Removing the dotted border on active links in FireFox...

I was involved in a discussion earlier today about the dotted boxes / borders that appear around links in FireFox once clicked. The initial question was how to remove them which simply involves adding a line of code to your CSS similar to this one:

a:focus {outline: none}

However - the topic soon turned to why they were there and should we be removing them. The argument was that they provide accessibilty for user that need it and should not be tampered with. In my eyes removing them is no worse that setting the size of text to a small font - it shouldn't be done but many, many sites do it regardless. Designers should be mindful of usability of their sites as well as the look. 

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Online Lipsum generator...

Just remembered this - a site allowing you to generate random Lipsum (Latin) for use when laying out where text is going to go.

www.lipsum.com

Scroll down a little and look to the right to see the generation tool. 

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Adobe Kuler complimentary colour swatch creation tool...

This is a little online tool by Adobe that I've recently sarted using. Its pretty useful for picking out sets of complimentary colours and generating swatches:

kuler.adobe.com

You can also see sets created by other designers.

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MSDC Flash site goes live...

After an enjoyable few weeks of Flash coding the MSDC Flash website I have been working on has gone live.

MSDC Flash Website

MSDC had a strong idea about the design of the site which left me free to concentrate on making it work nicely. I am pleased with the motion and little features such as the step by step loading of the images in the Work section and the zooming on the map in the Contact section.

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dirOpener for Director 8.5 - for opening locked dxr files...

My crazy-haired friend, Jen, asked me if I knew a way to open locked DXR files for Director. Before I could tell her my usual method - to write a script to open the DXR at runtime and then copy all the cast members into an external Cast (CST) file - she had sent me a follow-up email saying she had found an old exe she used to use. I remembered it myself once she had mentioned it though I must admit I have never used it.

Its called dirOpener and apparenty it can open DXR files. I have uploaded the three versions I can find (for versions of Director 7.02, 8.0 and 8.5) in case anyone finds them useful. However - I can't seem to find versions for the newer versions of Director. Possibly the 8.5 version works as not much was changed in the more recent builds though if it doesn't I can probably cobble together one that does for anyone that needs it. Let me know...

Jim out!

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Apple MacBook battery not detected when running Windows Vista under Bootcamp...

I have been running Windows Vista on my Apple MacBook for a while now. Installing it with Bootcamp was a breeze. Well done Apple - Microsoft could learn a lot from you in terms of making things simple and user-friendly. 

Oddly Vista works better on my Mac than it does on my newer Dell that was 'built for Vista'. (I could rant about my Dell all day but I'll spare you the rage - this time at least.) The only problem I've been having with Vista on the MacBook is that occasionally Vista stops detecting the battery. The 'phantom' battery still works as I can power the MacBook using just the battery but the taskbar icon in Vista tells me its not there. Not very useful if you are out and about and need to see how much battery you have remaining...

To start with I thought the problem was intermittent and I could remedy it by removing and putting back the battery... This is not actually the case. Once it happens it stays happened... until you reboot in Mac OS! Once you've run Mac OS and reboot into Windows Vista again the battery is back!

So in short - to fix the problem - boot the Mac OS then next time you boot Windows the battery detection works again.

Sorted! Now I just needs to figure out what makes the battery 'disapear' in the first place!

J

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Keep It Up (bouncing ball physics) Lingo behaviour code...

I thought I would post the original code from the Keep It Up game from my last post. As the game evolved I added a lot more stuff such as scaling the shadow, disorting the ball when it was kicked and including 'trick kicks' (which was a bit of a nightmare). This is the basic code as version 1. Feel free to use it and add your own twist if you wish. Simply start a new Director project, drag a ball sprite onto the Stage and position a shadow sprite one channel below it in the Score. Add a simple 'go to the frame' behaviour to the Frame and attached the ball behaviour below to the ball sprite. Done!

-- jim's bouncing ball behaviour

property my, shad
property grav, accelH, accelV

on beginsprite me

   my = sprite(me.spritenum) -- sets a variable 'my' to easily refer to this sprite

   grav = 1 -- the gravity, change this to change the physics of the game

   accelH = 0 -- the acceleration in x direction
  
accelV = 0 -- the acceleration in y direction

   shad = sprite(my.spritenum - 1) -- sets 'shad' to the sprite i use as a shadow

   my.locv = 150 -- initial position of the ball. use (sprite(1).bottom - 20 - my.height/2) to place it on the bottom of the screen
  
shad.loch = my.loch -- sets the x position of the shadow to the same as the ball

end

on exitFrame me

   accelV = accelV + grav -- affects gravity on the y acceleration
   accelH = accelH * 0.96 -- dampens the x acceleration

   my.locv = my.locv + accelV -- affects y acceleration on the balls y position
   my.loch = my.loch + accelH -- affects x acceleration on the balls y position

   shad.loch = my.loch -- positions the shadow to the same x location as the ball (you may like to also change the size of the shadow)

   -- tells the ball what to do when it hits the left side of the screen
   if my.loch < (sprite(1).left + 3 + my.width/2) then
      my.
loch = (sprite(1).left + 3 + my.width/2)
      accelH = accelH * -
0.9
   end if

   -- tells the ball what to do when it hits the right side of the screen
   if my.loch > (sprite(1).right - 3 - my.width/2) then
      my.loch = (sprite(1).right - 3 - my.width/2)
      accelH = accelH * -
0.9
  
end if

   -- tells the ball what to do when it hits the top of the screen. you can add this back in if you want the ball to bounce off the top
  
--if my.locv < (sprite(1).top + 3 + my.height/2) then
     
-- my.locv = (sprite(1).top + 3 + my.height/2)
      -- accelV = accelV * -0.8
  
--end if

-- tells the ball what to do when it hits the bottom of the screen
  
if my.locv > (sprite(1).bottom - 20 - my.height/2) then
     
my.locv = (sprite(1).bottom - 20 - my.height/2)
      accelV = accelV * -
0.6
  
end if

   my.rotation = my.rotation + accelH -- rotates the ball based on the x acceleration

end

on mousedown me

   -- works out the x and y accelerations when the user clicks on the ball
  
-- the further from the centre of the ball the harder the kick
  
h = (the mouseh - my.loch) * -1
   v = (
the mousev - my.locv) * -1

   accelV = v
   accelH = h

end

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Keep It Up Shockwave game...

I thought I'd post this...

Its a game I developed a few years ago in Director. The code that controls the ball is very simple and it took less than an hour to put the basic game together. The styling and 'trick kicks' took a little longer but it was still a relatively short dev (for me). I'll post the code at some point in case anyone wants to improve on the physics or game engine.

J

PS: Just remembered - try holding SHIFT when you click on the ball to start... ;o)

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Information Shockwave thingy...

Mr Lee Ford sent me this. A very nice Shockwave showcase... Reminds me of my old experimental days.

I wonder if it has been coded by hand to take the average colour of all the pixels in the used imagery then map these to the pixels of the bigger images on the fly. Its all very clever and smoothly working stuff. Once the images have loaded in its great to keep clicking and seeing the next image glide in.

Top work :o)

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