Old (in internet years I guess) but great article on error handling in AS3.
If I visit playerversion.com in my HTC Desire Z’s Froyo browser it tells me I’m running “FL 10,1,123,425″, but when I navigate to Settings > Applications > Manage Applications > All > Adobe Flash Player 10.1 it tells me it’s version “10.1.92.10″.
I’m still relatively new to Android so this isn’t making immediate sense to me; either playerversion.com‘s JS need adjusting or there are two versions of the Flash player on my Android device. Or something else?!?
Edit: Adobe’s own version test page mirrors playerversion.com‘s findings. cisnky suggested trying a pure Flash-based version detection method, which’ll be my next move.
Edit 2: This Flash-based test mirrors the above; that the minor version I’m running is “123″.
This posting on Lifehacker is very useful if Android’s tendancy towards bouncing you over to mobile versions of sites is annoying you. However, I noticed you can also play around with the Flash plug-in settings using this method too; switching between Flash 10 and Flash Lite (on Froyo anyway).
Adobe Flash received a very welcome shot in the arm recently when Google announced that it was to package Flash with its Chrome browser. Mozilla however have since announced that they have no plans to follow suit.
Flash usually runs comparatively poorly in Firefox, so it’s a shame it’s not receiving any love to improve its performance.
Flashbug; debug Flash content within Firefox via Firebug.
Mozilla have also revealed they’re adding safeguards against Flash crashes in future versions of their browser (much like Chrome offer).
I’ve begun doing some work involving the PlayStation 3 web browser. I thought for ages that it used NetFront as it’s browser manufacturer, but it turns out it’s supposedly proprietary and kinda based on Internet Explorer 4 (thanks @jaffathecake for that). I messed around with the Sony PSP browser years ago and found it to be very sluggish and lied sometimes when you tried to test for certain features.
Anyway, I took a mini adventure across the web to see how a number of popular websites would fair in the PS3 browser and was disappointed to discover that the browser crashed. More than once. Three times in fact, and it wasn’t just a browser crash; the whole PS3 needed restarting on each occasion. I visited such sites as Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, Flickr and when given the option always went for the non-latest JS-Lite versions whenever presented.
I applaud Sony for updating certain elements associated with browsing so far (such as updating Flash support to version 9), but it’s frustrating when you’re excited to be developing on next-gen consoles only to discover they’re built on very old and flaky browsing technology. I doubt it’s top of their list, but I’d hope within the next few firmware updates they might consider adding to the standards support of their browser.
…depending on how you read the stats (i.e. it measures individual browser versions). Still; it’s reason to remain optimistic that IE6 might soon be a browser we no longer have to code for (unless you live in Africa…or Asia).
I thought it was only Windows which offered to hide file extensions, but I’ve just tried to download a JavaScript file off the net via Safari 4.0.4 and it hides the extension by default seemingly. I hate that; why would anyone ever want to be in the dark over what type of file they’re working with?
Grrrr >:(
Good to hear that Flash support isn’t standing still on the Nintendo Wii. As this blog post says, we need it on the Nintendo DSi now (providing it can run at a decent speed…erm, which might not be that likely actually, so maybe not).
Interesting blog post on eric e. dolecki’s site here on the topic of Flash’s survival. I’m not sure how much of an issue poor(er) Flash performance on the Mac is for the guys at Adobe, but considering Flash has performed worse on the Mac for years now I’m guessing it’ll continue to remain somewhere down the list of priorities to sort.
Flash isn’t likely to die anytime soon in my opinion (despite all the HTML5 raving at the moment). Flash’s feature set isn’t as widely available in any browser or plug-in and as all developers having to tailor for IE6 *spits* knows; getting users to upgrade and/or install new software isn’t always straightforward.
While I’d love for Adobe to spend time ensuring what great features currently within Flash are made bulletproof (Mac support, accessibility, etc), Flash’s survival is likely to be largely dependent on what standout features the product supports. Standing still and building upon what’s currently within Flash allows competitors to gain ground, which is why I’m guessing each new version of Flash will continue to showcase cutting edge new features.