Author / Grant Skinner

Grant Skinner

The "g" in gskinner. Also the "skinner".

@gskinner

by Grant Skinner

New gskinner.com site launches

The gskinner.com v2.5 site has launched. Why 2.5? Because it’s a stopgap between version 2 and a (hopefully) much cooler version 3 of the site that will go up when we have more time to devote to it. Right now, we’re way too busy with client projects and glic to put up a site that does justice to our capabilities, but I wanted to put up some materials that reflected the new focus and structure of gskinner.com.

IMHO the most interesting part of the new site is the dynamic vector drop shadow engine – it automatically blurs, offsets and fades shadows based on the _z value of the panes. It also scales the complexity of the shadow automatically, so it might draw 2 vectors for a sharp shadow, and 8 for a blurrier shadow.

I’m also happy that it consumes this blog’s RSS feed, so that the news stays updated without any extra work. 😉

For something that got tossed together while I was on the road on the FlashInTheCan 4 city tour, I think it’s ok.

by Grant Skinner

JSFL: Open Bound Class(es)

This is a little JSFL script I put together the other day after being inspired by a similar idea from Tony at Teknision.

The purpose of this script is to launch any AS2 classes bound to the selected items in your library. Comes in super handy if bound to a keyboard shortcut.

The concept is pretty simple so there isn’t much to explain, two things to look out for:

1) There is a variable (var classPath) in the script that you may (or may not) have to change to reflect yer own development enviroment.

2) Right now it only works relative to the .fla, so like /classPath/com/gskinner/etc ..

I do have some idea’s for more/better functionality, but I’m not sure it’s quite possible in this iteration of JSFL.

The script can be downloaded from here, and if you have any comments/suggestion for improvement or whatnot please leave a comment.

Hope you enjoyed my first gBlog post, stay tuned for more.

by Grant Skinner

New Authors at gBlog

I’d like to give a warm welcome to the very talented members of the gskinner.com team who will now be posting to the gBlog as opportunity presents:

Phil Chung (of PhilterBlog fame)

Ryan Matsikas (of ChewTinFoil blog fame)

Lanny McNie (not famous, but still cool 😉

This should help keep the blog a little more active then it has been lately – I have lots to post, but we have been crazy busy lately, with some very cool client work and glic (news on that soon).

Keep an eye out for their posts, and be sure to say hi in the comments.

by Grant Skinner

Update to “Set Up for Preloading” JSFL

I just uploaded an updated version of my JSFL script for automating the set up of FLAs for internal pre-loading (removing the need for an external pre-loader). This update fixes a problem where JSFL execution would not complete if there was an embedded video asset in the library, as well as providing more robust reporting.

You can go to my previous post on this topic to read about how to use this JSFL properly, and to download the new version (near the bottom of the page).

by Grant Skinner

One year of blogging.

Yesterday marked one year of blogging for me – and man has the time ever flown past. A lot has happened on the blog and off:

  • 102 posts to the blog

  • 500 comments

  • over 1 million visits to gskinner.com

  • Macromedia FlashMX 2004 released

  • speaking at a bunch of events about OOP, usability, development process, etc

  • developing and successfully running my 3 day Flash MX 2004 Enterprise Development workshop

  • gskinner.com growing from just me to 5 full time (super-capable) people

  • meeting and speaking with a ton of very cool, very intelligent members of the Flash community

  • working on some amazing projects with some truly awesome clients (thanks guys!)

  • constantly expanding my knowledge and capabilities with Flash, OOP and general project/client/business management

  • … and a whole ton of other stuff (stopping myself before this gets really long)

The past year did not see the launch of gskinner.com version 3, or gModeler 2, but we’ve been amazingly busy, not least of all with the gskinner lightweight interface components (glic) which should be coming out soon.

It’s been an awesome year, and I’d like to offer my sincere thanks to everyone who helped make it so. My very lovely girlfriend (who is EXCEPTIONALLY patient), family, friends, co-workers, fellow Flashers, clients, readers, etc).

I hope to keep the ball rolling, so if you have suggestions, comments (what did you like or not like on the site), criticisms, or encouragement please let me know in the comments below.

Cheers everyone!