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TypeError: Error #1034 Type Coercion failed: cannot convert com.events::CustomEvent@###### to com.events.CustomEvent.
at flash.events:EventDispatcher/dispatchEventFunction()
….blah,blah,blah,blah

This was an error I was getting and I couldn’t figure out what was causing it. Turns out its a simple fix. I was loading a swf that dispatches a CustomEvent. To get rid of this error I just needed to import the CustomEvent Class in the main class that is loading the other swf.

import com.events.CustomEvent;

Then somewhere in you main class, you add

CustomEvent;

Just launched a redesign of http://www.thearmyexperience.com/careers/. We were able to use much of the old code and turned the 3D helix into a 3D Wall instead. I worked on converting the 3D helix into the 3D wall and another designer/developer animated the wall.

I also worked on adding interactivity to the Watch Soldier Profiles section. The last 16 or so videos are interactive with 2 info windows per video. A button pops up at a certain time period during the video allowing the user to click on it to open an info window. This capability was also added into the Locate Global Bases which uses Google Earth (Fort Benning, Georgia and Fort Hood, Texas are the only 2 that have this currently. You can check it out by clicking on the Lifestyle button after clicking on the base).

InsideRIA started a new series of articles covering Facebook Application Development using the new Facebook ActionScript 3 library. They always produce great articles and I’m sure this will be a great series with 20 articles to come!

InsideRIA: Facebook Application Development with AS3

Obviously Facebook is popping up everywhere and I’m sure a lot of companies will be looking to integrate it with flash. Pieter Michels has started a great effort in bridging Facebook Connect and Flash using Actionscript 3. He provides a simple example using Flex and AS3.

Pieter Michels post on Facebook Connect to Actionscript 3
Pieter Michels Code Library at github as FBFlashBridge

Example of Facebook Connect with Flash at http://connect.redbullusa.com/

http://developers.facebook.com/
Facebook Connect Wiki
Facebook Developer Forum

UPDATE 3/30/09: I just noticed this post while looking through Facebook documentation. Looks like Adobe and Facebook are officially working together to support Flash and Facebook.

ActionScript 3.0 Client Library for Facebook Platform - revamped open source version by Jason Crist
Adobe Developer Connection for Facebook - materials and samples

Forgot to mention there was an recent update to the Career Navigator for the Army Experience Center. I worked on making the Papervision 3D helix loop around and adding in the job titles on the planes and various other bug fixes and improvements.

Text in Papervision 3D - Clearing Things Up - This post by Andy Zupko helped with making the text a bit clearer on the planes (basically you need to use a larger textfield and change some settings) - check out his post and demo if your text is unclear on planes.

I remember this previous problem with a ComboBox not showing up properly when a swf is loaded into a parent swf and the problem came up again as I was updating a project to AS3.

Main reason for problem (according to yarcub):
“The component uses system fonts and masks only work on embedded fonts.
Finally the FP10 new text engine will fix a lot of those issues.”

Here’s more info on the problem and possible solutions:
http://www.gotoandlearnforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=19118

Just found out about this AS3 AIR/Flex/Flash Debugger called De MonsterDebugger from Tiago’s Weblog. I’ll definitely have to try it out for my next project. Editing properties during runtime will definitely come in handy when trying to satisfy the positioning of elements for designers.

De MonsterDebugger

I had this problem in Flash, which entailed disabling some dynamic buttons that had mouseover,mouseout and click events when they were moved under a certain area. This was easily solved by creating an invisible button and setting the property useHandCursor = false. So if you want to disable anything that moves under some area, you can just create a button and set its useHandCursor = false and anything below it will not work. I’m pretty sure I came across this problem before because it seems so familiar. Hopefully this post will help me remember how to solve it and others if they come across this problem as well