via blog.six4rty.ch

I like the article at http://blog.six4rty.ch/2010/07/31/as3-multiline-textfields-and-line-metrics/, mainly because of this graphic. I found it somewhere before long ago (maybe the same place) — it is a big help when dealing with customized text layout situations in flash where you have to do manual baseline aligment and such.

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via flickr.com

I’ve been playing around with the MoreLomo app for iPhone…in lieu of getting a Harenezumi…

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package {

	import fl.controls.TextInput;
	import fl.managers.IFocusManagerComponent;

	/**
	 * Extends the TextInput component in order to set the default width and
	 * height, and sets the focusRectPadding to 0 (so the focus rectangle lies
	 * directly on top of the grey text input border skin.
	 */
	public class TextInput2 extends TextInput implements IFocusManagerComponent {

		/**
		 * @constructor
		 */
		public function TextInput2() {
			super();
			textField.width = 1;
			textField.height = 1;
			width = 64;
			height = 18;
			setStyle("focusRectPadding", 0);
		}

		/**
		 * The UIComponent class, when the component is in focus, creates the
		 * uiFocusRect and sets it at childIndex 0. Unfortunately, the text input
		 * skin is then above the focus rect, and so the focus rect disappears
		 * when the focusRectPadding is 0. This calls the parent implementation,
		 * then ensures that the focus rect is visible by changing its
		 * child index.
		 */
		override public function drawFocus(draw:Boolean):void {
			super.drawFocus(draw);

			if (uiFocusRect != null) {
				setChildIndex(uiFocusRect, numChildren - 1);
			}
		}
	}
}

UPDATE: I updated the above script to set the size of the TextField in the TextInput component to be 1x1. This also fixes the problem that the TextField is created as 100x100 pixels when it is first created (as are all dynamically generated text fields). This matters if you wish to use any customized layout (such as the Yahoo astra layout managers), and don't want to have to call drawNow() or wait a frame to finalize layout settings in a UI.

Regardless of whether or not a shape, such as a rectangle, is drawn in Flash with a hairline border line, or a borderline of 1, the result on an unscaled shape is essentially the same. The crisp outline of the shape is drawn with a pixel width of 1. The downside of this occurs when trying to create pixel perfect UI's, and especially those using shapes with a scalenine grid assigned to them.

Using the AS3 drawing API, you can create a rectangle that has a lineStyle with a width of 1, and some fill, which would look something like this:

var sh:Shape = new Shape();
sh.graphics.lineStyle(1, 0xFF0000);
sh.graphics.beginFill(0xFF6600);
sh.graphics.drawRect(0, 0, 100, 100);
sh.graphics.endFill();
addChild(sh);
trace("Size: " + sh.width + " x " + sh.height);

The code above so draws an orange rectangle with a red border that is 201 pixels wide and 101 pixels tall. If you don't know why, the reason is because flash draws the line on the pixel width and height of the rectangle with a line size of 1. This makes your shape 201 x 101; thankfully, Flash will report the width and height correctly as 201 x 101.

This gets stickier if you have a shape that is used as a component skin, and has a scale9Grid applied to it. In this case you will likely be working with a component that you expect to take up 200x100 pixels on the stage when you tell it to be that size. However, if the skin used features "line" outlines at its borders, your component will get drawn on the stage with extra pixels. If you dig into the Flash component skins, you will notice that most of the skins use fills for any borders on the shapes (even 1 pixel wide borders) so that the scale9Grid enabled shapes will scale correctly to the pixel. That being said, the proper way to draw the simple skin shape in this case, programmatically, would be:

var sh2:Shape = new Shape();
sh2.graphics.beginFill(0xFF0000);
sh2.graphics.drawRect(0, 0, 200, 100);
sh2.graphics.beginFill(0xFF6600);
sh2.graphics.drawRect(1, 1, 198, 98);
sh2.graphics.endFill();
addChild(sh2);
trace("Size: " + sh2.width + " x " + sh2.height);

Incidentally, this also often cleans up some anti-aliasing at the corners of rectangular shapes which I believe is cause by some weirdness in the way the "caps" are drawn on the shapes. (but don't quote me on that...)

Flash 9 LiveDocs:  qss-http://www.google.com/search?&btnI&q=site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Flivedocs.adobe.com%2Fflash%2F9.0%2FActionScriptLangRefV3%2F+***

Flash 10 Help Docs:  qss-http://www.google.com/search?&btnI&q=site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fhelp.adobe.com%2Fen_US%2FAS3LCR%2FFlash_10.0%2F+***

Basically, since there is no convenient way I found to use the search mechanisms on the Adobe site, these queries are running a google lucky search on the wildcard applied search term, while restricting the search to the site pertinent to the docs of interest. Running the assigned key command will trigger the Quicksilver text entry box; simply enter the term, such as "vector" for Flash 10, and the google lucky search will be performed. Since the lucky search is restricted to the livedocs and the help docs, the first search result returned will be the frameless html page in the docs for the search term. When searching for the docs for a specific actionscript term, this cuts the search time for a term down to a couple of seconds, which is highly convenient...

To install, uncompress this script and put it in your ~/Library/Application Support/Quicksilver/Actions directory, and restart Quicksilver.

To use, invoke Quicksilver and type "." to enter text mode. Type all or part of the name of the person you wish to IM. Hit and type "Adium" (or "Ad" or "Adi") and select "AdiumContactor" with the arrow keys and hit .

The script will search for any instance of the text you enter in your contacts, both in their IM names, as well as their display names. If one match is found, it will open an IM window for that contact. If multiple contacts are found, a window will open allowing you to select the one you want, using whatever account it belongs to. (in other words, if you search "bil", you will be able to choose from "Bill Todd", bileInMyStomach@gmail.com, actionscriptAbility@hotmail.com, etc.) Careful using some search terms, such as "com", as it will return all your MSN messenger accounts (whose screennames are defined by the contact's email address)

PlasticWare Downloadable ::
AdiumContactor for Quicksilver (Aug. 07, 2008)
Download (~10,000 bytes) :: AdiumContactor.zip

export http_proxy=`proxy-config -h`
export https_proxy=`proxy-config -s`
export ftp_proxy=`proxy-config -f`

This will set your environment proxy variables to whatever they are currently set to in your Network Preferences. I got part of this also from Ryan Tomayko's blog.This is important if you are inside a firewall at work.

The simplest way to post a tweet to twitter from the command line would be to do so using cURL. If you don't have cURL installed, you will need to install it. If you aren't familiar with cURL, it is basically a command-line tool for grabbing html documents (or whatever else). See this post for another use. I got this idea, as well as the applescript for using it with Quicksilver, from Coda Hale's blog. Read that post for a full explanation of using Quicksilver and an applescript for posting to twitter from Quicksilver -- it has a pretty thorough explanation.

If you are inside a firewall, however, this will likely fail because the cURL command requires that the proxy settings be provided. So, I took the script from Coda's post, combined it with the comment on his post from Daan Kortenbach, and then enabled that for use with the system's proxy settings. The new script follows:

using terms from application "GrowlHelperApp"
	-- Register Growl
	on growlRegister()
		tell application "GrowlHelperApp"
			register as application "Tweet" all notifications {"Alert"} default notifications {"Alert"} icon of application "Quicksilver.app"
		end tell
	end growlRegister

	-- Notify using Growl
	-- Example: growlNotify("This is an Alert","This is a test of the Growl Alert System")
	on growlNotify(grrTitle, grrDescription)
		tell application "GrowlHelperApp"
			notify with name "Alert" title grrTitle description grrDescription application name "Tweet"
		end tell
	end growlNotify
end using terms from

using terms from application "Quicksilver"
	on process text tweet
		tell application "Keychain Scripting"
			set twitter_key to first Internet key of current keychain whose server is "twitter.com"
			set twitter_login to quoted form of (account of twitter_key & ":" & password of twitter_key)
		end tell
		set twitter_status to quoted form of ("status=" & tweet)

                -- I have proxy-config in a directory "~/bin"
		set the_proxy to do shell script "~/bin/proxy-config -h"

		try
			if (the_proxy = "") then
				set results to do shell script "curl --user " & twitter_login & " --data-binary " & twitter_status & " http://twitter.com/statuses/update.json"
			else
				set results to do shell script "curl --proxy " & the_proxy & " --user " & twitter_login & " --data-binary " & twitter_status & " http://twitter.com/statuses/update.json"
			end if
			growlRegister()
			growlNotify("Tweet Sent", tweet)
		on error
			(* In case curl fails for some reason,  alert us *)
			growlRegister()
			growlNotify("Error", "There was an error sending your tweet.")
		end try

	end process text
end using terms from

Today I deafened myself, but upon searching, discovered Alloc Init, which features a nice little app called Breakaway. The main feature of this app is to pause iTunes or launch the screensaver when the headphone jack status is changed (plugged in or out). However, the nicer thing about the app is that it also allows the user to trigger an applescript on the same events. I created the following script called setVolumeTo20of100:

tell application "Finder"
set volume output volume 20
end tell

After creating a custom trigger in Breakaway, my system volume will always be reset to 20 when I plug in something to the headphone jack. Since I don't care about having to increase the volume at home automatically, this is fine for now, since I will most importantly not deafen myself in the morning at work. I will perhaps post an update later that checks the the network preferences for the current location for setting the volume automatically based on location, which will automate things a little more. Meanwhile, I highly recommend this nice little app. (Note: the interface for creating custom triggers is a little clunky, so you may have to play with it a little first, but it does work -- just be patient.)

The solution: I decided it was finally time to resurface the site, but do so quickly so as to actually get things working again. So, the current state you see here is the result. Not finished, but at least not entirely broken. I did a little research, and decided that I would try out the Sandbox theme. I appreciated what they are trying to do, and I also decided that I should go ahead and start basically from scratch with a foundation that has some nice semantic markup to build on.

The project: What you see here in progress is actually a new theme that I am building on top of Sandbox, tentatively called Plastic Laminate, utilizing pretty much just new CSS on top of the existing Sandbox for now, and then I may actually do some reskinning or plugin building as well, to cover any areas missing content I want. That being said, if things look a bit wonky or like a blog with little design effort applied at the moment, that's because its still in transition...

I found this nice MacWorld article that discusses some of the newer (or at least new to me) functionality in Preview for OSX, which details some really nice features, including document merging and annotation, as well as some nice formatting features. Looking forward to using this for making designeriffic podcast/mix PDF booklets, multipage Illustrator-formatted resumes, and whatever else.

I ran some comparisons of Safari 3 running WebAccess *in a VM* on my MacBook against Firefox 2 running in OSX. I had heard Safari was fast, but I didn't really believe the hype, and I figured that Safari on Windows would probably be relegated to the land of second class software, like IE always was on the Mac. In all the operations managing a Server 2.0 instance, Safari was by far faster, and in most cases was nearly 3 times faster than Firefox 2. I know that Firefox 3 is supposed to be fast also, but from what I've seen so far its still fairly buggy.

This got me re-evaluating what to use for my daily browsing. I've been using Camino, which I switched to because it used the Gecko rendering engine, but was an OSX native application, so it played (more) nicely in the Mac environment. I had originally switched to Firefox a few years ago because it was the better alternative on the Mac, and well, out of principal, because it wasn't Safari. However, the speed of 3.0 and integration with my new mobile device has got me using it again. Now if only delicious played better with iPhone...

Then a strange thing happened. I took a photo at work using iFlickr, and I discovered a mysterious place in cyberspace that to my knowledge was never disclosed by William Gibson. This place is a field outside of rural Lebanon, Kansas, known by some on Google as the Cowboy Stencil Capital of the Universe. In the 2000 census, this small rural town had a population of 300. It is also apparently known as a community suffering from rural flight as documented in a 2006 New York Times article. However, to date, 836 photos have been geotagged to a field about a mile and a half to the northwest of the town center, 3 or more photos probably for each of the remaining citizens of Lebanon. Ostensibly, this is some bug in the iFlickr code where the app gets confused and default to this quaint locale, or, perhaps it is a little joke by the creator of the app. I would like to think that there is some more profound reason, and that this could be a William Gibson plot unfolding before our eyes. Regardless, this is an interesting spacial meta-tagging glitch - when you view my photo on the map, it looks as though tall buildings have sprouted from a field...

The first steps are to jailbreak your phone, and install a few of the necessary apps, including BossPrefs, the BSD Subsystem package, and the OpenSsh client. Once you do this, you can disable Edge, make sure WiFi is enabled, and enable the SSH service. You will want to do both, as the "alpine" password is well known, and you might as well be as safe as possible about this.

I found the file I needed to change under the /var/mobile directory on the iPhone. When you have started SSH on your iPhone and connected to your wireless router, check the ip address in BossPrefs under WiFi. Fire up the Terminal on your computer also connected to the same network, and enter the following (replace xx.xx.xx.xx with the IP address of your iPhone):

scp root@xx.xx.xx.xx:/var/mobile/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist ~/Desktop/GlobalPreferences.plist

You will need to enter "alpine" when prompted for the password. Now check to see if GlobalPreferences.plist is now on your Desktop. Now you can edit this file in two ways. Most importantly, in this file, you need to change the "AppleKeyboards" node to also include a node for "ja" in addition to "en_US". You can convert the plist to an XML text file by running the following in the Terminal, and edit the file in your favorite text editor:

plutil -convert xml1 ~/Desktop/GlobalPreferences.plist

Change the block of text that looks like:

<key>AppleKeyboards</key>
<array>
<string>en_US</string>
</array>

and add the "ja" node so it looks like:

<key>AppleKeyboards</key>
<array>
<string>en_US</string>
<string>ja</string>
</array>

Then to convert it back to binary (the format that it was in), run this in the Terminal:

plutil -convert binary1 ~/Desktop/GlobalPreferences.plist

However, the *easier* way to edit the file, is to double-click it, which in OSX, should open the file in Property List Editor. Once in there, click the triangle next to "AppleKeyboards". You will see one String with the value "en_US". Click the "New Sibling" button in the editor and type "ja" in the new field provided. Then save.

Once you have edited your prefs file, you need to stick it back on the phone. Run this in the Terminal:

scp ~/Desktop/GlobalPreferences.plist root@xx.xx.xx.xx:/var/mobile/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist

You will again be prompted for the same password. Once the upload is complete, go to BossPrefs, and turn off SSH and turn back on Edge. Restart your iPhone. You should now be able to type Japanese characters. Go to Notes. You should see a little globe icon next to the space bar. If you click this it will squash the keyboard down some and when you type, you will see options in Japanese charaters for what you are typing. It behaves similarly to typing Japanese on your Mac keyboard. For example, when you type "hanashimasu", you will see "はなします" as an option in the space above the keyboard. Click the globe to toggle between modes.

I also had a difficult time getting my contacts and calendars to sync. If you are viewing this post with that same problem, I was able to remedy the problem by opening iSync, going to the iSync preferences, and under Advanced - click the "Reset Sync History" button.

The best part about the iPhone is its ability to connect to the internet via any available WiFi hotspot. I navigated all around SF last weekend using the maps functionality and 511.org and hopped around multiple hotspots in the city. Using Muni in this city has never been easier. I have to say, this more than makes up for the lack of speed on the Edge network (at least in a place like SF). AND, I say this with moderate excitement -- BART WiFi is available in some BART stations. I don't know if it is available in all stations, and I don't know why I would ever pull a laptop out of my bag at a station, but its pretty great if you have a WiFi enabled phone.

Of course, the first thing I had to do, mostly out of principal and secondly out of burning curiosity, was to jailbreak the phone. I kept reading posts about "bricking" one's phone that made me a bit timid, but I am 90% sure now that unless you do some serious mischief on your phone, everything is fixable with a restore.  I ended up using ZiPhone 2.6b for my jailbreak operation, which was super smooth. Note: I used only the "Jailbreak" option, the one that says "Best choice for 'official' carriers;"  that is all I know, and I can't help you past there. It did work for me, however, and worked very well. The next thing that was required was to install the community sources in the Installer application loaded onto the phone, which gives you access to the "official" list of 3rd party apps for the iPhone and iPhone Lonely Edition (iPod Touch).

I have to say though, with all the booing that enthusiasts did regarding the iPhone not yet enabling 3rd party apps other than web apps, the web app functionalities are rather nice.  More on that later, but just to say, my favorite web apps so far for Home bookmarking are the most simple, such as google, AA.com (kudos to American Airlines for getting that one right),  and although I don't use it, Twitter has a nice simple interface. Most of the third party native apps are still in their infancy and not terribly impressive. There are a couple that are pretty nice though.

BossPrefs and PocketTouch I think rank as my number 2 best third party apps. PocketTouch aptly allows for simple iPod functions for volume and next/previous functionality using swipe gestures on the touchscreen. It also features a silly but kind of cool function that allows you to play a random track by shaking the phone. (so the next time you see someone on the train shaking their hand in their pocket, don't be so quick to judge...) BossPrefs is great. It does what it is supposed to do, namely that it allows you to turn off and on various network services on your phone, including OpenSsh, if you have that installed.

My number 1 pick so far, however, is MobileScrobbler. If you participate in the whole LastFm thing, you already know what LastFm is and I don't need to explain it; if you don't check it out -- you may or may not like it, but anyway... MobileScrobbler is one of the the most mature apps I have seen so far, and allows you to stream radio via WiFi. Very nice. It probably kills your battery life, but hey...what are you going to do...

It was the simplest way I could find to do this. It isn't customizable, other than editing the code yourself, but it does a great job out of the box, and does pretty much what you would want it to do anyway, which is post things to your blog that you found interesting, without having to actually write a post about it...hooray for industrious laziness!

A friend of mine was looking for Electroplankton for the Nintendo DS; it is a great little piece of programmatic/musical art, and it is really hard to find. The site buyportablegames.com claimed to have the title new in stock, and the price was decent (not suspiciously low, but a competitive price), so my friend purchased that and Mario Cart for DS, though with a little hesitation because of the fact that the payment method required was Paypal. But hey, Paypal is a reputable and secure way of purchasing goods on the internet right? It is the number one payment method on Ebay, right?

So, after making the purchase and emailing buyportablegames.com twice to get a tracking number, the tracking number was procured, a long number ending in HK. Tracking numbers ending in HK are likely sent via hong kong post, and if you are receiving the goods in the U.S., this means that you really can't track the package. My friend finally received Mario Cart a couple of weeks later, but no Electroplankton. To make things worse, Mario Cart was an illegal counterfeit copy of Mario Cart. Buyportablegames.com sells fake copies of Nintendo games. They are yet another shining example of China's poor management of its markets and total disregard for the consumer. (Why do we have to be careful when purchasing goods from China that we eat, eat out of, brush our teeth with, feed our pets, give our children, and when we want the real thing? Do we have to try to boycott all items from China? Really?)

Since it was clear that Electroplankton was never going to arrive, my friend entered a claim on Paypal and the credit card used for the payment. Paypal was astonishingly not helpful, claiming that:

Our investigation into your claim is complete. As stated in our User Agreement, the claims process only applies to the shipment of goods. It does not apply to complaints about the attributes or quality of goods received. Therefore, we are unable to reverse this transaction or issue a refund.

Then, to add insult to injury, my friend is now receiving nasty emails from buyportablegames.com, which claim that they knew nothing about the fake products and that since a claim has been made they "cannot" issue a refund for the game not delivered. (a good search online debunks both those claims) So, buyer seriously beware. Paypal apparently knowingly participates and aids in the sale of fraudulent goods and and supports companies that sell knock-offs as if they were new, authentic goods; at the very least, they absolve themselves of any responsibility in the matter. So, to recap:

• Don't buy from buyportablegames.com - they will try to rip you off
• Don't support Paypal if possible - they support the sale of illegal, patent and copyright infringing goods (yes, information wants to be free, but you should have the right to know you are purchasing couterfeit items)

I'm not saying that you need to only purchase from the big box companies, but if you are purchasing from smaller stores online, make sure that you make your purchase with a credit card that will support your claim in the case where the goods don't arrive or are counterfeit. It seems that Paypal isn't going to help you there.

However, I stumbled on this gem the other day:

curl -C - -O file:///Volumes/samba_share/file/path/here.txt

Basically, curl allows you to copy a file with url syntax in the terminal. The capital "O" tells curl to copy the file to your desktop with the same name as the file on your server, and the capital "C" tells it to continue where it may have left off. You can monitor the download in the terminal window. If you need to leave work and finish the copy the next day, simply enter the command again in the terminal and it will pick up the copy where it left off.