If you develop Flash on a Mac, then you probably already know the pitfalls of mouse-scrolling within your Flash projects on a Mac - it simply does not work.  The great thing about stuff not working is there is always someone out there looking to create a fix for it.

Gabriel created an AS3 solution to the mousewheel functionality on Mac OS X.  SWFMacMouseWheel integrates well with deconcept's SWFObject and integrating this within your existing and future projects is rather painless.  Enjoy!

Additional Resources:

• Download the source code
• Preview a demo
• Mac OS X Mousewheel Support in AS2

Mike Chambers reports that the beloved open source Growl notification framework will be able to be leveraged by Adobe AIR applications.  If you are unfamiliar with Growl, Growl is a notification system for Mac OS X that allows applications that support Growl to send you notifications.

What is As3Growl?

As3Growl is the project behind this integration and provides an API for working with the new Growl functionality.  The project is hosted at Google code and already contains the complete API source, API docs, examples, documentation, unit tests and other information.

This is an exciting project and will only improve the user's experience within Adobe AIR applications.  Thanks to Mike Chambers and all involved.

Additional Resources:

• Visit As3Growl's project page
• Learn more about Growl
• Download As3Growl

Preview this Apple Style Preloader

Steven sacks just posted custom class that creates an Apple style preloader.  It's a simple class that uses the Flash Drawing API which makes it light and efficient. Check it out below.

package net.stevensacks.preloaders
{
package net.stevensacks.preloaders
{
        import flash.events.TimerEvent;
        import flash.display.Sprite;
        import flash.display.Shape;
        import flash.utils.Timer;
 
        public class CircleSlicePreloader extends Sprite
        {
                private var timer:Timer = new Timer(65);
                private static const SLICE_COUNT:int = 12;
                private static const RADIUS:int = 6;
 
                public function CircleSlicePreloader()
                {
                        super();
                        draw();
                        timer.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, onTimer, false, 0, true);
                        timer.start();
                }
                private function onTimer(event:TimerEvent):void
                {
                        rotation = (rotation + (360 / SLICE_COUNT)) % 360;
                }
                private function draw():void
                {
                        var i:int = SLICE_COUNT;
                        var degrees:int = 360 / SLICE_COUNT;
                        while (i--)
                        {
                                var slice:Shape = getSlice();
                                slice.alpha = Math.max(0.2, 1 - (0.1 * i));
                                var radianAngle:Number = (degrees * i) * Math.PI / 180;
                                slice.rotation = -degrees * i;
                                slice.x = Math.sin(radianAngle) * RADIUS;
                                slice.y = Math.cos(radianAngle) * RADIUS;
                                addChild(slice);
                        }
                }
                private function getSlice():Shape
                {
                        var slice:Shape = new Shape();
                        slice.graphics.beginFill(0x666666);
                        slice.graphics.drawRoundRect(-1, 0, 2, 6, 12, 12);
                        slice.graphics.endFill();
                        return slice;
                }
        }
}

Additional Resources:

• Preview preloader
• Download Custom Class
• Steven Sack's Blog

What is InteractivePNG?

InteractivePNG is a very handy little utility class that allows you to disable the hit area of a PNG if the pixels are transparent.

Currently, when you save out a PNG that has transparency, rolling over the transparent part of the PNG will still register as roll over because Flash still reads it as part of the image. However, with this class, that is no longer the case.

This may seem to be an easy trick or is it? Check out this class for yourself!

Other Resources Available:

Demo of InteractivePNG
Product Source
Documentation

Recreate your favorite playing card game with this slick ActionScript 3.0 playing card engine called AS3cards. The AS3cards project provides a skinnable ActionScript 3.0 card engine for creating playing card games, with an example implementation of Klondike Solitaire. Everything needed can be found at Google Code.

Source: Google Code
Creator: Darron Schall
Demo: Klondike