So… for two years or so folks have been asking me for better documentation regarding the limits of Flash Player. Yesterday felt like the day to get this done.
So I updated one existing technote and finished two previously drafted versions to cover as many of these bases as possible.
Most importantly for customers, I’ve added a non-support statement (in an eye catching RED) Obviously we can make exceptions on a case-by-case basis, but this new documentation should help you know what we’re going to assist with and what you’ll need to re-think. We get some hard limits coded into the Flash Player (especially around bitmap and stage size) and we have to live within those.
Here are the technotes:
- How big can a Flash Movie be? (updated older technote)
(I’m still waiting for feedback from the authoring team, so there may be further updates to this one) - Understanding Flash Player 10 SWF and bitmap size limits
(this is the most important one. We do get cases about this stuff) - Image problems after compositing more than 24 items [Flash Player]
I’ve published a new technote for folks who are having trouble with the Adobe Download Manager and Flash Player.
Error installing Flash Player “The download did not pass the integrity check (16236.304.443)
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/512/cpsid_51258.html
Essentially this technote links to the Windows troubleshooting technote here:
http://www.adobe.com/go/tn_19166
However, before today the Windows troubleshooting technote only had an EXE install for the ActiveX version of Flash Player 10. I have now added a link to download the EXE version of the Flash Player Plugin installer as well.
Please point other users with integrity check errors to the first technote.
So perhaps the initial release of Flash CS4 Pro wasn’t quite perfect. Well, we realized that and just put several months into making amends.
The update is here:
http://www.adobe.com/support/flash/downloads.html
For details, read this technote:
http://go.adobe.com/kb/ts_kb407415_en-us
And Richard Galvan’s blog:
http://blogs.adobe.com/rgalvan/2009/05/flash_cs4_update_now_available.html
These are really focused on beginners to AS3.. Good value for a few minutes of video:
New ActionScript 1:1 channel on Adobe TV (videos featuring Doug Winnie – 4 now, more on the way):
http://tv.adobe.com/#pg+15914
New “Flash video tutorials” page in Using Flash documentation :
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Flash/10.0_UsingFlash/WS4E57B5C7-AEE9-4f6b-803E-986B9174F9E0.html
Flash Downunder (videos by Paul Burnett, linked in my last post):
http://tv.adobe.com/#pg+1552
I was just in a meeting in which one of our evangelists noted that a lot of the Flash CS4 users he talks to just hate the new UI, and are missing the fact that it’s highly customizable.
To that end, AdobeTV has a few videos on this topic that can help:
“Learning Flash Pro CS4 : Setting up the Workspace” [http://tv.adobe.com/#vi+f1590v1825]
Here’s the root of the Flash section, good stuff here (much courtesy of Lynda.com):
So about two weeks ago my thinkpad quit working. Blue screen on boot in all safe boot scenarios. Working remote is a pain in these situations, though to their credit Adobe does have dedicated IT Helpdesk resources who focus on remote employees.. but of course with physical hardware issues you have to fedex back and forth and do a lot of communicating.. but in the end I have nothing but kudos for Kev Chao!
So the hard drive goes off to Ottawa. And when Kev gets it it appears to be spinning. But it also has no data. Ack. $@#$^%
So I’ve lost all my installations. Fortunately my docs and escalation and site files are backed up via Connected. But still, to get a dead PC back up to corporate work speed takes a week. And this is the FOURTH time in the last four or five years that I’ve had problems with thinkpad hardware. Though maybe it’s my fault, because I don’t have a big strong UPS power supply?
So, while the thinkpad was out I had to get back to work. But my mac just wasn’t quite ready for that. So that took a bit of effort, mostly to set up VMWare Fusion with the right images and apps to do what we do at Adobe.
And now, after over two weeks of doing all my windows work on a virtualized VMWare image of XP, I don’t think I’m going to go back. I get to be a ‘Mac Guy’ again after all these years, and I’m really loving it. And the virtualization of Windows is almost 100% awesome. I’ve had a few crashes, but for the most part everything runs, everything in Fusion (v2 I think) connects well to my Mac hardware-wise. It’s great. And it’s FASTER in many cases than running actual windows on the thinkpad!
Oh, and if I need to test vista I can suspsend the XP image and boot the Vista image in under 3 minutes. Much, much quicker than I could get my PC running.
The only pain is keeping those huge virtualized images around, but once you download a few you can keep them on your local NAS drive for faster copying. But they take up a lot of disk space.
I saw a headline that enterprise virtulization usage increased dramatically in 2008. And I can see why.
I put the better part of a day into a case this week in which the customer was surprised by what is arguably the biggest security change in Flash Player 10, UIA. What’s that? “User-Initiated Action”.
In this case, the customer had previously been chaining together multiple calls to URLLoader to pass a binary-encoded multi-part/form data file to their server. They’d send one file, catch the COMPLETE event for that URLLoader’s load, then fire another URLLoader from that COMPLETE event’s function.
Well, that’s a no go in Flash Player 10. But, despite everyone’s first impression (yell ‘bug!’) it is absolutely NOT a bug.
This is a deliberate change made primarily in response to security threats, but also to improve the way that Flash Player content works with each browser’s built-in pop-up blocking. This change is generally referred to as UIA, User-Invoked Actions.
The best resource for understanding this change is this recent DevNet article:
“User-initiated action requirements in Flash Player 10”
And in Trevor’s McCauley’s (aka Senocular) article on Devnet, “Understanding Security Changes in Flash Player 10“.
AND in this technote: http://www.adobe.com/go/kb405546
I have heard several customers say “well that change was a surprise!” But in fact, Trevor’s article about those changes has been online since the first day of the Flash Player 10 beta. The information was definitely made available, and we wish that everyone would have tested during the beta cycle so they could make their changes pre-release. But people (including me) don’t think that way.
One of the goals of UIA changes was to insure that a user had interacted with an app (to prevent malicious use of filereference..)
So when running the client’s test files in a debug FP10 player you’d get a clear violation (in the debug output and in Read the rest of this entry »
Several reports from forums (and one from a friend) of Wimpy player and other wimpy products failing for end users of Flash Player 10. I’m trying to get a contact inside Wimpy to discuss further.
Sitting directly under the pub photo of my hero Rhett Miller… on the far end of the same wall holding the photo of the Beat Farmers, and that only a few feet from the photo of the Old 97’s and Wilco… you know you’re sitting in a hallowed hall of american, alt-country… a home for things that don’t belong. You won’t find Disturbed playing at Shank Hall (although Blue Oyster Cult played there, and hundreds of other acts you just wouldn’t expect.. It’s not just a venue, it’s a legend! Read up: http://www.shankhall.com/faq.htm
Generally, Sunday night shows suck. Well, at least once you’re out of college and have to think about kids and employers. But Bob has a way of making you forget what day it is, what time it is, forget pretty much everything except how damned fun Bob is to watch.
Opening act Ami Miriello put in a short but solid set of acoustic chick singer-songerwriterness in support of her first album “I Came Around”. Interesting voice.. that genre isn’t really my thing (Bob is a rare exception to my general dislike of the solo singer-songwriter).. but she’s got guts just opening for a Bob crowd, many of whom were just arriving. Opening acts get no respect, and that’s always been a point of contention for me. If you love music then at least get there in time to hear the opener. The usually do -not- suck, and they’re working super hard for what little attention they can get. So give them some attention while you nurse your third PBR. And applaud and give them some noise!
And Bob’s show.. well, Bob’s show can be hard to describe. A little rock, a little funk, a little singer-songwriter, a little vaudeville, a little theater. It’s everything. Highly recommended (but keep in mind that Bob isn’t for the kids!)
One other item of note..
1. Do NOT stand in front of my table for 10 minutes during the start of the show. Especially if you’re wearing a sweater-vest. Who wears those? Folks who got there early to get a table so they can SIT down do not appreciate you rolling up with a beer in each hand and standing directly in front of us! I will then have to ask you to sit down, nicely. Once. But I will only ask once. At least I had a ninja at my back, just in case.
At least let us see a couple of songs before rushing the stage!
Crappy iPhone no-flash pics.. I still love the phone, but man the camera sucks..
Connect team has a new technote, and it’s important.. Certain connect hosts/admins will need to run a patch to get connect to work with Flash Player 10:
See “Cannot enter a Connect meeting room with Flash Player 10 installed (Connect 6 SP3 and later)” for details.
