"Flash Lite 2" - Richard Leggett

For my last session of day 2, I caught Richard Leggett on Flash Lite 2, Flash's mobile phone platform.

• Good resource - http://flashmobileforum.org


• Has a book coming out "Flash Applications for Mobile Devices"


• What is FlashLite 2?
  
  
  • Flash 7 Player + extra functionality (i.e. backlight, vibrate, signal strength)
  
  
  • Bundled with phones (Nokia, Sony Ericson)
  
  
  • Create with Flash 8/9, Adobe Device Central + a few IDE updates


• New in 2.0
  
  
  • AS2 Classes
  
  
  • XML/LoadVars
  
  
  • Video/Audio (mp4, 3gp, midi, gif)
  
  
  • Colour object and drawing API
  
  
  • Major text improvements
    
    
    • HTML
    
    
    • TextFormats
  
  
  • Text metrics (_height)
  
  
  • Local (Mobile) SharedObjects (MSO) - work differently from desktop
  
  
  • Depth sorting - better control over screen elements and positioning


• V2.1 (released recently)
  
  
  • Inline text inputs
  
  
  • XMLSocket


• Content types - what is it good for?
  
  
  • Screensavers
  
  
  • Backgrounds
  
  
  • Animated ringtones
  
  
  • Browser content
  
  
  • Standalone apps/games


• Mobile applications
  
  
  • Remember the device you are designing for
  
  
  • Users tend to want "productivity" or "life" tools
  
  
  • Users expect stuff to just work


• Good ideas for mobile games
  
  
  • Keep them simple
  
  
  • Action games - difficult to pull off
  
  
  • Strategy/RPG - great, use MSOs to save progress
  
  
  • Sport - simulations are no good, but strategy (i.e. football manager) is good
  
  
  • Skill - can work well
  
  
  • Multi-player - yet to be proven


• Structure
  
  
  • Simple - timeline based
    
    
    • Rapid
    
    
    • Good for small projects
  
  
  • More complex - Pure AS2
  
  
  • Both have pros & cons and it depends on budget


• No keyUp event so movement is constant


• Re-use graphics to cut down overhead


• KISS - Keep it Simple Stupid!


• 16fps is the new 31fps - good speed for phones


• _focusRect = false - gets rid of yellow tab state


• Fscommand2("SetSoftKeys", "", "exit")
  
  
  • Sets the keys under the screen


• ExtendedKeyClass - SOFT1-15 for different keys on phone


• Video formats -
  
  
  • System.capabilities.VideoMIMEType (or something to that effect - missed the actual syntax)
  
  
  • Video can stream (from Real Media Server)
  
  
  • Can be local
  
  
  • http:// getURL()


• SMS
  
  
  • Really easy to do
  
  
  • Instead of mailto: use sms:
  
  
  • Pops open message editor


• SUSHI XMLSocket
  
  
  • Is good for FlashLite2 multi-user stuff
  
  
  • Helps minimise data
  
  
  • Polling wastes a lot of data but is necessary in FlashLite 1 (but not FL2)


• General note - its good to put attachMovie linkage in a static property so you get an error thrown if you get it wrong


• Bandwidth is expensive
  
  
  • Do everything to reduce amount of data being passed about
  
  
  • Put config in the SWF to save data overhead in loading an extra file


• Future of FlashLite
  
  
  • Convergence - FlashLite extends desktop onto the mobile
  
  
  • Hardware is speeding up
  
  
  • Bandwidth costs are going down
  
  
  • Controls - are always going to be an issue (i.e. 1 button games will always be good on mobiles)