Type 1 Fonts, Windows 7 and Photoshop

Today my computer was upgraded to Windows 7, and well, now my Type 1 (postscript) fonts don't want to work inside of Photoshop CS3. I know the format is ancient and is slowly going the way of the dodo, and even though I have OpenType and TrueType versions of Helvetica, none organize as nicely as my Type 1 fonts do. In Photoshop, all versions of my Type 1 Helvetica show up in the secondary dropdown, not as separate entries in the full font list, as happens with OpenType and TrueType (for me at least). Plus, some of us have had these fonts for years and don't feel like buying another set.

After much Googling, I discovered that Adobe products will recognize them if you place them in this directory:

c:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\Fonts

If this directory doesn't exist, try creating it. The workaround kinda sucks, but for me it's worth it.

FREEBIES: Think Design

http://thinkdesignblog.com/category/freebies

Patterns, vectors, fonts, textures and more.

FREEBIE Links: Media Militia

http://mediamilitia.com/category/freebies/

Tons of Photoshop actions, brushes, vectors, etc. etc.

Praat: Exporting soundwaves as EPS

http://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/

Okay, so I don't know exactly what this program is for. All I know is that you can import an audio file, and export it's soundwave as EPS. How badass is that?

Ascii to Flash ActionScript Key Codes

http://people.uncw.edu/tompkinsj/112/flashactionscript/keycodes.htm
This is more of a bookmark for myself, but if anyone needs to know the complete set of keycodes for keypresses in Flash, check out the above link.

Usage:
keyListener = new Object();
keyListener.onKeyDown = function() {
if (Key.isDown(49)) {
trace("CTRL is pressed");
}
Key.addListener(keyListener);

Javascript Scroll to Top

I was building a website for a client, all self contained into one Flash file. A good friend pointed out to me that with every link in the footer, while it changed the site as expected, the site stayed in one place. Meaning the content changed, but there was no jump to the top of the page like you'd expect from a normal HTML page. A lot of these sites I build are landing pages for AMOE, meaning I'm basically doing in Flash what is normally done in HTML/Javascript. The main difference is that I don't do Javascript, so building these in Flash and giving an HTML experience (sounds funny, I know) is my goal. Doing this in Flash cuts down on my development time greatly. Annnnnnnnnnd tangent.

The point of this post is, you can scroll to the top of the browser window directly through a Flash call. And that ActionScript is?

import flash.external.ExternalInterface;
ExternalInterface.call("self.scrollTo(0,0)");

That's it. No need to reference a Javascript script in your HTML page. You can also use getURL with the same value, but I found that if you need to run any other scripts at the same time, they may clash. Javascript can only run one at a time if running through the address bar. I found this out while trying to use SWFAddress with getURL. One had to give.

Global clearInterval

i = setInterval(function(){},100) + 1
while(i--){
clearInterval(i)
}

See that above? Run that at any time during your Flash to completely clear out any intervals you have running. If you're like me, sometimes you have 2-3 running at a time, and switching between frames and inadvertantly resetting your intervals renders some crazy results. When you call this, don't forget about your intervals that are running onMotionComplete. Make sure you stop your tweens at the same time, or they'll keep running and reset your interval. Damnit if that last piece of advice didn't waste an hour of my time!

I'll let Ted explain how it works:
http://ted.onflash.org/2004/11/fun-with-intervals.php