The Science Bit

This blog is a repository for all the techy bits and pieces that I learn through running my web design and digital marketing company, Orcare Limited. I'll be writing about Umbraco, ASP.Net, VB.Net, Flash, AS3 and XSLT. I also enjoy meeting people through business networking, and I write about that at my other blog The View from the Hub.

[thesciencebit-blog]

The BBC have developed a PHP library to ensure their entire platform consistently implements cookies in a compliant way.  

[thesciencebit-blog]

[thesciencebit-blog]

Understanding the medium that you are designing for is crucial to ensure that the design you create is implemented as you intended.  This article which comes from the BBC Global Experience Language focuses on one particular nuance in relation to designing for the web.  

There is a discrepancy between the way type is laid out in common design packages such as Photoshop and InDesign, and the corresponding layout in HTML and CSS.  This article gives practical solutions to resolve the gap.

[thesciencebit-blog]

Are you a developer and familiar with patterns like MVC? The Oregon Experiment is the book that started us thinking about pattern languages.

Don't want to read the book?  There's more info on Wikipedia.

[thesciencebit-blog]

Does the world really need anther HTML, CSS & Javascript framework?

[thesciencebit-blog]

Creating an Umbraco Template with an invalid character causes the backend to explode

Well not really but one invalid character made it's way into the umbraco database so that whenever I tried to look at the Templates section of Settings in Umbraco 4.7.0 all the templates disappeared.

Looking in Firebug I saw the following error:

[NullReferenceException]: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. at umbraco.cms.businesslogic.template.Template.getMasterPageContent() at umbraco.cms.businesslogic.template.Template.setupNode() at umbraco.cms.businesslogic.template.Template.GetAllAsList() at umbraco.loadTemplates.RenderTemplates(XmlTree& tree) at umbraco.presentation.webservices.TreeDataService.GetXmlTree() at umbraco.presentation.webservices.TreeDataService.ProcessRequest(HttpContext context) at System.Web.HttpApplication.CallHandlerExecutionStep.System.Web.HttpApplication.IExecutionStep.Execute() at System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionStep step, Boolean& completedSynchronously)

So the fix was to go into the database and clear up the mess of crap that had been created.  Two tables needed cleaning up, cmsTemplate and cmsNode.  Removing the data from there enabled the site to get back up and running.

[thesciencebit-blog]

Propagating events between SWFs loaded using AS3

So I've used an XML Flipbook program a lot over the last year, it enables you to create glossy and interactive digital magazines using all the Adobe tools and publish them with a page flip in Flash.

However, I wanted the outer book SWF to be able to send events to the individual page SWFs that are loaded using a Loader class.  For example, pageShown() or pageHidden().  The page can then do things to respond to these events, like reseting animations or releasing expensive resources.

You can easily make calls across from a parent SWF to a child SWF using by creating a Document Class with methods in the child SWF, and making calls to those methods via the LoaderInfo class.

Create a SWF called child, create a Document Class called myChild as follows

package com.orcare {   import flash.display.MovieClip;   import flash.events.EventDispatcher;   import flash.events.Event;   public class myChild extends MovieClip {     public function myChild() {       // constructor code       addEventListener("myEvent", myHandler);       trace(" *** myChild.as myChild() constructor called");     }     public function myHandler(e:Event) {       trace(" *** myChild.as myHandler() eventHandler called");     }   } }

Now create a SWF called Parent, and create a Document Class called myParent

package com.orcare {   import flash.display.MovieClip;    import flash.events.EventDispatcher;    import flash.events.Event;   public class myParent extends MovieClip {      public function myParent() {       var mc:MovieClip = new MovieClip();       mc.graphics.beginFill(0xFF0000);       mc.graphics.drawRect(0, 0,596, 847);       mc.graphics.endFill();       mc.cacheAsBitmap = true;       addChildAt(mc, 0);       ldr = new Loader();       ldr.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, completeHandler);       ldr.mask = mc;       var urlReq:URLRequest = new URLRequest("myChild.swf");       ldr.load(urlReq);       addChildAt(ldr, 0);     }

    private function completeHandler(event:Event):void {       trace("completeHandler: " + event);       var loaderInfo:LoaderInfo = event.target as LoaderInfo;       var swf:Object = loaderInfo.content;       trace("Is an event handler bound? " + swf.willTrigger("myEvent"));       swf.dispatchEvent(new Event("myEvent"));     }

Now when you run myParent, it will load up myChild and upon completion will show if a event handler is bound to myEvent, and then dispatch a myEvent.