der hess http://blog.derhess.de am medialen werkeln Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:17:53 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Collaboration Tools for your projects http://blog.derhess.de/2010/03/09/collaboration-tools-for-your-projects/ http://blog.derhess.de/2010/03/09/collaboration-tools-for-your-projects/#comments Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:30:40 +0000 admin http://blog.derhess.de/?p=1259 In the last months I worked with people from abroad or with big physical distances. The first time I thought, yeah that is not a problem. Everybody has got an internet connection and that is all what we need. In my old company the Liip AG - who I worked for - their whole project management and file management systems were almost accessible over an internet connection. For this reason I could work from everywhere I want. I thought, that would not change in my future time, because the internet has solutions for everything. Yeah, I have to say that is true. But it was not easy to find the right tools and services for exchanging ideas, files, time schedules and other stuff for free. My projects are not so big that it makes sense to implement this infrastructures by my own. I found some free or at least some cheap services which you can use for working together with friends or other small projects.

Idea Development and Sharing

Creating and developing ideas with people, who are not physical available, is not very easy. Maintaining and extending are also two not very minor problems. In the last time I found a very good workflow for me and my friends. We do a telephone conference via skype and in the same time we use the service Mindmeister (Online Mindmapping Tool) and the tool Balsamiq MockUp. At the moment our solution works good and it is totally free with some limitations. A more professional solution for idea development and exchange may be the Service ProtoShare. Unfortunately, there is no real free pricing model available, therefore I never tested this service.

Planning and Schedules Services

Sometimes you and your project members have to make choices or just finding the best time for an appointment. The services Doodle and WhenIsGood solve this problem very easily. I like the service doodle very much, because you can use it without any registration and you can make different kind of choices (timebased or any other).

Project Management Services

To arrange meetings is not everything. In most and even in small projects you have a rough imagination of a time schedule. This time schedule should be accessible for every project member in technical and visual form. Additional to this time schedule every project has got some documentation papers and project member information. All this information should be managed by a project management tool. A couple of project managment services are available on the internet. I am using huddle at the moment and I am quite satisfied with it. It has one free pricing model and the features are good enough for small projects. The project management services Basecamp and activeCollab are looking more professional and delivers some useful extensions (e.g. a Mobile Client Software). Unfortunately, there is no free pricing model available, only a fix testing period.

Coding and design file Hosting

In my case, we did many visual coding projects. For this reason we are using Version Management for Coding and even a Version Managment for Adobe Photoshop files. Richard Davey wrote a small blog post about it. I think the very well known free services are Google Code, GitHub and SourceForge.net. Using the SVN service Beanstalk in relation with the PixelNovel (Adobe Photoshop Version Management service) is a very powerful and simple tool, I guess...

(Short) temporal data storage

Sometimes you have to exchange some data files. That could be a file transfer from your university computer to your home computer or sending huge files to other friends (or project members). For private purposes, the service Dropbox seems to be nice. For data, which should be only available for a short time and the data is not top secret for other people, I recommend to use the common upload file services (thx Hugo and Anca for the links):

The End

I hope you liked my short list of collaboration tools and services. If anything missing for you, check these two articles Work Together: 60+ Collaborative Tools for Groups and 10 Free SVN & Project Hosting Services or check my links for collaboration and project management. And of course, feel free to add a comment. :-)


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]]> http://blog.derhess.de/2010/03/09/collaboration-tools-for-your-projects/feed/ 0 My most important Twitter Messages #5 http://blog.derhess.de/2010/03/04/my-most-important-twitter-messages-5/ http://blog.derhess.de/2010/03/04/my-most-important-twitter-messages-5/#comments Thu, 04 Mar 2010 09:15:37 +0000 admin http://blog.derhess.de/?p=1235
  • My most important Twitter Messages #4
  • My most important Twitter Messages #3
  • Meine wichtigsten Twitter Messages #2
    • ]]>

    Twitter von der hess
    A small summary of my Twitter messages from Januar - February 2010:

    Allgemein (General)

    Generative Art:

    Info Design and Visualization

    UX and Interaction Design:

    Projekte und Experimente (Projects and experiments)

    Neue Technologie (new Technologies)

    Programmierung und Software Design (Programming)

    Game Developing:

    Flash and Flex

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    1. My most important Twitter Messages #4
    2. My most important Twitter Messages #3
    3. Meine wichtigsten Twitter Messages #2

    ]]>     http://blog.derhess.de/2010/03/04/my-most-important-twitter-messages-5/feed/ 0     Mein Fazit zum Medienfestival Transmediale in Berlin http://blog.derhess.de/2010/02/20/mein-fazit-zum-medienfestival-transmediale-in-berlin/ http://blog.derhess.de/2010/02/20/mein-fazit-zum-medienfestival-transmediale-in-berlin/#comments Sat, 20 Feb 2010 19:02:33 +0000 admin http://blog.derhess.de/?p=1224
  • Mein Fazit zu Flash Lite
  • Mein tägliches Blogging Brot
    • ]]>     Transmedial Medienfestival Berlin 2010

    Vom 2. bis zum 7. Februar fand das Medienfestival Transmediale in Berlin statt.  Das Festival stand ganz unter dem Motto "Futurity Now", sprich was ist und wie gestalten wir unsere Zukunft. Gemäß aller Vorträge und Diskussionsrunden soll dabei das Internet und die kreative Klasse die wichtigsten Rollen für unsere Zukunft übernehmen. Vom meinem subjektiven Gefühl her stammten die meisten Besucher auch aus dieser sogenannten kreativen Klasse. An sich eine gute Sache, nur wandelte sich genau dieses Publikum in einigen Diskussionsrunden zu einer wahren Selbstbeweihräucherung, wie toll und kreativ und innovativ man doch sei. Besonders negativ ist mir die Diskussion am Ende  zum Thema  Creativity as an Economic Resource aufgefallen. Nun gut davon wollte ich mich mir freilich nicht die Stimmung vermiesen lassen und besuchte die Transmediale Ausstellung. Viele Kunstwerke gab es zwar nicht zu sehen, aber das war für mich schon O.K., denn das A Parallel Image, die Paparazzi Bots und der Artvertiser haben mich ziemlich überzeugt und waren sicherlich auch einer der Highlights der Austellung.

    Die restlichen Tage habe ich eigentlich dann nur noch verbracht irgendwelche Vorträge anzuhören. Leider waren diese vom Niveau her sehr unterschiedlich. Teilweise sehr gut und unterhaltsam (siehe Bruce Sterling und Richard Barbrook), aber es gab auch Vorträge, wo einfach nur ein Text vorgelesen wurde. Im nach hinein habe ich erfahren, dass sowas normal sei bei philosophischen Vorträgen. Nun gut, nur zu dumm wenn die Stimme sehr monoton wird und immer schneller... Naja bei diesen Vorträgen war meine Aufmerksamkeit nach mind. 10min total hinüber. So ging es mir ziemlich häufig bei den Vorträgen. Ich hatte es bisher noch nie, das sich die Themen so gut anhören, aber die Vorträge so träge und langweilig sind. Also an dieser Stelle weiß ich wirklich nicht was sich die Veranstalter gedacht haben. Man sollte sich schon überlegen wen mann vorne ans Mikro stellt... Hin und wieder gab es auch ein paar Filmscreenings, wo es das ein oder andere gute Videokunstwerk zusehen gab. Leider wurden auch manche Filme einfach ohne weitere Vorstellung und Nachbesprechung gezeigt, wie z.B. das Video über einen Kriegseinsatz mit sehr schlechten Ton und spanischen Untertiteln und am Ende hieß es: "Ja das Video haben wie gefunden und fanden es interessant, deswegen haben wir es heute hier gezeigt"  Das wirkte dann manchmal wie ne lieblose Zusammenstellung und ehrlich keine Ahnung was sich dabei der Kurator gedacht hat...

    Fazit: Eins, zwei Tage nach der Transmediale hat sich dann meine Meinung zum Festival ein wenig gesetzt. Leider muss ich sagen, dass mir von den Vorträgen nicht mehr viel im Gedächtnis war, eigentlich habe ich fast keinen einzigen Punkt für mich mitnehmen können. Aus dieser Sicht war die Transmediale eine fast große Enttäuschung für mich, da doch die Infrastruktur und der Veranstaltungsort schon ziemlich super war. Auch das Thema und die Überschriften der Programmpläne war viel versprechend. Aus meiner persönlichen Sicht wurde das Meiste nur sehr oberflächlich angerissen... Vielleicht lag es auch an den überwiegend fashion-victim orientierten Besuchern, die einfach n bissl was von dem Künstler Flair abhaben möchten. Ganz nach dem Prinzip: Ich kauf mir n Mac also hab ich Geschmack. Ich geh auf ein Medienfestival, also bin ich kreativ and cool!

    So wie es aussieht bin ich auch nicht ganz alleine mit meinem enttäuschten Bild über das Festival, siehe dradio.de Fazit.

    Sehr schade alles, aber zum Glück gabs auch noch Parallelveranstaltung zur Transmediale, wie z.B. vom betahaus und deren Workshop und Vortragsreihe zum Thema How are Social Media changing Design? Danke an dieser Stelle noch an Daniela für die Führung durchs betahaus und fürs Bier ;-)

    Am Ende gibt kann ich nur den Rat geben: Wer knapp bei Kasse ist und einen Austausch in Sachen Medienkunst möchte, dem sei das Ars Electronica Festival in Linz empfohlen (auch wenn das Hinkommen nicht so leicht ist).

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    ]]>     http://blog.derhess.de/2010/02/20/mein-fazit-zum-medienfestival-transmediale-in-berlin/feed/ 0     SENSEWARE – How to Create the Experience’s Architecture http://blog.derhess.de/2010/02/09/senseware-how-to-create-the-experiences-architecture/ http://blog.derhess.de/2010/02/09/senseware-how-to-create-the-experiences-architecture/#comments Tue, 09 Feb 2010 14:19:14 +0000 admin http://blog.derhess.de/?p=1202 Interface Culture

    During my master studies at the Interface Culture department of the University in Linz I visited the great lecture SENSEWARE - How to Create the Experience's Architecture by Hide Ogawa. In this lecture we learnt and discussed how we can integrate and reproduce emotions + experiences in our technical-based environment. Furthermore, we discussed the roles of the different interactive design  disciplines - e.g. Product Designer, Industrial Designer, Interaction Designer, Visual Designer, Experience Designer etc. - and how they work together in the domain of SenseWare products.

    For a better understanding how SenseWare is implemented in each culture, we had got the task to give a 5min overview of SenseWare in our country. In my presentation I mentioned mainly the religion background of SenseWare in Germany. Nowadays I think delivering experiences in Germany is mostly driven by media institutions. See my slides here:

    Senseware in the Germany Culture

    The second assignment of this lecture includes a presentation of current SenseWare examples. For me it was obvious to mention the great SenseWare work of Stefan Ulrich (Funktionide and Liquid Wall) and the well-known digital handshake experience Poken. The other students presented also very astonishing projects: Corpora in Si(gh)te, Sakura, Wishlist, Lady K Bag, Magic Wand, Juice Skin, Ambient Umbrella, Big Shadow and so on...

    Sense Ware Examples from Germany and Switzerland

    The final assignment of this lecture was creating a concept of an own development SenseWare. During this design process we should consider the japanese concept of Mitate! Mitate is in my opinion a very interesting concept, which could have a big influence in the design process of technical devices in our future.

    Anyway, my SenseWare concept tried to map the virtual abstract data and behaviour of social network profiles in real living objects. That sounds first very abstract and theoretical but I think my presentation slides shows my points very clear. So please have a critical look and I am looking forward about some feedback :-)

    Virtual Charisma Garden - A SenseWare Project

    At the end of the Hide Ogawa's lecture I was very happy about the new inspiration and approaches from a Japanese perspective. Even the fact that our group was very international oriented (ca. 15 people from ca. 12 different countries - Bulgaria, Australia, Germany, Austria, Spain, Greece, Iran, Turkey, Slovenia etc.) deliverd a huge inspiration for my mind. If you would like to add some more information of the topic of experience design and SenseWare, please feel free to leave a comment. Thx!


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    ]]>     http://blog.derhess.de/2010/02/09/senseware-how-to-create-the-experiences-architecture/feed/ 0     My most important Twitter Messages #4 http://blog.derhess.de/2010/01/05/my-most-important-twitter-messages-4/ http://blog.derhess.de/2010/01/05/my-most-important-twitter-messages-4/#comments Tue, 05 Jan 2010 14:03:16 +0000 admin http://blog.derhess.de/?p=1188
  • My most important Twitter Messages #5
  • My most important Twitter Messages #3
  • Meine wichtigsten Twitter Messages #2
    • ]]>

    Twitter von der hess
    A small summary of my Twitter messages from November - December 2009:

    Allgemein (General)

    Generative Art:

    UX and Interaction Design:

    Projekte und Experimente (Projects and experiments)

    Neue Technologie (new Technologies)

    Programmierung und Software Design (Programming)

    Game Developing:

    Flash and Flex


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    1. My most important Twitter Messages #5
    2. My most important Twitter Messages #3
    3. Meine wichtigsten Twitter Messages #2

    ]]>     http://blog.derhess.de/2010/01/05/my-most-important-twitter-messages-4/feed/ 0     My papers about Interactive Art http://blog.derhess.de/2009/12/28/my-papers-about-interactive-art/ http://blog.derhess.de/2009/12/28/my-papers-about-interactive-art/#comments Mon, 28 Dec 2009 15:14:58 +0000 admin http://blog.derhess.de/?p=1160
  • AS3: Interactive Webcam Package 1.2
  • My most important Twitter Messages #5
  • AS2: Interactive Webcam Package
    • ]]>     Interface Culture

    During the first semester of my study Interface Culture at the University of Art in Linz I had to write some papers about interactive art. My first papers dealt with the history of interactive art and continued with some different art movements in this domain. In some cases I am more or less satisfied with my papers. Anyway, I think every 2page long paper contains some interesting points for Interaction Designer, Web Designer, Web Developer, Web Artists, Computer Scientists etc.. That is the reason why I want to share my written work with you.

    Please consider that all my papers here were an assignment for the master classes of Interactive Art by Christa Sommerer. My papers don't meet the requirements of a scientific work despite the fact that the format seems to be scientific. All my texts represent partly more my own thoughts on the different art topics, so please interpret my papers as a short essay or summary. My thoughts are mainly based on the first and second references, which are mentioned at the end of each paper. I highly recommend to read these references, because they are a very good collection for delivering an introduction in the domain of interactive art. Thanks Christa for this great collection of references and the introduction!

    Paper: Report about the interactive art exhibition feedback

    Christiane Paul wrote an essay about the evolution of feedback and interactive art related to the feedback exhibition. This paper summarizes the most important aspects of Christiane Paul’s article.

    Paper: The Passage from Material to Interface

    This article describes the transformation from material to interfaces in the artwork based on the text “The Passage from Material to Interface” from Louise Poissant. Louise Poissant wrote about the quality characteristics of material and the transformation of material to an Interface. In relation to this transformation we discuss the tree constituting poles of art. A further issue is the influences of language pragmatics for art movements. Furthermore the text explains the requirements which an artwork must meet to be an interface. Another argument in the text is the function set of interfaces. Based on these definitions we explore the tasks for new media artist for our future life.

    Machine Art and their influences for the entertainment industry

    This article explores the autonomous evolution in painting to machine art. Photography has influenced this evolution as one of the first machine-based art tools, which are able to create a picture. In this context the text dealt with the role of the artist in machine-based art. The examples of the Video Synthesizer and the Software Art project Sketchmaker shows up this relationship between the artwork, the machine and the artist. After that we explores the influences, which some artworks had for the entertainment industry. Sometimes these connections and influences are more or less obvious.

    Paper: Interaction, Participation and Networking Art

    This paper is a summary of the essay “Interaction, Participation, Networking Art and telecommunication” from Inke Arns. We explore how the spectator is involved into the artwork and how the participation of art changed in the last 50-60 years. Furthermore, this paper point out the evolution of art and which role participation plays in the art context.

    Paper: Interaction between Perception and Memory - Art and Technology in Japan

    This paper is a summary of the text "Interaction between Perception and Memory - Art and Technology in Japan in the 1990ies" from Yukiko Shikata. This text will mention a short overview of the evolution of media art and interactive art in 1990s in Europe and how this influenced the beginning of interactive art in Japan in the early 1990s. Furthermore we describe the progress of interactive art in Japan, and which the most meaningful artworks are in the realm of interactive art of the Japanese Culture. Which influences the big disasters of the Japanese economics, the great earthquake and the terrorist attack in Tokyo had on the interactive artworks.

    Paper: Telepresence: Automata, Illusion, and Rejecting the Body

    Telepresence unites three themes of our intellectual history: a) Automation and the search for artificial intelligence. b) Illusion in art. c) Rejection of the body in concepts of spiritual or mentalist concepts. In this relation we will explore the notion of artificial life for the point a), the aesthetics of virtual realities for point b), and precursors of  telecommunications for point c). Furthermore we will discuss how these three points evolved nowadays. In this context I will mention some robotics developments, cinema 4d installations and some new wearable technologies, which belongs to the domain of telepresence.


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    2. My most important Twitter Messages #5
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    ]]>     http://blog.derhess.de/2009/12/28/my-papers-about-interactive-art/feed/ 1     Flash Indie Developer Part 3: Short list of risks http://blog.derhess.de/2009/11/17/flash-indie-developer-part-3-short-list-of-risks/ http://blog.derhess.de/2009/11/17/flash-indie-developer-part-3-short-list-of-risks/#comments Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:00:00 +0000 admin http://blog.derhess.de/?p=1124
  • Flash Indie Developer Part 2: Requirements and Idealism
  • Flash Indie Developer Part 1: Check your talents and skills!
  • Independent (Flash) Developer: Is it possible?!
    • ]]>     The last blog post Flash Indie Developer Part 2 dealt with idealism and requirements. In this blog post we will discuss the most dangerous risks for your daily life.

    Gefahren-Mind Map (Flash) Interaction Developer

    Risks-Mind Map (Flash) Interaction Developer

    A smaller or a bigger problem could be diseases. If you get sick you might not be able to work for short or longer periode. You have to pay some bills for the treatment and your income will normally decrease. You can reduce this risk with a health insurance. In Europe it is quite normal or it is even obligatory to have a health insurance. I think health insurances are the most important insurance you should have! For other important insurance please check some web-portals about "how I should start my own company" or something similiar.

    OFF TOPIC: Everytime take care if the goverment would support your new business!!!

    Furthermore,  a creative trough can become also a serious problem. You as an (Flash) Independent Developer have normally a great creativity and this is one of your strong USPs compared to a normal Flash Developer employee. But what should you do if you run in a creative trough?!

    1. Keep cool! It is normal to have lack of creativity for a moment
    2. Relax! Do other things which don't have a strong connection to your work
    3. Try and use some creative methods (Brainstorming, Roleplaying or Six Thinking Hats)
    4. If you are still in a creative trough -> Keep cool!
    5. Find other opportunities which generates a new income, for instance: doing lectures!
    6. During the process of preparing a new income possibility, talk with many people.
    7. I am sure your creativity will come back after a while!

    For me it is totally normal to have high creative periods and very low creative periods It helps me a lot to write down all my ideas in a book, and everytime I have a creative trough I can look in my book of ideas and get some new inspiration. That is the reason, why I highly recommend to manage your ideas. In this way you will be able to use perfectly your high and low creative periods.

    The last and in my opinion a very often underestimated issue is the  topic of inefficient working. Nobody or no person put a real pressure on you, and because of this situation we can easily appropriate  inefficient working routines. Especially, for doing a research in a special topic, we can easily lost in the huge space of the web. Another point is the managing your daily life. For instance, you have to go shopping (buy some food or something else), after this you do a sleep, because shopping was so exhausting ;-) . After the sleep you are little bit tired and you decided to watch a movie or a episode of nice TV-serie. Finally, after all these nice chill activities you realize, that almost nothing is done and the day is also almost gone... That is one example, the pyramide of digital distraction describes very clearly one of our other biggest risk of inefficient working. I don't say that you should not use social communities or chat systems (skype, twitter), but please define a outline for you! For instance, you spend the first hour of the morning for reading blogs and answering / writing e-mails. Then you started programming or working on complicated tasks. After that you will go to lunch. After lunch you start checking your e-mails for 30-60 minutes ones more and after that you go ahead with your complicated or less complicated tasks... Porter wrote a nice blog post about being your own boss and the problems with the motivation. Please feel free to read it!

    Thanks and congratulation, who stayed until this end of the blog post. The next blog posts discuss the really interesting topics of an (Flash) Independent Developer life. Therfore, the next article will discuss our product portfolio and what is possible with each product. The blog articles after this article describes the topic  "how you can use these products for generating  your income" in a more detail. So stay tuned!


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    1. Flash Indie Developer Part 2: Requirements and Idealism
    2. Flash Indie Developer Part 1: Check your talents and skills!
    3. Independent (Flash) Developer: Is it possible?!

    ]]>     http://blog.derhess.de/2009/11/17/flash-indie-developer-part-3-short-list-of-risks/feed/ 2     My most important Twitter Messages #3 http://blog.derhess.de/2009/11/06/my-most-important-twitter-messages-3/ http://blog.derhess.de/2009/11/06/my-most-important-twitter-messages-3/#comments Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:03:47 +0000 admin http://blog.derhess.de/?p=1144
  • My most important Twitter Messages #4
  • My most important Twitter Messages #5
  • Meine wichtigsten Twitter Messages #2
    • ]]>

    Twitter von der hess
    A small summary of my Twitter messages from September - October 2009:

    Allgemein (General)

    UX and Interaction Design:

    Projekte und Experimente (Projects and experiments)

    Neue Technologie (new Technologies)

    Programmierung und Software Design (Programming)

    Game Developing:

    • Great news. The unity Game Engine is now free for Indie Game Developer
    • Do you need sounds for your (Flash) Game? Then check this cool app Thx to 8bitRocket.com

    Flash and Flex

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    1. My most important Twitter Messages #4
    2. My most important Twitter Messages #5
    3. Meine wichtigsten Twitter Messages #2

    ]]>     http://blog.derhess.de/2009/11/06/my-most-important-twitter-messages-3/feed/ 0     Flash Indie Developer Part 2: Requirements and Idealism http://blog.derhess.de/2009/11/03/flash-indie-developer-part-2-requirements-and-idealism/ http://blog.derhess.de/2009/11/03/flash-indie-developer-part-2-requirements-and-idealism/#comments Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:23:04 +0000 admin http://blog.derhess.de/?p=1114
  • Flash Indie Developer Part 3: Short list of risks
  • Flash Indie Developer Part 1: Check your talents and skills!
  • Flash Indie Developer Part 3: Gefahren
    • ]]>     After the first blog post of the blog (Flash) Independent Developer was a little bigger, this article will be smaller and I will discuss the requirements for an (Flash) Independent Developer. These requirements are not very Flash oriented, they deal more with the idealism attitude of the new way and what do you have to consider in the beginning phase.

    When you decide to work as an Independent Developer, you will risk a lot. And this high degree of risk is, of course, strongly connected with a high degree of  uncertainness in your working life. You should be able to handle this risky life, otherwise you should not choose the way as an (Flash) Independent Developer.

    Mindmap - Requirements (Flash) Independent Developer

    Mindmap - Requirements (Flash) Independent Developer

    Another very strong point , if you can become an (Flash) Independent Developer is, which degree of responsibility do you have?!  Do you have a family?! Do you have a loan?! Which kind of obligation do you have towards other people?! All these responsibilities could be some obstacles, but it is dealable. All the things you have to do, prepare you for this independent life and consider that your income and your spare time will be very very low in the next one or two years. So you should spare some money for this time and prepare your friends and family for this way. So that at the end of your preparation time all people in your familiar surroundings know what is going on in your life and expection not to much from you in your business start time.

    Last point and in my mind the most strongest point is the degree of idealism. Do you really want to do it? Yeah, it sounds very cool to be an Independent Developer, but it is a hard life (and of course one of the interesting life forms in our digital age). You must have a very high degree of idealism and love the things you do, so that you survive the pressure of learning new things all the time and work a lot. Maybe your usual standard of living will decrease, a car can become a luxury good or other consum goods like a big Flat-Screen can as well as become a luxury good. I think the lifestyle of an (Flash) Independent Developer has lot of similarties with the german movement of digitial bohemianism (German Homepage).

    I think or I hope the opening stages is the hardest time and when you pass this period, your life should become more stable. In general, I think you should have a few years (working) experiences before you start such a big project. If you are studying at the moment, try to get some experience and prepare your for this way. The years of study are very good, because you have an amount of spare time, you meet a lot of people (for doing networking) and you are familiar with a low standard of living. In this period of life it is easier for you to make sacrifices. ;-)

    The next blog post will deal with the risks of an (Flash) Indepentend Developer life. We will discuss which risks exist and how we can manage these risks :-)

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    2. Flash Indie Developer Part 1: Check your talents and skills!
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    ]]>     http://blog.derhess.de/2009/11/03/flash-indie-developer-part-2-requirements-and-idealism/feed/ 0     The new YouTube AS3 Chromeless API in Flex, Air, Flash http://blog.derhess.de/2009/10/27/the-new-youtube-as3-chromeless-api-in-flex-air-flash/ http://blog.derhess.de/2009/10/27/the-new-youtube-as3-chromeless-api-in-flex-air-flash/#comments Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:23:27 +0000 admin http://blog.derhess.de/?p=1098
  • Vimeo Moogaloop in Flex – FlexVimeoPlayer Component
  • Working with Vimeo Moogaloop API in Flash
  • Die Gretchenfrage: Wann Flash und wann Flex?
    • ]]>     I was very pleased that YouTube released a ActionScript 3 API for their Chromeless Player. I looked at some availabe code snippets on different blogs and unfortunateley, I had to realize that the API is not really object-oriented and a little bit annoying to work with (because of the missing code completion).

    My current project - an independent Web Video Player - is still using the old workaround YouTube API Tubeloc and I have to change this. That is the reason why I created a Flex Component for the new YouTube AS3 API. If you would like to use my code for your Flex or Air projects, please feel free to use it and if you will find some bugs, please leave a comment!

    Now I will start with some explanations of my code. I create 4 classes, which manage the whole YouTube Chromeless API. The class YouTubeAs3 contains all the most important functions and is based on the Flex Framework(!). The classes AirYouTube and FlexYouTube extends the YouTubeAs3 class. Both classes are Flex Framework based classes. I had to divide the YouTubeAs3 class into these 2 classes, because the Adobe Air environment don't support the command Security.allowDomain() and it is cleaner to use this command for a web-based projects. So therefore please use the FlexYouTube component for web-based projects and the AirYouTube component for your Air projects. The fourth class FlashYouTube is an only Flash plattform based class, that should be very handy to use for non-Flex projects.

    The other classes just simplify the coder's life. So I created some static classes for the various video quality parameters (YouTubeVideoQuality Class), the various PlayerStates (YouTubePlayingState), the YouTube errors (YouTubeError) and of course the available YouTube events (YouTubeEvent).

    I wrote an example application for you, which should be very easy to understand. In this very small Flex application you can stop, play and pause the YouTube videos:

    //----------------------------------
//  YouTube Player Control
//----------------------------------
private function handlePlay(event:MouseEvent):void
{
	youTubePlayer.playVideo();
	this.addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME,handlePlayingTime);
}
 
private function handlePause(event:MouseEvent):void
{
	youTubePlayer.pauseVideo();
	this.removeEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME,handlePlayingTime);
}
 
private function handleStop(event:MouseEvent):void
{
	youTubePlayer.stopVideo();
	this.removeEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME,handlePlayingTime);
}
 
// frame-based Intervall for showing loading and playing process
private function handlePlayingTime(e:Event):void
{
	labelTime.text = youTubePlayer.getCurrentTime() + " / " + youTubePlayer.getDuration();
 
	progresPlayingVideo.minimum = 0;
	progresPlayingVideo.maximum = youTubePlayer.getDuration();
	progresPlayingVideo.setProgress(youTubePlayer.getCurrentTime(),youTubePlayer.getDuration());
 
	progressLoadVideo.minimum = 0;
	progressLoadVideo.maximum = youTubePlayer.getVideoBytesTotal();
        progressLoadVideo.setProgress(youTubePlayer.getVideoBytesLoaded(), youTubePlayer.getVideoBytesTotal());
}

    Some behaviours of this Flex-based YouTube component is adjusted for the Flex Framework. If you would like to change the size of the YouTube Player, you can use the witdh and height properties of the component. Furthermore there exists some other properties:

    [Bindable] public var volume:int;  // Value between 0 and 100
[Bindable] public var playerState:Number; // Read-only!!!!
[Bindable] public var playbackQuality:String; // Use the static variables of the YouTubeVideoQuality class

    Handling and managing of the YouTubeEvents are the last thing I would like to explain. I support the same 4 events, which the YouTube API supports. The only difference is that I wrapped the data of the events in a special YouTube Event for an simpler event handling and code completion.

    [Event(name="youtubeStatus", type="de.derhess.video.youtube.YouTubeEvent")]
[Event(name="youtubePlayerLoaded", type="de.derhess.video.youtube.YouTubeEvent")]
[Event(name="youtubeError", type="de.derhess.video.youtube.YouTubeEvent")]
[Event(name="youtubeVideoQuality", type="de.derhess.video.youtube.YouTubeEvent")]

    So here I is my code of my app. I think it is very self-explanatory...

     /* Here should be some code but wordpress always crashed
because of parsing problems... Please download the code
and look at line number 23-112 in the src folder the file
flex_youTube.mxml */

    The rest of the functions contains exactly the same functionality as the YouTube API. If something ambiguous, please look at the YouTube API documentation or leave a comment. THX!

    Download the Flex YouTube components and source code


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    Related posts:

    1. Vimeo Moogaloop in Flex – FlexVimeoPlayer Component
    2. Working with Vimeo Moogaloop API in Flash
    3. Die Gretchenfrage: Wann Flash und wann Flex?

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