Adobe AIR: Listen to the Display State Changing of the Window

It’s a useful feature to be able to know when an AIR window is minimized, maximized or restored (set to normal). Most of this code is gleaned from a much more robust script at Jeffry Houser’s blog. It’s also handy to check out Adobe’s documentation on this topic (which is far less robust). The states of interest are:

 

·         NativeWindowDisplayState.NORMAL

·         NativeWindowDisplayState.MINIMIZED

·         NativeWindowDisplayState.MAXIMIZED

 

// Create an event listener for the display state of an AIR application

stage.nativeWindow.addEventListener(NativeWindowDisplayStateEvent.DISPLAY_STATE_CHANGING, myDisplayState);

 

function myDisplayState(displayStateEvent:NativeWindowDisplayStateEvent):void {

       // if the window was previously minimized, but is  now being restored to normal

       if (displayStateEvent.afterDisplayState == NativeWindowDisplayState.NORMAL && displayStateEvent.beforeDisplayState == NativeWindowDisplayState.MINIMIZED) {

              // Code here...

       }

}

Using VBScript to Minimize, Restore, Maximize, and Close Windows

A useful code snippet courtesy of Google Groups:

 

set shell = createobject("wscript.shell")

shell.run "about:blank"

 

wscript.sleep 2000

success = shell.appactivate("about:blank")

if success then shell.sendkeys "% n"  '...minimize

 

wscript.sleep 2000

success = shell.appactivate("about:blank")

if success then shell.sendkeys "% x"  '...maximize

 

wscript.sleep 2000

success = shell.appactivate("about:blank")

if success then shell.sendkeys "% r"  '...restore

 

wscript.sleep 2000

success = shell.appactivate("about:blank")

if success then shell.sendkeys "%{F4}"  '...maximize

 

 

 

 

See the Light

Microsoft has created a site called “See the Light” that includes videos and tutorials for Silverlight 3 and Expression Studio 3. From the Microsoft Expression newsletter:

“We’ve pulled together the videos and materials from the joint Expression Studio 3 and Silverlight 3 launch onto our See the Light site. If you missed joining us in person in San Francisco, visit See the Light to watch the launch keynote, in-depth demos, discovery tours, and so much more! Download the Silverlight 3 runtime and SDK along with the Expression Studio 3 60-day trial and start exploring the latest versions of the technologies.”

http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/seethelight/

 

Flip Video Mino HD Camera

I want one! A very slick, handheld HD video camera for around $200.

• Main Page
• Specs

 

Microsoft Inks Deals With Twitter and Facebook to Put Status Updates in Bing

Interesting. Another boost for social networking?

http://mashable.com/2009/10/21/bing-facebook-twitter/

Fetch as Googlebot

An interesting new tool from Google has just been released that allows one to see a web page the way Googlebot does.

Fetch as Googlebot

"What does Googlebot see when it accesses my page?" is a common question webmasters ask us on our forums and at conferences. Our keywords and HTML suggestions features help you understand the content we're extracting from your site, and any issues we may be running into at crawl and indexing time. However, we realized it was important to provide the ability for users to submit pages on their site and get real-time feedback on what Googlebot sees. This feature will help users a great deal when they re-implement their site with a new technology stack, find out that some of their pages have been hacked, or want to understand why they're not ranking for specific keywords.

 

Creating Outlook Templates and Adding Them Onto the Outlook Toolbar

A fun and useful article!

Splunk

 “Splunk is a search engine for IT data. It's software that lets you search and analyze all the data your IT infrastructure generates from a single location in real time. We call this IT Search. No need for databases, connectors, custom parsers or proprietary consoles. Just your imagination and a web browser! Now you can troubleshoot IT problems and investigate security incidents in minutes, not hours or days. Monitor all your applications, servers and network devices from one place. Report on all your compliance controls in a fraction of the time.”

There is a video overview here.

innerText

TC wrote a great article entitled “Browser Busting: innerText” that discusses how best to achieve innerText functionality across Jscript and JavaScript.

Convert inline CSS to a CSS rule

I thought this was a handy Dreamweaver tip:

1. In Code view (View > Code), select the entire <style> tag that contains the inline CSS you want to convert
2. Right-click and select CSS Styles > Convert Inline CSS to Rule.
3. In the Convert Inline CSS dialog box, enter a class name for the new rule, and then select (a) the stylesheet or (b) the head of the document as the location where you want the new CSS rule to appear and click OK.

Sharepoint, Project Web Access and Team Foundation Server?

I thought this article might be handy to keep around. It starts to dig into the various ways to link Sharepoint, Project Web Access and Team Foundation Server.

 

Kempler & Strauss

I thought some of the products on this site were interesting. I want the Slim Data USB.

http://www.kemplerusa.com/

Flash and 64-Bit Browsers - Redux

Flash, and other 32-bit Add Ons (such as Silverlight) will not run in a 64-bit version of Internet Explorer. As outlined in a Tech Note, Adobe is still working on creating a version of Flash that will play in a 64-bit browser. (Currently Linux is the only version being tested.)

“Adobe Flash Player is not supported for playback in a 64-bit browser. However, you can run Flash Player in a 32-bit browser running on a 64-bit operating system.”

Since 64-bit operating systems are becoming more mainstream, I thought I’d research the three main browsers. In a nutshell, IE is the browser that will most often not be able to support Flash content.

Firefox 64-Bit

This seems to be a non-issue at the moment as Firefox does not seem to have an officially released 64-bit version of the browser. A knowledgebase article says the following: “Firefox will work on 64-bit versions of Windows, but it is not a 64 bit application.”

However, according to this thread there are third-party 64-bit builds available from http://www.vector64.com/WindowsBuilds.html. However, it seems like only a small subset of users that would seek that out.

Safari 64-Bit

According to a great article Sean located, it seems that Flash is able to run even when Safari runs in 64-bit mode.

“…when Safari runs in 64-bit mode, plugins actually run as their own separate processes rather than being bundled up with Safari. But when Safari is run in 32-bit mode, Flash and other plugins work the old way, which means if (when) Flash crashes, so will Safari.”

You also have the option of setting Safari to start up in 32-bit mode:

Safari > Get Info. In the resulting dialog box, select the checkbox that says "Open in 32-bit mode."

Note: Should we decide that we need to detect for 64-bit mode after all, this code seems like it could be a good starting place.

if (navigator.appVersion.indexOf("Safari") != -1

&& navigator.appVersion.indexOf("Mac OS X 10_6") != -1 {

document.write('<br>You are running Safari in 64-bit mode. ')

}

IE 7 and 8 – 64-Bit

I found this page a helpful starting point to approaching this issue. Specifically the section quoted below. Even though browser sniffing is not a perfect solution, it still might help to direct users to more user friendly error pages.

Detecting 64-bit Internet Explorer

As machines with more than 4 gigabytes of RAM become more common, more and more users are running 64-bit versions of Windows. For compatibility with 3^rd party add-ons, the 32-bit edition of Internet Explorer remains the default on 64-bit systems. However, in some cases it can be useful for websites to recognize when users are visiting using 64-bit systems—for instance, a site may want to know whether to offer a 64-bit executable download.

Tokens in the User-Agent string will enable you to determine whether or not the user is running a 64-bit version of Windows, and whether they are running the 64-bit edition of Internet Explorer.

64-bit IE on 64-bit Windows:

Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.0; Win64; x64; Trident/4.0)

32-bit IE on 64-bit Windows:

Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.0; WOW64; Trident/4.0)

A simple bit of JavaScript that seems to successfully detect whether a user is utilizing IE 64-bit:

<script type="text/javascript">

var myUserAgent = navigator.userAgent;

var myCPUType = navigator.cpuClass;

var myOperatingSystem = navigator.platform;

var is64BitIEon64BitWindows = /Win64/gi; // 64-bit IE on 64-bit Windows

var is32BitIEon64BitWindows =  /WOW64/gi; // 32-bit IE on 64-bit Windows

var browserCanPlayAddOns = "True - 64-bit not detected";

if (myUserAgent.match(is64BitIEon64BitWindows)) {

       browserCanPlayAddOns = "False - 64-bit browser";

}

if (myUserAgent.match(is32BitIEon64BitWindows)) {

       browserCanPlayAddOns = "True - 32-bit browser on 64-bit os";

}

document.write(browserCanPlayAddOns)

</script>

 

 

 

AdobeTV: MAX 2009 Develop

Adobe TV has quite a few developer sessions from MAX. Some of these definitely seem to be worth checking out:

http://tv.adobe.com/show/max-2009-develop/

I’m particularly intrigued by: “What's Coming in Adobe AIR 2.”

PhotoSketch!

This is amazing. From C|Net:

“What if you could draw some stick figures on a screen and somehow magically create a beautiful image montage? Well, it’s possible. A group of students in China have created PhotoSketch, a project that does exactly what I just described: it takes a rough, hand-drawn sketch, scours the web for photos that match, and runs them through an algorithm, stitching it all together.”

 

Microsoft Research shows off multitouch mouse prototypes

Some pretty interesting video of multitouch mouse prototypes courtesy of Engadget.

Adobe Flash Professional CS5 Applications for iPhone!!!

I can’t wait!

“Flash Professional CS5 will enable you to build applications for iPhone and iPod touch using ActionScript 3. These applications can be delivered to iPhone and iPod touch users through the Apple App Store.”

Details are available on Adobe Labs.

 

SimpleViewer

Pretty nice! I especially like being able to use the mouse scroll wheel moving through the images. Thanks to MB for pointing this out.

“SimpleViewer is a free, customizable Flash image viewing application.”

http://www.simpleviewer.net/simpleviewer/

 

Apple Speculation: Larger Multi-Touch Surface and Google Maps Replacement

First, an article from appleinsider.com:

Evidence of Apple's tablet-like input interface reappears

“In a new patent application revealed this week, Apple has again disclosed plans for a multi-touch surface that could accommodate two full hands and distinguish between palms and individual fingers for typing, gestures and more.”

Next, from Ars Technica:

Apple may have Google Maps replacement waiting in the wings

“Apple has bought a mapping service company called Placebase and its former CEO is now working on the "Geo Team" at Apple. The move could be designed to provide a backup to the Google Maps service that Apple uses heavily in iPhone OS, especially since the relationship between the two companies appears to be straining.”