I just need to be pointed in the right direction - I can research after knowing the best tools.
The idea is to have a list of audio tracks (guitars, bass, vocals...etc) which are uploaded by different users. I want a user to be able to select which tracks to listen back to then dynamically generate a new stream/file of the selected tracks which is played back or downloaded.
I have no idea where to start (use php to select tracks send to flash for playback?, or do I send it to a command line function? write some java?). It is essentially a very basic social web based DAW (digital audio workstation).
Thanks
Al
On the server side you can use php or java to feed the basic audio files, and to manage them (admin).
On the client side, you may have to write a flash application for playing those files. I preety sure flash knows basic mixing.
Basic playback in flash is easy to do. You need to learn some ActionScript 3.0 (there are tutorials with action script 2.x, but they are deprecated, as AS 2.x is not compatible with AS 3.x), and you need some designer skills to create the interface.
This tutorial may work, there are a lot of resources out there
http://www.thetechlabs.com/3d/create-a-as3-mp3-player-with-papervision3d-spectrum-display/
Related
I'm developing a website in flash for a company and it's going well so far. The website allows people to create custom railings. The owner of the company wants me to save out the demo picture that's shown in flash (movie clip) as an image (pref PNG) so that I can include it in the validation email. Does anyone know how to do this please? I need to save a movie clip symbol on the web server. Thanks in advance!
You need a couple of components to work in order to make this happen. AS3 doesn't execute on the server side (has no access to the servers hard disk) so you'll have to use some other language on the server to receive the file. I would personally recommend PHP as it's great for this kind of simple task and there are lots of tutorials out on the web for handling uploaded files using PHP.
On the AS3 side of things you can use BitmapData.draw method to draw you Sprites or whatever other IBitmapDrawable objects to a BitmapData. Then using PNG encoder (can use the built in or search around there's some other implementations out there) to encode the BitmapData into a PNG. Last step send the encoded PNG to the server and have it save the file somewhere the script has write permissions.
For some references here's some code I wrote:
Basically a save button in my app is clicked and the instance of the class below is shown, this then has the methods for saving. After getting the flattened image it makes a call using a third party PNGEncoder I found called PNGEncoder2
https://github.com/wafflejock/FingerPainting/blob/master/FlashBuilderProject/FingerPainting/src/com/shaunhusain/fingerPainting/view/optionPanels/SaveOptions.as
Below I have a separate class that manages all of the "layers" which are just sprites really for my drawing app. The "LayerManager" below has the method that uses BitmapData.draw to "flatten" all the layers into a single Bitmap/raster drawing.
https://github.com/wafflejock/FingerPainting/blob/master/FlashBuilderProject/FingerPainting/src/com/shaunhusain/fingerPainting/view/managers/LayerManager.as
Are there any scripts that I can buy to display pdf, ppt, doc attachments on my site - inline, so users don't need to download them to view it.
I run a knowledgebase which contains various documents uploaded by users - so trying to find a way to make it easier for them to view the files before download.
Google document viewer may work - but the terms of service does not allow us to build a preview application like slideshare. Anything else anyone has used to do something like this?
Does your site run on wordpress ?
If yes,you can use the google doc embedder plugin.
I don't think there is presently any straightforward way to display, say, a .ppt in a browser; other than of course, converting it so as to be suitable for a flash player, or html5 player, as is SlideShare's case. I might however, be wrong on this.
SlideShare has a whole lot of document conversion architecture built on Amazon EC2 for the same. [Refer to this post on the SlideShare Engineering Blog].
Alternatively, there is Zoho Viewer - which is going to close down by the end of 2012. There was also PdfMeNot, but I don't think it exists anymore
I would like to know how to create a media player that will load songs from a specific folder and shuffles the songs and plays them. I have basic knowledge in HTML.
Perhaps you're looking for an application that plays music such as:
PHP Music JukeBox
netjukebox
They are both coded in PHP. There is also one for WordPress.
You could accomplish this more easily by using client side scripting, i.e. Javascript + Flash. For the actual audio player, I strongly recommend SoundManager 2, it has a great Javascript interface and good documentation.
Using this model, you use Javascript to choose a song to play, and pass its path to SoundManager, which will load it from the server and play it.
For a client, i need to write a complex application used to stream tv episodes in flash format, at least, the player will be in flash.
It's a first for me, and i've a lot of question, since i don't really know about streaming.
But well, first, here is the constraints :
Mac server (might be migrated to linux)
PHP5
Flash
external library could be used with PHP
What i need to do at first, is to write some app (php, python, shell), or find one to convert over 500 quicktime videos to be able to be read within a flash player.
Then, i'll a back office, to add videos with meta data (the meta data will be simple html inputs), and, here is an important part of the project, the ability to generate chapters for each video (manually), the client will choose the start of a chapter, give it a name.
My questions :
Is there any flash player able to do that ? or will i have to use 'playlist' such as youtube to simulate chapters ?
Will it be easy to use the quicktime video within a flash player ?
What would be your advices for such application ?
Thanks
You're probably going to want to install and run ffmpeg to convert quicktime movs to flv or f4v. You may be able to add cue points (chapters) by using something like FLVtool.
I was trying to upload a photo on facebook using a browser with no flash, and could see that it didn't work.
I am pretty confident in handling files and related issues using Php and have done some sites allowing users to upload and manage files (images, docs etc). But I never thought about the above flash approach. I googled a bit and saw that there are few scripts available on which I can look how it works using flash.
But my questions are, when I should decide to use flash for user uploads. What are the advantages of using this approach? or disadvantages?
Thanks
It isn't a choice between Flash and PHP. You need something on the client to send the data and something on the server to receive it.
Ask yourself the following question:
Does Flash offer anything useful for my project?
The obvious things it lets you do are having a nice UI for selecting multiple files at once, and a simple method for seeing the progress of uploads.
If you decide that it does offer features, then implement it using progressive enhancement. Flickr is an example of this — with Flash you get the fancy uploader, without it you still get a series of regular file inputs. They aren't as nice to use, but they are functional and what would have been used if Flash wasn't an option in the first place
Depends on your audience: If you are pretty sure that your users have flash installed, there is nothing against it. It even gives some neat advantages, like:
Upload of multiple files at once
Progress bar while uploading
Instant preview of uploaded media
etc.
Well, with flash, the obvious letdown is that it will only work when a user has flash (although, you could display something in its place if they didn't). If your a flash programmer and comfortable with flash, I can see how it would be better. You could generate a file list, multiple uploads ect. I would say it's just an alternative to JavaScript for providing interactivity and allowing users to upload content dynamically.
when I should decide to use flash for
user uploads.
use it when the whole website is flash, but that is not professional and you can't count a lot on flash security, while you can write/use a lot of classes for hardening and checking files uploaded by php scripts..
on the other hand, some people like flash upload for progress bars, but you can do such stuff with php and jquery. for example check uplodify
Correction
I don't have flash support on my current browser so when watching uploadify demos I only see the fallback, thanks to soulmerge for making this clear