Using ExternalInterface and JS to make an Expandable Flash Banner

Expandable Banner – How to make it and embed it into your HTML page without affecting the rest of the page.

Today I helped a friend who needed an expandable banner embedded into a news website. At first, I had the instinct to searching on Google and giving him an URL or something where he can read more about this. To my surprise, none of the info I got through search engines was relevant or complete for this specific subject.

This led me to create an example and now I want to share that example with those searching for how to make an expandable Flash banner.

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AlivePDF download and save to server

Today I found myself needing to implement AlivePDF into a project that needs to generate a PDF, save it on the server and download it to the user’s computer.

Since I didn’t find any information about how to do this (and I found some other people trying to find out how it’s done) I thought I should give it a try. I posted the final result below if someone else needs to know how to both save the PDF file on the server and download it to the user’s computer.

ActionScript 3 AlivePDF code:

_pdf.save(Method.REMOTE, "save.php", Download.ATTACHMENT, "MyFile.pdf");

PHP code that will save the file on the server (inside a specified folder) and save it to the user’s computer too:

<?php
 
if(isset($GLOBALS["HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA"])){
	$pdf = $GLOBALS["HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA"];
	$name = $_GET["name"];
	$save_to = "pdf/". $name;
	file_put_contents($save_to, $pdf);
 
	// add headers for download dialog-box
	header('Content-Type: application/pdf');
	header('Content-Length: '.strlen($pdf));
	header('Content-disposition:'.$method.'; filename="'.$name.'"');
	echo $pdf;
 
} else{
	echo "Encoded PDF information not received.";
}
?>
Convert values within a range to values within another range

Today I’m sharing with you a little utility that I find myself using a lot lately. This utility is a value convertor that you can use in those times when you need to make a volume slider or something similar where you’ll need to change a value and a value range.

package com.vamapaull.utils
{	
	public class ValueConvertor
	{
		public static function convertRange(originalStart:Number, 
							originalEnd:Number, 
							newStart:Number, 
							newEnd:Number, 
							value:Number):Number
		{
			var originalRange:Number = originalEnd - originalStart;
			var newRange:Number = newEnd - newStart;
			var ratio:Number = newRange / originalRange;
			var newValue:Number = value * ratio;
			var finalValue:Number = newValue + newStart;
			return finalValue;
		}
	}
}
Timecode Utility

Today I’m sharing simple utility that I use from time to time when I need to convert time (see what I did there? 😀 )
It’s very useful if you build a FLV player for example, and want to convert the time into minutes:seconds

Example of how to apply it to your project:

import com.vamapaull.utils.TimeUtil;
 
time.text = TimeUtil.getTimecode(timeValue);

Results:

The ActionScript class:

package com.vamapaull.utils
{
    public class TimeUtil
    {
        public static function getTimecode(value:Number):String
        {
            var t:Number    = Math.round(value),
                min:Number  = Math.floor(t/60),
                sec:Number  = t%60,
                tc:String   = "";
 
            if(min &lt; 10)                  tc += "0";                          if(min &gt;= 1)
            {
                if (isNaN(min) == true) tc += "0";
                else tc += min.toString();
            }
            else 
                tc += "0";
 
            tc += ":";
 
            if(sec &lt; 10) 
            {
                tc += "0";
 
                if (isNaN(sec) == true) tc += "0";
                else tc += sec.toString();
            }
            else 
            {
                if (isNaN(sec) == true) tc += "0";
                else tc += sec.toString();
            }
 
            return tc;
        }
    }
}
Device Shake – Accelerometer

Here you have an easy way to detect shakes on mobile devices with equipped accelerometer:

var lastShake:Number = 0;
var shakeWait:Number = 600;
 
var acc:Accelerometer = new Accelerometer();
acc.addEventListener(AccelerometerEvent.UPDATE, onAccUpdate);
 
function onAccUpdate(e:AccelerometerEvent):void
{
	if(getTimer() - lastShake > shakeWait && 
			(e.accelerationX >= 1.5 
			|| e.accelerationY >= 1.5 
			|| e.accelerationZ >= 1.5))
	{
		shakeIt();
		lastShake = getTimer();
	}
}
 
function shakeIt()
{
	trace("device has been shaked");
}

Enjoy!

Shuffle menu

Update:
I made a jQuery version on Codepen.io

This is text shuffle class that will help you make a nice flash menu for your site or your applications. You can use it for open source or commercial projects (do anything you want).

Flash Version:
TextShuffleMenu.swf

  Shuffle Text (20.8 KiB, 2,402 hits)