Programming Development

I have decided to create a list regarding the programming aspects of this project to help both myself and the group keep track of our progress. The order of this list however, is not the order in which we will develop the application.

Completed / In-progress:

• Pre-loader: Loading and unloading the main application files, including visual representations.

• Navigation: Links and buttons to allow the user to load the relevant file, using the loader class.

• Xml Parsing: Parsing of live RSS Xml data, using the URL request class.

• Character Animation: Using timers, tweens, transitions, listeners and events.

• Text Search Engine: Study, testing and development of custom textual search engine. This aspect of our application is based on an online action script 2.0 example, which has needed to be reverse engineered and re-developed in action scrip 3.0, for use within our application.

• Drag & Drop Interaction: Allowing our users to interact with our application and its content.

• External AS Files: Use of external .as files to re-position large bodies of script into external files and also to hold shared variable values, which then makes this script and its variables available to the rest of the application files.

• Methods / Classes: Along with the above I have also needed to familiarise myself with many other new methods and classes within the Action Script 3.0 language. eg. split(), indexOf() or TextFormat(), for use within our text search engine, for finding and highlighting words, or while() conditionals, which carry out actions or execute functions, along with others.

The features and aspects of our applications programming listed above, have almost been completed (see previous post). However, there are some usability issues which have arose during this development, which will need to be addressed.

Outstanding Programming Aspects:

• User Data: As we have decided to not include a Login or "user database" within our application, which would require PHP and mySQL coding, we will store user information through the use of Cookies within the Flash Player, of the users browser.

• GUI: The GUI of our application will need to be further developed to include other elements like character statistics. The script to process this information will be located within another external action script file.

• Character Animation: Our avatars animations will need to be developed further, to include new actions and also to optimise this large body of script.

• Character Control: The development of script to allow the the user to control and move their avatar around the user interface.

• Gestures: The further development of gestural interactions, within the character file.

• Audio: The programming and handling of all audio content for the character and application.

• CSS Styling: Research and development of CSS within Action Script 3.0. We plan to use an external CSS document to unify all textual content of our application.

• Graphics: All the graphics created by our designer will also needed to be placed and tested within the application. 

•  User Testing: Resolving issues and feedback from user testing.

As we develop this application, I have found that I have needed to research many other aspects of the Action Script language to create the functionality we require. Each aspect listed above also then needs to be implemented within our programs code.

Philip Clarke