Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.

action script

If you don’t have Flash, you can get the trial here.

Flash uses a timeline for animation but for now we are just going to use the first frame on the timeline. You don’t really have to know what a frame is just yet. We are going to just use the first layer and the first frame. Later, we will pay attention to what these are for.

First, I will show you what the GUI we will create is going to look at. We are going to create a program where the user inputs 2 numbers, clicks on the add button and the sum is shown in the output window.

Our program will look like this:

This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 549×401.

Now let us create the GUI. In Flash, go to File. Then you want to click New and create a new Flash File (ActionScript 3.0). This means that we will be using version 3 of ActionScript.

The white area on the screen that you see is called the stage. This is where we are going to put all of our controls and where everything is going to happen.

We need to open a few windows now. One of them is called the Components window and the other is the components inspector.

To open these windows, use these keyboard shortcuts:

Ctrl-F7 this opens the Components window
Shift-F7 this opens the components inspector

In the components window, you want to expand the user interface node, so that the window looks like this:

This gives us access to what we want to add to the stage. To add items to the stage, you just click on one in the components window and drag it onto the stage. You want to drag a button onto the stage and two text fields so that it looks like:

This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 549×401.

When you get to this point, we want to change the “label” of the button and the instance name of these controls (so that we can access them in code). This is what we need the components inspector for. Click on the button, and in the components inspector click on the parameters tab and look for the label parameter, you want to change this to say “Add”.

Double click “Label” under the values column and type “Add”. Then press

Enter and you should notice that the label on the button changes.
Now, in the properties window look for where it says <Instance Name>.

This is what you are going to change, so you can access the control in ActionScript code.

If you do not have the button selected, click on the button and then change the instance name to btnAdd. In a similar process, change the instance names of the two text fields to txtOne and txtTwo.

That is all the set up that is needed. Now we can start coding.

In the bottom you see a timeline that looks like this:

This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 944×206.

You want to click on the first frame, and press F9. This brings up the actions window where we are going to type our code.

ActionScript

This is a programming language that you can use to do all sorts of things on the stage.

We need to create 2 variables to hold the numbers that the user inputs.

We are going to assume that the user is only going to enter integers (meaning no decimals).

The type of expected input affects the type of variable we create. So in the actions window add these two lines of code:

var nOne:int;
var nTwo:int;

These declare two integer variables called nOne and nTwo respectively.

Now what we need to is set up an event listener to listen for a button click. Then we need to write a callback function that is called when the button is clicked.

ActionScript is nothing without functions. Basically a function is just a way to encapsulate code so you can reuse it later.

Add this line to the actions panel.

btnAdd.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK,addNums);

This means that when the user clicks on btnAdd (the button that we added earlier) that the function addNums will be called. This is why we have to name the controls, so we have a name to refer to them in the code as.

Now we have to write the addNums function.

function addNums(e:MouseEvent):void {
	var nResult:int;

	nOne = int(txtOne.text);
	nTwo = int(txtTwo.text);
	nResult = nOne + nTwo;

}

You don’t really need to worry about the details here just yet. Basically e is an argument that is passed to the function of type MouseEvent and the function returns nothing (void). This is not important for now.

What is more important is the body of the function. We store the values in the text fields into the variables. Notice how we wrap txtOne.text with int()? This is because the value txtOne.text is a string of text and we need to convert it to an integer to do any math with it.

Now, notice how I declare a variable in the function called nResult?

This variable is only accessible in the function. You cannot access it outside of the function.

Now all we have to do is output the result. We can only output strings

so we will use String() to convert nResult into a string.

Add this code just after the nResult line.

trace(String(nResult));

The final function should be:

function addNums(e:MouseEvent):void {
	var nResult:int;

	nOne = int(txtOne.text);
	nTwo = int(txtTwo.text);
	nResult = nOne + nTwo;
	trace(nResult);

}

The trace statement is used to output text to a debug window in the Flash environment.

This is a brief introduction to what can be done with Flash really quickly. Things get a lot cooler once you start playing around with things.

Now go play around, and have fun.

Attached Thumbnails

Verizon recently launched its DROID Does web and TV campaign which is a preview of their upcoming Motorola DROID, their longly-awaited iPhone-killer running Google’s Android 2.0 smartphone operating system.

Many carriers and device manufacturers have claimed to have iPhone-killers. They tried and failed to unseat the giant, which has a huge following of users and a massive application store. But right now, at least in the United States, iPhone is tied to AT&T Wireless, which has been riddled with 3G coverage problems, much to the frustration of the company’s subscribers. And if Verizon’s recent actions are any indication, iPhone is likely to stay where it is.

Click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below for more.

Verizon has recently capitalized on AT&T’s coverage issues with their “There’s a map for that” TV campaign, which is a reference to Apple’s “There’s an App for that” series of advertisements that demonstrate the versatility of the iPhone with it’s App Store. Now Verizon has upped the ante with their “DROID DOES” commercial, which is a 400mm cannon volley right across the bow of the land of happy music and white earbuds.

The 30-second long commercial — which doesn’t even show the new smartphone, the previously code-named Motorola Sholes/Tao — puts it quite simply:

“We have a physical keyboard, we have multitasking, we can take 5 Megapixel photos with flash, our users can customize the UI, our development is Open Source, and our battery is replaceable. iPhone doesn’t do any of this.”

Whether this message and others which are sure to follow are enough to attract customers to the new DROID in droves remains to be seen, but honestly, I’m pretty psyched, and I’m probably going to buy one in November, the tentative launch timeframe for the new phone.

Since de-activating my BlackBerry only a few weeks ago I’ve been waiting to see what Verizon was going to come up with in terms of its smartphone strategy for 2010, with the hopes of signing up with them shortly.

The Verizon DROID, previously codenamed the Motorola Sholes.

I didn’t want another BlackBerry, I wasn’t signing up again with AT&T, and I definitely wasn’t going to go the T-Mobile route with Mytouch 3G because its coverage in my area of Northern New Jersey is absolutely abyssmal, as friends with T-Mobile phones that visit my house can’t get a single bar of reception and complain about coverage in Bergen County in general.

While indeed impressive from a pure software and technology perspective, I’m not interested in a Palm Pre because it’s currently running on Sprint, the smallest of the national 3G networks (Verizon is anticipating launching its own version in early 2010) and the hardware build quality of the device leaves much to be desired. And Windows Mobile 6.5? It just doesn’t do it for me.

Also Read: Verizon unveils 30-second ad for Droid Android phone; slams iPhone (Andrew Nusca)

I’m really looking forward to seeing what the DROID will offer in terms of its Google integration, corporate email sync capabilities, native Android applications as well as its overall performance. With its launch on Verizon, Google’s Android OS is about to be put to the test to see if it is now ready for prime time.

Do you think the DROID will make Apple very annoyed? Talk Back and Let Me Know.

The maker of iPods, iPhones and Macintosh computers is projected to post a 13% year-over-year earnings increase to $1.42 a share, according to Thomson Reuters, well above the top end of Apple’s own forecast of $1.18 to $1.23. But some on Wall Street are quietly expecting even more — Apple has a record of exceeding estimates and some investors are anticipating around $1.60. Apple’s revenue is forecast to rise 17% to $9.2 billion.

Analysts believe sales of Apple’s new iPod Touches, released in early September, as well as the iPhones were strong. Apple also started selling Snow Leopard, an upgrade to the Macintosh operating system during the quarter. That will allow the company to maintain its already high gross profit margin because software is more profitable than hardware.

Still, Wall Street has worried recently that expectations for Apple could be too high. The company’s shares, up 93% in the past year, had risen since the end of September in anticipation of strong quarterly results but fell 1.3% to $188.05 on Friday.

Associated PressA customer walks near a screen showing an iPhone at a local store in Seoul, South Korea.

Some analysts say the company may not live up to the high expectations because of iPhone supply constraints. Apple launched its latest iPhone 3GS, with a faster processor and new features like video recording, in June and has been rolling it out in markets overseas.

“I wouldn’t be surprised to see near-term profit taking,” said Shaw Wu, an analyst for financial-services firm Kaufman Brothers.

As it has in the past, Apple will likely once again make a conservative forecast for the current quarter. But investors and analysts are wising up to that tactic. Officially, Wall Street is forecasting December quarter earnings of $1.91 a share, according to Thomson Reuters, but analysts say Apple will probably forecast $1.68 a share.

Apple will “do all they can to lower expectations for the next quarter, which is going to be tough because it should be huge,” said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment officer of New York-based Solaris Asset Management, which owns Apple shares.

• A novel sensing device based on an animal’s perception or processing.
• A mapping of sensory data that reveals information important to the animal but normally unavailable to people.
• Images or video that convey an animal’s experience of the world.
• An interactive game based on an animal’s social life.
• Alternative forms for communicating sensory data.

Submissions are open to any individuals or groups, but we particularly encourage groups of students to work with a faculty advisor. Class projects are appropriate for submission.