http://www.epiphanus.net/rarebookroom/

The Rare Book Room is a collection of my drawings, paintings and sketches from the past 8 or so years of notebooks.  Enjoy, and let me know what you think!  Perhaps I’ll get a chance to update it with my more recent books

Flash code—for this example you’ll need the AS3CoreLib JPGEncoder class:

_video = new Video(640, 480);
_camera = Camera.getCamera();
_camera.setMode(640, 480, 30);
_video.attachCamera(_camera);
addChild(_video);

_jpegEncoder = new JPGEncoder(60);

_urlReq = new URLRequest();
_urlReq.url = "http://localhost:8080/addImage";
_urlReq.method = URLRequestMethod.POST;

_urlLoader = new URLLoader();

_snapShot = new BitmapData(_camera.width, _camera.height);
_snapShot.draw(_video);
_snapShotImage = new Bitmap(_snapShot);
var jpgStream:ByteArray = _jpegEncoder.encode(_snapShot);
_urlReq.data = jpgStream;

try {
	_urlLoader.load(_urlReq);
} catch (e:Error) {
	trace("Remote.request caught error: "+e);
}

And the Python (using web.py):

import web

urls = (
  '/addImage', 'addImage'
)

app = web.application(urls, globals())

class addImage:
    def POST(self):
        data = web.data()
        f = open("test.jpg", 'wb')
        f.write(data)

if __name__ == "__main__": app.run()

That’s it!

1. Download the Flash Debug Player from Adobe (you want the “Plugin content debugger”).
2.  

   cd /Library/Application\ Support/Macromedia

3.  

   echo ErrorReportingEnable=1 > mm.cfg && echo TraceOutputFileEnable=1 >> mm.cfg

4.  

   tail -f ~/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash\ Player/Logs/flashlog.txt

Bam.  The funny part is, you’ll get trace messages from any and all Flash apps that run on your computer, so you get to see how terribly executed many Flash web apps are.  All the paths for various operating systems are listed here.

After about 4 hours of repeated head-to-wall collisions, I finally managed to get mod_python running with Apache 2.2.14 on my Snow Leopard machine.  Here’s what I had to do:

1. Use the MacPorts Apache instead of MAMP.  I absolutely could not get this to work for MAMP, which might be because MAMP uses version 2.062 of Apache.  All the following instructions are for MacPorts installs.  Once you install MacPorts, you can install Apache by doing

   sudo port install apache

2. Now you need mod_python, which is a module for Apache that allows the HTTP server to use the python interpreter “inside” the server.  With MacPorts, just do

   sudo port install mod_python

   If for some reason this doesn’t work, I’ve packaged it up along with the mod_python python package described next.  Put it in

   /opt/local/apache2/modules

3. Make sure you have the mod_python Python package (yeah, it’s got the exact same name as the Apache module but is a completely different thing).  Get into your Python interpreter and try

   import mod_python

   If it works, rejoice.  If not, I’ve included mine in a zip because I could not for the life of me figure out where to get it from, but I had it in one of my other Python installs. It goes here:

   /Library/Python/2.6/site-packages

4. Edit your httpd.conf file by adding the following:

   LoadModule python_module modules/mod_python.so
   
   SetHandler mod_python
   PythonHandler mod_python.publisher
   PythonDebug On

   This first tells Apache to load the module, which is a shared object file (.so).  Technical note for the curious: A shared object is a binary that contains compiled functions that can be directly addressed in memory, so you can call functions in it given a header file.  It’s similar to a Windows .dll.

   Anyway, the rest tells Apache to use mod_python’s VERY handy “publisher” function, described here.  This is a REALLY fast and easy way to start writing Python programs for the web.  Follow the examples there and you should be good to go!  Enjoy!

Using Pd’s internal messaging system and an accompanying python script, PureéData allows anyone with a browser to modify a public, shared patch running on a server and listen to the results live over an OGG audio stream.

The project is currently in development and is freely available on GitHub.  PureéData is in part adapted from code by Jeraman.

• SVN: Subclipse
• Minimize the package explorer and outline and use two panes for source files (see image)
• Generate ASDoc HTML using External Tool
• Use “Set as Default Application” on main source file so that you can use the run keyboard shortcut while focused on any file.
• Use the Flash Debug Player to get traces in Flash Builder
• I’m still searching for the best way to launch your swf in the Flash Debug Player instead of the browser.
• Enjoy!

• Turn off or delete all unused or irrelevant layers.
• Merge all adjustment layers or masks into regular layers.  Masked layers or groups cannot be used!
• Layer effects are OK!  However, if you turn one off and don’t plan on using it at all, make sure you remove the effect by dragging it onto the trash icon in the Layers palette.
• Vector graphics are always preferred!  If you are using Illustrator to design any assets, please provide the Illustrator file too, as Flash cannot import Smart Vector Objects.
• Vector graphics are especially preferred for layers intended to be animated.  Imported bitmaps will often look shoddy and low-resolution when moving around and rotating.
• If an Illustrator file can’t be provided, rasterize any Smart Vector Objects or other non-standard layers.
• Keep groups and layers orderly and named accurately whenever possible

var requestVars:URLVariables = new URLVariables();
var myObject:Object = {prop1:"someValue"};
requestVars = myObject; // Throws type mismatch error

So you need to iterate through the properties of the source object and assign them to the target. You can do this with AS3′s array-like property access syntax:

for (var prop in myObject) requestVars[prop] = myObject[prop];
trace(requestVars.prop1); // prints "someValue"

Easy! Now sometimes you might need to do something similar with an XML file, say, a configuration file with a bunch of properties that you want to automatically assign to a local object:

var configXML:XML =
<configXML>
  <paths>
    <host>www.something.com/</host>
    <list>list</list>
    <recent>recent/</recent>
    <liked>liked/</liked>
  </paths>
</configXML>;

var paths:Object = new Object();

for each (var val in configXML.paths.*) paths[val.name()] = val;

trace(paths.host); // prints "www.something.com/"

You now have a plain Object instance with all the properties of the XML tree. Bing!