Flash Ad Manager is now available to download as a 1.0 release from the Google Code project page.
If you missed the previous posts about it, here’s the spiel:
Flash Ad Manager lets developers remotely display custom or embedded ads during the preloading stage of a Flash application.
My main motivation with this project is to give Flash Platform developers, specifically Flash game developers, better control over how they monetize their work through the use of ads.
Currently the 2 major sources for Flash game monetization are sponsorship and advertising. With this package I hope to open up a potentially untapped area for developers, self served ads as well as provide a way for games to be released without having to be “locked in” to a single ad API like MochiAds. Continue reading →
Posted in Adobe Flash, Adobe Flex, Advertising, Banners, Flash Games
|
Tagged Advertising, flash, Flash Games, game development, gamejacket, mochiads, monetization, monetize, money, newgrounds
|
Colin Moock, author of the excellent book Essential Actionscript 3.0 has written an interesting blog post regarding an issue which Flash (still) has with finding the visible dimensions of a DisplayObject. The key word there being “visible” as the way Flash currently reports a DisplayObject’s size does not account for things which effect on-screen appearance such as masking. For example if you have a 40×40 DisplayObject with a 20×20 mask the getBounds method, as well as the width and height properties, report the DisplayObject as being 40×40, which is technically correct, but Flash currently has no way of easily reporting the actual visual (masked) size.
Colin has raised this through the Adobe Flash Player and Issue Management System which I urge anyone with even a passing interest in Flash to go and vote for. This is your chance to help shape the future of the Flash player and resolve one of it’s most lacking features.
Just a quick update to let you know that the Flash Ad Manager class library I mentioned in a previous post is now hosted on Google Code. In fact, it’s been on there for a little while now. This is my first open source project and I’ve been having fun with it. There is information over at the project page which gives a better understanding how the class works and what benefits it can bring to your flash game / application.
At the time of writing this post I have not yet reached what I would consider a ‘feature complete’ 1.0 release but am getting very close. Because of this there isn’t an ‘official’ download package yet but can be checked out using your favourite subversion client if you’re interested.
Posted in Adobe Flash, Adobe Flex, Advertising, Banners, Flash Games
|
Tagged ads, Advertising, flash, flash ad manager, flash game, flex, games, monetize
|
As expected Flex Builder has now been renamed to Flash Builder starting with version 4 due out later this year(?). Lee Brimlow broke the news and has answered a few questions people have regarding what this means for the future of the Flash IDE and how this may effect confusion between Flash & Flex.
Ultimately we need to remember that Flex is, and has always been, a framework. Flex Builder was named as such as it’s primary purpose is to build Flex projects though more and more people are now using it to build pure Actionscript projects. Personally I think the name change makes sense purely from a marketing point of view and it generally solidifies the Flash platform as a brand onto itself.
At the beginning of the year I had plans to learn the Flex framework though I have since decided to wait for version 4 to be released. My reasoning for this was I felt Flex 3 is still quite finicky when it comes to customizing the visual look of components. Flex 4 seems to be taking this issue as a primary design goal with a much improved separation between a component’s skin and logic. I’m still coding Flash using FlashDevelop for the time being but am very much looking forward to the release of Flex Buil… err… Flash Builder.
Posted in Adobe Catalyst, Adobe Flash, Adobe Flex, Software
|
Tagged adobe, flash, flash builder, flash catalyst, flash platform, flex, flex builder, news, web design, web development
|
