Either way, many classes have been updated and improved (and many still need too *ugh*) and what is particularly worth mentioning are the file IO classes which provide a unified way to work with different file formats. Basically the way how files work in hexagonlib is that you can create file objects of any specific file type (like text, binary, image, XML, etc.), give them a path to a physical file and then add them to a loader (BulkLoader, FileLoader, ZipLoader) which then loads the data of the physical files into the file objects.

While you can use the BulkLoader class to load a collection of arbitrary files in one go with all sorts of comfort (priorities, weighted loading, load retries, multi-connections etc.) the newest addition to the library is the ZipLoader class which can be used in AIR development to access a standard zip file using Random Access. What does that mean? It means that you can create a zip file (a very large one if you want), pack all your resource files that can be loaded by your application and then open it with your app and ‘load’ (= extract) files from it without ever needing to load the whole zip file completely into memory. This makes accessing a large zip file very efficient because only the chunk of the requested, zipped file is loaded.

This is especially interesting for us game developers who desire to use large, nicely packed resource files like they are utilized in a similar fashion in most current day commercial games. For a while I was promoting to add such functionality to AIR over at Adobe Labs but that was before I knew that this can actually be done in AIR since 1.0 thanks to the FileStream class and the position property of it (alas, the property is not available in the URLStream class so random access is not possible on web-based Flash). The ZipLoader uses asynchronous loading to open a zip file as well as ‘loading’ files from it because I don’t like the idea of having the application at the mercy of the file system which would be the case with synchronous access (and which is used in way too many examples on the web).

You can download the hexagonlib distribution over at Google Code, which includes the SWCs and documentation and of course the source code is available for access via SVN. I’m updating the library on a irregular basis. There are already some Wiki pages too with code examples showing how to use the BulkLoader and ZipLoader here but I will hopefully get to write some more in-depth tutorials soon.

hexagonlib at Google Code
File API Wiki
Documentaion

So today I finally figured out how to install the plug-ins that I really need and nothing else (well … almost nothing else). The following guide describes how you can set up your own custom Eclipse tailored for Flash/Flex development which features FDT plus Subclipse, a HTML, CSS, JavaScript and XML Editor and then some. The CSS Editor becomes especially useful for Flex Stylesheets.

1. First I recommend to wipe your standard Sun Java runtime and install JRockit instead. JRockit is a highly optimized Java runtime from Oracle which is free and can be downloaded here. I recommend getting the ‘Real-Time’ version (you have to register at their site to be able to download but I’d say it’s worth it).
   You might also want to add a system variable under Windows named JAVA_HOME that points to the JRockit runtime path if you want the Flex SDK compiler to make use of JRockit.
2. Go to eclipse.org and download the “Eclipse IDE for Java Developers” (~85MB). Currently the latest version of Eclipse Ganymede is v3.4.2. The reason I choose the Java Dev distribution is because it is not as loaded as the Classic version or some other versions (we don’t need Plug-In development do we?!) but it contains some niceties which can be very useful for us, notably Mylyn, a decent XML editor and a cool Snippets plug-in which can be useful even though we already get the Templates feature with FDT.
   Note for Vista users: If you’re under Windows Vista and use UAC like me, I recommend not to put the Eclipse folder into your Program Files. If you do this Eclipse will split up your installation and put all your additional plug-ins into a sub folder in your user folder. And so far I’ve always ran into troubles with this when updating Plug-ins at a later time. Instead I’ve created a folder named ‘Applications’ in my user folder into which I install all applications that have trouble with Vista’s UAC, and so Eclipse is placed there as well (e.g. C:UsersusernameApplicationsEclipse).
3. Next edit your eclipse.ini to something like the following:

   -vm "C:Program Files (x86)/Java/jrrt/jre/bin/javaw.exe"
   -showsplash
   -framework
   pluginsorg.eclipse.osgi_3.4.3.R34x_v20081215-1030.jar
   -vmargs
   -Xms768M
   -Xmx768M
   -XX:PermSize=256M
   -XX:MaxPermSize=512M
   -XX:+UseParallelGC

   … of course you need to correct the path to the JRockit runtime and you might need to change Xms/Xmx as your system fits, however a minimum of 512MB is recommended for use with FDT. (While you’re at it, you might wanna replace the splash.bmp file in Eclipse/plugins/ org.eclipse.platform_x.x.xxx.vxxxxxxxxxxxx which this one).

4. Install Subclipse by adding the Subclipse update URL from the Subclipse website to your Eclipse Help/Software Updates dialog. I recommend the 1.4.x release as in the 1.6.x release SVNKit seems not to be supported at the time of this writing. Be sure to install …
   • Subclipse
   • Client Adapter
   • Native Library Adapter
   • JNA Library
   • SVNKit Client Adapter
   • SVNKit Library

   … and – if you want – Subclipse Integration for Mylyn and Subversion Revision Graph. Restart Eclipse after install.

5. Next up is Aptana, or at least the parts that we want from it. By default Aptana comes with a freight full of web dev stuff that we as Flash deveopers probably wont ever need. However I find it useful to have a decent HTML, CSS and Javascript editor at hand.
   Grab the Aptana update URL from their site (probably http://update.aptana.com/update/studio/3.4 ) and proceed the same way as with Subclipse. Aptana will first install a bootstrap installer after which Eclipse is restarted and then starts with the real installation. At that point you are able to choose which components of Aptana you want to install. I choose the following …
   • Aptana Editor Infrastructure
   • HTML Editor
   • CSS Editor
   • Javascript Editor

   Let it download and install those parts. After install and Eclipse restart for some strange reason Aptana will continue to nag us with the install dialog to install other parts of the Aptana package (probably the Aptana Web Development Tools). But we don’t want all that baggage, right?! To get rid of the install nag, press cancel, quit Eclipse and then do the following …

   • navigate to Eclipse/features and delete or move the
     com.aptana.ide.feature.eclipseXX. aptana.bootstrap _X.X.X.XXXXX-XXXXXXXX folder.
   • navigate to Eclipse/plugins and delete or move the files:
     com.aptana.ide.eclipseXX.aptana.bootstrap_X.X.X.XXXXX.jar
     com.aptana.ide.server.portal_X.X.X.XXXXXX.jar
     org.mortbay.jetty_X.X.XX.vXXXXXXXXXXXX.jar

   Removing the first three parts kills the install nag. The last file is not really necessary to delete but doing so prevents a feature of Aptana that establishes a HTML preview server even though we only want to build Flash projects.

6. At last we install our main tool, FDT. Get the update URL from the FDT website, add it to your Eclipse Software Updates dialog as usual and proceed to install. I choose the latest beta which is at http://fdt.powerflasher.com/update_beta/. Installing FDT might take a while as the package is quite large, including a shipped version of the Flex SDK.
7. Finished! Enjoy your light-weight (in Eclipse terms) setup and start coding your soul out! I hope this guide was useful for anyone to get their Eclipse install right! However I’m by no means an Eclipse expert so if you got any hints or improvement notes to make the install even better let us know!

It seems that many newcomers to ActionScript still don’t understand the use of ‘this’ and that it’s only really necessary in rare cases, for example if a method parameter has the same name like it’s relative class property or in a few scope-related situations. It’s also good to have ‘this’ at hand if a dynamic property of a class needs to be accessed (this["foo"]) but other than that please do all a favor and throw out those unnecessary ‘this’! Ban it, lock it in your basement and don’t let it out unless there’s really a need for it!

[ad#ad_content]This has changed instantly today when I read a sample eBook chapter of Joey Lott’s Advanced ActionScript 3 with Design Patterns on Adobe Labs new Digital Editions Service , a book that I actually ordered already a couple of days ago (takes a bit to ship to Japan though).

What can I say? This small chapter explains it extremely easy and logically. I’ve read EAS 2.0 and Head First but this sample chapter made me getting it for the first time really! It also explains about the difference of Abstract Classes and Interfaces, something that has not been mentioned in any other ActionScript book I’ve read so far.
Full respect to the author! If the rest of the book is of similar quality and clarity I shall be damned if I will not be an OOP Pattern Master in near future!

On a side note, the sample books are being downloaded of what looks like an Apollo app. I’m not sure how far this is related to Apollo but it works like a standalone eBook reader is downloaded and installed and sample chapters open in it.

The question comes up why they don’t just ask the person who originally wrote the code! That could have many reasons but if a client comes back to me and asks me to fix something in a years old project then I’ll do it for a measly payment simply because I know my source code. It’s a total different thing to fix somebody’s code, especially if it’s pre-AS2.
I always feel uncomfortable rejecting jobs, even such ones so I would be interested how others handle this situation! Do you usually reject such jobs or do you accept them?

package
{
	import com.hexagonstar.util.debug.Debug;
	import flash.utils.getTimer;
	import flash.display.Sprite;

	public class PerformanceTest extends Sprite
	{
		private var aVeryVeryLongVariableNameaVeryVeryLongVariableName:Number;
		private var num:Number;

		public function PerformanceTest()
		{
			var startTime:Number = getTimer();
			for (var i:int = 0; i < 4000000; i++)
			{
				aVeryVeryLongVariableNameaVeryVeryLongVariableName = (i * Math.random()) * 100;
			}
			var timeTaken:String = getTimer() - startTime + " ms";
			Debug.trace("timeTaken (long): " + timeTaken);
		}
	}
}

I've ran this code ten times with the 50 characters long variable name and then ten times with a 3 characters long one, both in their own SWF's. The results ranged from 757ms to 820ms, more or less the same on both sides. The sum of the long variable version was 7924ms and the one of the three characters long one was 7903ms, not much of a difference.

The next test was similar but this time with a 50 characters long Method name and the other again with a 3 characters long one, the Methods returned a random Number for 4000000 times during this test. The results looked similar but the total sum of each test gave a 12044ms for the long name test and 15570ms for the short named one. A noticable difference of over 3 seconds. This might have been coincidence but I've ran the tests a couple more times and it turned out every time that the result were very close together. This is quite interesting because I was safely believing that short names would still have an advantage. It might be time to rethink this.

Found these today on my daily dose of Stumble Upon random links … Proggy Programming Fonts! Still coding with Courier? Maybe it’s time for a change?!

This brought up some moods of nostalgia remembering the ‘good old’ days of computing and playing 8bit games. I even found some old 5 1/4″ floppy disks with old tools and games and tried to code some assembler which is even fun in a special way compared to the today’s luxury of coding applications.

There’s also now – as you might already have found – a new category named downloads in which I will put various stuff to leech down from time to time.

Besides there are still some draft entries on hold and unfinished yet on the authoring side. I’m going to finish them when I think it’s time!