If you want to trace something in flash but you want to load the flash in a browser, you can rework your trace statements to display them with the Firebug extensions.

Instead of using trace() you can use the following:

var flash_variable = ‘testing 123′;
getURL(“javascript: console.log(‘”+ flash_variable +”‘)”,”_self”);

These statements will appear in the Firebug console inside Firefox. For more options, you can view the full capabilities of the console: www.getfirebug.com/console.html

You could create a new function that automatically traces to both sources, but make sure it is not switched on by default, or it could cause problems and expose data to maliscious users. AP

Just a quick shoutout to say thanks to a few gun actionscript coders out there who are generously sharing their top-notch work…

• Shane McCartney / www.flashdynamix.com and specifically this great post on GIS mapping interfaces in actionscript
• blog.pixelbreaker.com – Mac Mousewheel scrolling in AS2 and SWFObject add-on: Size limiting for full window flash (my favourite)
• Mario Klingemann / Quasimondo – the legendary flash bitmapexporter: compress and save images through flash / actionscript
• Abdul Qabix – despite all the confusion, it turns out you can access bitmap data (BitmapData.draw()) on a different domain in Actionscript 2, you just need to manually call System.security.loadPolicyFile(“http://otherdomain.com/crossdomain.xml”) and the domain hosting the image must have a crossdomain file. (Flash loads it automatically for data, but not for images).
• JSON for AS2… we also made an update to the Actionscript 2 JSON class to fix ordering bug of object properties
• More coming soon…

We just made a quick update to the Actionscript 2 JSON class to fix ordering bug of object properties…it’s a small change, but it might save you pulling your hair out at 3am… plus we threw in a fix for crashing out on null properties at no extra charge!

Download the JSON.as class (Actionscript 2)
Download an FLA example implementation (Flash 8, Actionscript 2)