray icons using SWF Studio. If you're using one of those other tools, don't worry, your users probably won't notice that weird tray icon behavior...

SWF Studio V3.7 Released

Tue, 05 May 2009 19:49:47 GMT

SWF Studio 3.7 uses Flash Player 10 and supports Flash CS4 and Flex Builder 3.0.

SWF Studio also ships with AS3 class files for our ActionScript API. This means that you can use SWF Studio with tools like KoolMoves 7 that support AS3 but don't work with SWC files.

Splash screens in SWF Studio can now be SWF files and transparency is automatically enabled so your splash screens can be any shape you like. We've also added new Splash.* commands to let you communicate with your splash screens and show or hiide them whenever you like!

Take control of the amount of memory your application is using. Find out how much memory your application is using at any time by calling the new SysInfo.getProcessMemoryInfo function and then call SysTools.releaseMemory to free up virtual memory instantly.

There's a new plugin in this release that provide fast, flexible, byte-level access to binary files of any size. Use the BinaryFile plugin to seek to any location in the file, read or write as many bytes as you like.

Northcode's Free Tools Now Support Flash CS4

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 15:21:30 GMT

We've just updated three of our popular Flash add-on tools with support for Flash CS4.

FLAver - Detects the version of your FLA and opens it in the correct version of Flash for you.

EXE2SWF - Extracts SWF files from projectors created with Adobe Flash.

FLA2SWF - Automates the publish process so you can perform unattended builds.

We've also added a section in the support forums where you can ask questions and get help using any of the FREE tools we've developed.

SWF Studio V3.6 Released

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 18:46:42 GMT

Version 3.6 (build 147) introduces a new executable type that allows you to select from Standalone, Compact, Tiny or Unbundled EXE types. The new "Unbundled" EXE type was added to allow you to use third party security solutions like Software Passport from Silicon Realms, ActiveMARK from TryMedia and others.

See the release notes For a complete list of what's new, changed and fixed in this version.

If you already own a copy V3 (any release) then this is a FREE upgrade for you. If you're a registered user, just go to the Registration Lookup Page, retrieve your registration details and use the included link to download the latest build.

Download your FREE trial version of SWF Studio today.

Avoiding Windows "Drive Not Ready" Errors

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 15:02:12 GMT

Nothing ruins a professional presentation faster than an unwelcome Windows error message like the infamous "drive not ready" or "no disk in drive". Flash was created for the web so it doesn't provide any protection against these types of errors.

The good news is that if you're using SWF Studio most of these errors are suppressed for you. However, if you want to call an external application that may try to access a floppy or a CD that isn't loaded, then you're going to need a little more help.