Because of a bug in Flash, you cannot place an object, such as a Roulette poker chip, directly below the mouse pointer. Unfortunately you cannot place anything on top of the mouse pointer as it’s always automatically placed above all layers on the timeline. For the mouse to work, all objects must be a fair distance away to accommodate for any movement between frames. For best performance it is recommended that the frame rate should be no higher than 12 fps. As the frame rate is so low, the mouse pointer has the potential to travel considerable distance in-between frames. For this reason I have been forced to offset the position of the betting chips. After researching online there seems to be no solution to this problem except by deliberately avoiding it by offsetting any objects which may otherwise overlap with mouse pointer.

I have truly enjoyed this process and feel that I have gained a considerable amount of experience, skill and knowledge throughout.  I believe I am now capable of not only being a designer but also a Flash ActionScript developer. I finish my degree this coming Friday and am confident that I will get employed by the start of next year.

In previous weeks, as a temporary fix, I simply had extended the length of the timeline so that after 20 seconds or so a message would appear quoting that the score had been saved. If this game was being saved over a slower broadband speed, the txt file would corrupt if a button in Flash was clicked as not enough time had been given. It is such as relief to have the saving functionality working as it should and making use of the more secure advantages of a database.

Unfortunately the Roulette game still has a few small bugs. One of these are caused by a missing ‘mouseEnable = false’ statement.  Such minor inconsistencies and logical errors within the code are very easy to fix. So far I’ve been busy working on other more crucial areas of the project, so I simply haven’t scheduled myself enough time to fix the very few rare and occasional errors that do exist. Almost all of the bugs mentioned in previous blog entries have been fixed so even now the game play is almost perfect and error free. The most frequent error simply skips the presentation of your score and proceeds with the next round with the Roulette wheel spinning. The error only lasts one round and game play continues as per normal with results properly presented at the end of each round.

Last week my teacher offered to help me again later this week to fix up some potential security flaws regarding to the connection and transfer of data between ActionScript 3 and PHP. Even with the introduction of just a password, the database should be fairly well protected from any possible threats such as attempts to corrupt, break or overload my database.

I still feel fairly relaxed with the current state of the major work. All minimum requirements are filled. All I’m doing now is just making small improvements and adjustments to the interface and code to further enhance the gaming experience. Earlier this week, following some great advice from my intern supervisor and another  employee from Massmedia Studios, I redesigned my business card and resume. Besides my presentation and internship report cards, I now only have the CD version of my portfolio website to complete for my entire degree!

By the end this week, my schedule requires me to have the major work at state ready to be handed in. Obviously I will continue to work on it as I have been regardless of whether or not all the in-scope requirements have been filled so to aim for as higher mark as possible. Even if I consider it completely finished, there are heaps of extra highly desirables in outside of the scope that I would love to implement. These include being able to specify how much you would like to bet rather than always having to bet the set amount of $100. Among many things I can improve graphics, navigational interface and revamp the PhotoShop design for the website.

Last week I included some html code into my game html page to disable the browser from storing cache. This was so that once the score had been saved into the txt file, it could be reread. After researching I found that Internet Explorer demands at least 64K of buffer and to do so will ignore the code I had written.  As a solution I simply copied the code I had written from the header section and copied it into a second header section just after the body tag. Google Chrome however requires a couple of extra lines of code. I was surprised, considering how recent Google Chrome was released, hadn’t followed the standards set by all other leading browsers.

I also managed to send variables to PHP from Flash. The ‘currentScore’ variable is sent via post to PHP and this variable replaces the value currently saved. Unfortunately this saving process takes quite a long time – approximately 20 seconds with high speed Internet broadband. The saving functionality works successfully! All that is needed now is to introduce the saving functionality for multiple saved games.

After trying to implement a basic PHP fan blog in ExpressionEngine I found that the PHP functionality was not working. It seems that the PHP document must be within a relative folder structure of the file, such as the txt file, you are accessing. Modifying the appropriate links to absolute links did not solve this problem. Instead of storing the blog page and the add_blog page as templates in ExpressionEngine, I simply created it amongst the rest of the site files. The PHP blog is now working.

As mentioned before I hadn’t properly organised the site content into weblogs and embed templates. This week I finished everything as mentioned and required in ExpressionEngine to make the website as efficient and editable from within the ExpressionEngine control panel as possible.  This included embedding common html content into embed templates, dividing up all content into editable weblogs and installing all required extensions and plug-ins such as LG TinyMCE (v.1.3.3) and File, by Mark Huot (v.3.1.1). These two extensions integrate a WYSIWYG editor and file upload capability respectfully. In addition I converted all static content into editable weblogs and created an administrator-only blog on the contacts page. Now there are two blogs – one public and one for myself as administrator where I can announce news which is placed under the contact details on the ‘Contact’ page.

For additional functionality I also added in a PHP web counter which displays how many times the ‘Game’ page has been loaded which has been placed just under the Roulette game swf file. Each time this counter is incremented, an email is sent to me quoting the name of the page and the web counter no.

From the end of last week I began working on the saving functionality of the game. For testing purposes I created a save game button which sends a simple request to savegame.php. This request overwrites the content of money.txt, which is where the saved game score is initially loaded from during game play. To my surprise the txt file was overwritten correctly without a new tab or window loading. I didn’t realise you could run a PHP script without having to load the PHP file visibly in a browser! This huge breakthrough has saved me so much extra coding and time as I had taken into consideration the possibility of having to navigate to the savegame.php page and then back again, displaying the menu and prompting the user to login once more. If this was the case I was going to write additional coding allowing the user to automatically login using either cookies or session variables.

Currently I am yet to learn how to send variables from ActionScript 3 to PHP as the content which is overwritten is not yet dynamic and depended by the local variables in the Flash game. There is also another issue concerning refreshing the reading of txt files. For Flash to read from the txt file, the cache and Internet temporary files need to be deleted. It is necessary to be able to read from the txt file more than once so you continue your saved game.

My aim for this week is to finish the saving functionality. Once this is finished, only the PHP blog is left as a requirement. I have already implemented this functionality before in my portfolio website so this should be no hassle at all.

During the first half of the week I had some trouble making variables globally available throughout the whole timeline. The ‘currentScore’ variable, which locally stores the current score, is created on the ‘Place Bets’ frame. After the roulette wheel has been spun and the results have been accessed, it is crucial this variable is accessible so any necessary alterations to the score can be made. I was even unable to return a variable via the trace function.

In ActionScript 2 this is easily fixed by adding the prefix “_global” to the name of the variable as you a defining it. In ActionScript 3 according to online resources, you must import packages and classes, storing them in individual .as files. Luckily I was prompted by a comment made in a forum to realise that I’d declared this variable within a function, automatically defining them as private functions. I had realised this before and unsuccessfully solved the problem because this variable is required to convert a string to a number therefore it had to be defined specifically as a number rather than a generic variable. This was a very simple mistake and was fixed by simply adding the number definition and moving this line of code above and outside the function. No classes and packages were required as this is, as I found out later, only necessary if multiple files are being using. Once this problem was fixed I made incredible advances in progress during the second half of the week.

Due to a bug in the coding, it was possible to place a betting chip down and pick it up again, but it was impossible to place back down on the same area. This was fixed by adding an event listener each time the function that handles this functionality was run. There were also another couple of lines of code that handled the functionality of the counters of automatically returning back to their initial position if the chips were incorrectly placed. There is also some other code that prevents the chips from automatically returning allowing the user to click again if the chip was wrongly positioned. Strangely this conflict did not initiate any warnings or errors so I had to debug the code myself.

I went on to create this fully working functionality for almost every position of the board according to the multiple official types of bets (i.e. Straight bet, Red or Black, Basket bet, Dozen bet, etc). The specific location where the chip is located is detected by a MOUSE_UP function and with the value of “this.event.currentTarget.name” is returned to a variable. Another bug allowed you to, after the results were shown, move the chip once more to the appropriate position, making it possible to win prize money each round. This was fixed by implementing a ‘mouseEnabled = false’ attribute until the final results are shown.

Once your score reaches 0, you are redirected to a “You lose” page. The spin button is replaced with a menu button which allows you to start a brand new game. A small amount of money is provided so you can place bets once more. You are now rewarded according to the ratio of chance according to the official rules of Roulette (e.g. assuming you bet $100 on an individual number, are rewarded with $3600 if you bet correctly as the theoretical chance ratio is 36:1).

I also had trouble with refreshing the dynamic text fields in Flash so that they display an updated version of the score. Before researching I was worried that I may not be able to refresh the displayed scores. Such considerations were a priority during the planning of the project as I had to design an effective shedule that allowed sufficent time to implement backup plans if the worst outcomes became reality. In relief, all that is required is to add “moneyI.text = currentScore;” on every frame after any changes to the ‘currentScore’ variable had been made.

Each time after each spin and reward of prize money, you are navigated back to the ‘Place bets’ frame. The Spin button remains unclickable until you place a chip on the board initiating your bet. The mouseEnabled function, as mentioned above, allowed me to do this.

I also made a significant improvement in navigational system. Instead of navigating back to “Place bets” frame, you can simply change bet on “Results” page before pressing the “Spin” button. This saves the user one click each round and also allows the user to spin again with the betting chip in its current position.

All of code has been written from scratch entirely by myself. I haven’t used any swf decrypting software or any method to copy or gain access to anyone else’s code. All reference material and code examples were either found from online forums, the Flash in-built help or ‘ActionScript 3 Bible’ PDF. As of yet I haven’t needed any technical assistance from a teacher and the entire game is basically finished except for the saving PHP functionality.

In reconsideration, although not compulsory, I realise that I haven’t embedded common components of each template page into their own templates within ExpressionEngine. This doesn’t affect my website’s appearance or functionality in any way but does organise the html code much better in the backend and increases loading efficiency as the browser does not have to reload common components unnecessarily. As the Roulette Flash game is priority I will focus my energy and time into implementing the betting functionality and saving/loading system.

According to my project plan timesheet, the game should be finished in two weeks at the end of week 8. This will be very difficult to complete within this time because each will be the most complex and difficult components to implement. I also have never done anything so complex with Flash before so it will definitely be a challenge. As mentioned last term I want to challenge myself to significantly increase my knowledge and experience. There is no point in setting myself an easy project that I will not learn or benefit from. I have no regrets in setting myself such a large and complex project. Although is hard work and at times stressful, I really do enjoy learning and furthering my skills within this great industry working on this project.

If I do not manage to complete the Flash game within this two week period, the project is will not be affected. This is because I have allowed myself a four week grace period before the project has to be handed in and completed. I have plenty of time to complete this project but the real challenge for me will be keeping on schedule. I will need to continue working harder, scheduling more time towards completing this game. It will be a great relief once all of the game’s functionality is working.

This week I haven’t had much of a chance to work on my major work. All I was able to do was make a start on the PHP blog. Now that the presentation is over and my internship report assessment is handed in, I can now get straight to work.

This week I sliced up my PhotoShop design (after tweaking the design a little) and integrated it into the ExpressionEngine template setup. After watching some JavaScript and Flash tutorial videos, I modified my rollover buttons to present a JavaScript fade effect using the ‘Behaviours’ window in Dreamweaver. I also learnt how you can load an swf with a transparent background . If my website wasn’t dependent on the fact the Roulette game is in Flash, these techniques could be used in a future project to allow extra compatibility with iPhone browsers as, in this instance, Flash is avoided for all crucial elements of the website. The header background image would still be visible however the Flash animation on the top would be missing. Because the background image is still there underneath, no white space would be left and there would be no evidence that anything is missing. As for the JavaScript buttons, the animation would be visible on almost all browsers including the iPhone. However if there were a problem such as if the files could not be read, the functionality would still work as if they were image rollovers. Only the animation would be missing. I accidentally tested this first hand when I had initially forgotten to link all Spry assets and JavaScript files. If these buttons were created in Flash and were incorrectly linked, only an empty white space would have been left. None of the functionality would have existed.

Once navigation was complete and some content html was edited, I altered the Roulette Flash game’s background image and embedded it into ExpressionEngine. After testing with multiple versions of the txt file during play of the Roulette game, I found that to refresh the value of the txt file, all that is needed is to navigate from one frame to another.  Although I tested this manually, I could set up an automated mini loop between an additional frame and the return to the ‘Place Bets’ frame. This can be done by using  a gotoAndPlay() function after the result of the Roulette spin is stored to a ‘saving’ frame which  plays a short animation then is navigated back via a gotoAndStop() to the ‘Place Bets’ frame. This approach discovered after researching and testing is a lot more simpler than what I anticipated it to be. I was planning to navigate to a seperate PHP page and then back again but then the user may have to log in again.

To view the ExpressionEngine website, visit www.joeldobbinsdesigns.com/cashout

This said, I have successfully uploaded the install files for ExpressionEngine in a new directory of my website. I created a new database file (which my web-host provider unfortunately limits me to 10) and used this information to successfully install ExpressionEngine. I deleted the demo website and created a new template group. All I need to do now is to cut up my PhotoShop file into div box sections and upload. I should have plenty of time to implement the website with basic functionality by the beta presentation in about 1 1/2 weeks. Once this is implemented, all I have to worry about is further developing the game and implementing the functionality of sending the money variable to PHP to write this to the external txt file.

After some further research I have discovered that when sending variables to PHP, the PHP page that recieves these and writes these to the txt file needs to open in the browser over the top of the previous tab or window where the game is played. This should also fix the problems of the swf refreshing and rereading from the txt file as it’s PHP page is closed and replaced with a seperate PHP page. In order to begin play, you must navigate back to the game playing PHP page where the swf will be opened once more displaying the updated scores.

Unfortunately I am forced to reinstall Vista on my personal PC, due to some unfixable problems including the inability to use wireless networking to connect to the Internet, which is crucial for use of ExpressionEngine. Luckily I’m ahead of schedule with my assessments and they aren’t due till 1 1/2 weeks so this problem shouldn’t impact my critical path of deliverables for this project in any way.

After some continued research I found out an easy to implement way to slow down the ball just before it stops. This is done by slowing the actual frame rate of the entire document, and then restoring it after it stops. This way the roulette wheel also slows down as well if it hasn’t already, this depending on the position of the random number on the wheel. After the testing was completed, I commented out several ‘trace()’ outputs, so to improve efficiency of gameplay as it doesn’t pass slightly when previewing.

After discussing the progress of the game with friends, I came across a problem. My plans were to have four saves that are saved on the server. This means that everyone on the Internet would have to share these four saves and each will find that their saved game had been restarted or continued. This means either the txt file is to be saved locally or I set up multiple saves on the server and perhaps a login and password to protect individual user’s saves. I could even save the user’s username as the name of the variable where the value of the money is stored.

Next week I will have to finish the aesthetics of the game so I can move towards creating the website PhotoShop design. This is so I’ll have more content to present during the beta presentation in week 6. I believe that only my unfinished Roulette game will be insufficient to present.

Regarding PHP’s requirement to write to external txt files, I conducted further research and realised that I need to use an internal to Flash variable to take care of the score. This is because Flash doesn’t read the values of txt fields at real time. In other words it reads the value once when the swf is opened. I only need PHP to write to the txt file if the user navigates to another html page or the user exits from the game altogether. There may be a way to manually refresh Flash and force the swf to reread from the txt file. Currently the score is read directly from the file but then a local variable controls the display on screen. Currently for testing purposes, Flash reads the value stored in the txt file and is returned to a local variable. One hundred is added and this amended value is correctly displayed. There are many methods I can use to overwrite this variable back to the txt file. Some methods include the use of PHP writing to an XML file rather than a txt file, PHP via the GET method, Flash Remoting or an XMLSocket server with Python or Ruby . However I will have to conduct further researching until I come to a decision and begin implementing.

I also created a text file called money.txt. Withing this text file there is a variable called currentMoney returning a value of, for testing purposes, 5000. Within the ActionScript 3 coding, I’ve set up a URL loader that can access the variable stored within that txt file. This value is printed to a dynamic text area so now, with the help of a static text field,  “Money $5000″ appears on the screen.

After researching I discovered that Flash can only read the variable of a txt file and cannot edit it. According to some tutorials I’ve just came across, the only way to edit it is to send the variable by the post method to a php file (which hopefully could simply just be the page that embeds this finished Flash game). Using php we can amend the txt file and replace the value with the value sent and/or send the variable back again to Flash. I’ve used php to write to files before so I shouldn’t have any troubles once the the variable is sent from Flash. Although I’ve successfully written to text files on my online portfolio for both the blog and the web counter, I’ve never tried to send variables to and from Flash. This means I cannot put an accurate time frame around this so I’ll have to work fast and hopefully I’ll be able to implement this by the end of next week.

I’m also struggling to find a suitable background picture for the game. Ideally I’m hoping to find a picture with green felt table with people crowded around. The camera angle must be looking down from the bird’s eye perspective. If worse comes to worse I can simply take my own photo of our pool table and then simply edit a crowd of people in.

In summary, I’m making a lot of progress but at the same time am realising that more and more is involved (ie. having to use php to write to txt files). I’m going to have to get the Flash game finished by week 6 if no other web development/design can be progressed on.