circlecube Relaunch

Not just a redesign but a whole new site and location! After having built loads of sites for clients/friends I kept learning things I wanted to employ on my own site, but the cobblers kids are always barefoot right? I kept implementing new things and knew that they were making my clients lives easier and I wanted it easier as well.

circlecube logo
I’d already updated my logo a number of times since my last redesign and I wasn’t happy with how my collection of sites all looked different and required repetitive work to maintain. circlecube-sketch-3Well, I did some sketches and committed to working on it just a few minutes a day. I really work best as I visually think through a design so sketching is always the first step in my designs. After I nailed down the basic elements and concepts I needed in the site through sketches I installed a new wordpress site, the thematic framework and then got started on a child theme. I really surprised myself and in a mere couple weeks I had a short list of things to do before I could “flip the switch”. The hardest part by far was trying to do 301 redirects from all the old posts which lived on either my blog or portfolio sub-domains. But thanks to my friend we were able to iron that out and I learned more than I ever wanted to know about mod rewrites and such. I was able to combine my blog and portfolio and my home page all into one site. I always felt weird pushing friends/potential clients and everyone else to my blog or my landing page or portfolio… but now they can all simply go to the same place!

circlecube-sketch-1My goal was to enable all content to be updated in the back-end, I didn’t want any content in the theme. And I didn’t want to have to redo the css or layout to move something from the header to the footer or sidebar for example. I placed a lot of content in widgets and a few pages that were wholly widget areas. I also needed a portfolio section that displayed a little gallery of images and possibly flash content automatically. It needed to be easy if I were going to ever update the portfolio, so I used custom post types and custom fields to attach images and other data to each portfolio item. Then one of my favorite pages is the social page, it’s just a collection of my social feeds all displayed neatly in one place.

While I’d love to release the theme for everyone, I cheated and used quite a few plug-ins to accomplish my designs so the theme itself doesn’t include all the functionality and I’m pretty sure it’s bad for to require plug-ins and set up to get a theme functional, but if you’re interested, let me know.

As usually happens though, I learned some more tricks as I built this site. So I have a list of things I’m ready to write and share about on the blog: custom post types, custom taxonomies, thematic customizations, css tricks, fancybox, custom fields, jquery, widgets, htaccess, importing/exporting wordpress, new favorite plug-ins and more… So be excited!

My only regret so far is the lack of texture on the site so I may come back and apply slight noise to the site background to make it more tangible. But I also like the clean look. Well, to see snapshots of the site I added the circlecube redesign to the portfolio section of this site (cheesy to include my own site in my portfolio? yep, but I’m excited to use the feature and I always retrospectively wish I’d documented site updates).

Still, there may be a few things that don’t fully connect, so please, please let me know if you see anything broken or experience a broken link. But stay tuned for some posts since I’m not spending time building the site I’ll put a little time each day into putting content on the site again.

Circelcube Video Player 3.0 Stock Flash Video Player at ActiveDen

hero-image

My latest stock flash video player of mine was just added to the database of stock flash items at activeDen. Go check it out and if you like it, download it for use in your projects! I’ve got lots in it for you. I’m using the principles I used as the architect for the video player for stomperNet and then at cornerstone media group in this decked out video player. Go get circlecube’s awesome stock flash video player.

circlecube-video-player-3-preview

An extensively customizable yet simple video player. Integrate the video into your user experience with javascript integration as well as Google Analytics tracking on the video interaction! Control functionality, layout and colors of the player easily! Plus don’t sweat the embed codes – an embed code generator included!

Let your video be the focus!

Features

  • Includes an embed script generator! With options for swfobject implementation or simple valid html object tags (or both)!
  • Embed generator makes setting your settings easy with a Live Preview!circlecube-video-embed-preview
  • Supports flv, f4v and any container format using H.264: mp4, m4a, mov, mp4v, 3GP, 3G2.
  • All images and video loaded externally
  • Run this player without additional files, just pass in the flv path and thumbnail path.
  • Supports most image file types: jpg, gif, png.
  • Google Analytics Integration (event tracking) – Uses on page analytics account or a specified account on a per video setting in flashvars.
    analytics-overview
  • Load any dimension video. Completely resizable
  • Set player width and height
  • Set video width and height
  • Full screen capabilities
  • All colors fully customizable in flashvars
  • Use a preview/thumbnail image.
  • Auto play option
  • Auto load option – in case you had a bunch of video on one page you wouldn’t want them all to auto load.
  • Supports Window Mode options. window, transparent, opaque
  • Video scale/stretching options: none, exact, uniform, fill.
  • Javascript callback functions for loading video and finishing video playback.
  • Show a big play button over the video
  • Show/hide “vcr” video player controls
  • Advanced volume controls, click to mute or drag to desired volume. Volume fades rather than cuts.
  • Support for a logo
  • Controls auto-hide
  • 60k file size
  • Time code display in current time or elapsed time. click to toggle
  • Tooltips for controls
  • Send video files to player dynamically (with an html link on a page send a video to play)
  • Replay video after complete
  • Progressive play and load displays. Watch as the video loads and see the scrub bar update as you watch.
  • Scrub bar is interactive click and drag. Tooltip to display hovered time.
  • Animated play controls.
  • Buttons states & tooltips.
  • All player graphics are vector shapes and very small in size.
  • Fully rearrange player controls
  • Option to disable fullscreen
  • Display video title and description – html content (may contain links)
  • Video controls also in context menu

legend-image

CSS3 Tool, CSS3Please

With all the buzz about new improvements in CSS3 I’ve been meaning to write about it, but…

css3 please screen shot

I couldn’t find any excuses when I stumbled on Paul Irish’s new css3please.com: a cross-browser css3 rule generator. Just had to do a quick post to spread the word.

It’s great for cross-browser testing as well as generating the code for many css3 rules:

  • border-radius
  • box-shadow
  • gradient background
  • rgba backgrounds
  • transform (rotate)
  • @font-face

and more coming soon!

Flashvars and as3

flashvars_as3_thumbFlashvars and actionscript 3! Flashvar is a way that in your html embed codes (object tags) you can send variables and values into your swf file. These variables can then be grabbed internally and used your programming! Examples of these could be images that you want to use in your swf but don’t want to import or hardcode them into the flash file or paths to xml or flv files to use as well. Actionscript 3 has a different procedure than as2 did as to how you read these flashvars from the actionscript side. The embed codes and html side of things are still the same, but in case your new to actionscript altogether, I’ll give an example of the html as well. [cc lang=”html”] [/cc] In actionscript 3 we use the loaderInfo object to access the flashvars. The parameters Object of the loaderInfo will contain all the flashvar variables and values. [cc lang=”actionscript”] this.loaderInfo.parameters [/cc] As an example of something that is visual I’ve created this little app to read some options from flashvars about colors. An app that will read a list of colors and update a box that is on the stage already to those colors with the specified delay. I always have fun with randomness so I threw in the option for random colors as well. This file looks for certain flashvars: color, loop, delay and random. These are the keys or names of the variables and they are followed by the values you want them to hold. Note that flashvars can be set in any order, so you don’t have to start with color and end with random. In this example I’m looking for 4 flashvars specifically (in any order):

  • colors:String – a comma delimited list of hex colors or simply a string “random” for randomly generated colors (the hex for black #000000 needs to be 0x000000 in flash) (default is random)
  • loop:Boolean – whether or not to repeat these colors (default is true)
  • delay:Number – the delay between colors (in seconds). (default is 1 second)
  • random:Boolean – determines whether to cycle through colors in given order or randomize. selecting random overrides the loop to true. (default is false)

This is much more than is required for this example, but I was having fun playing with random colors and timing and options. I figured it doesn’t hurt to show the effect you can have with a couple different variables on one file. Here is an example using the object tags above: [kml_flashembed publishmethod=”dynamic” fversion=”9.0.0″ movie=”https://circlecube.com/circlecube/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2009/12/flashvars_as3.swf” width=”200″ height=”200″ targetclass=”flashmovie” fvars=”colors=0xFF0000,0x0FF000,0x00FF00,0x000FF0,0X0000FF,0xF0000F&delay=.66&loop=true&random=false”] Get Adobe Flash player [/kml_flashembed] And here are some more (please don’t have a seizure!) Here’s the full source if you’re interested: [cc lang=”actionscript”] /* circlecube.com App to demonstrate the process of getting flashvars from embed code to actionscript (as3) Displays colors specified. looking for 4 flashvars specifically (in any order): colors:String – a comma delimited list of hex colors or simply a string “random” for randomly generated colors (the hex for black #000000 needs to be 0x000000) (default is random) loop:Boolean – wether or not to repeat these colors (default is true) delay:Number – the delay between colors (in seconds). (default is 1 second) random:Boolean – determines wether to cycle through colors in given order or randomize. selecting random overrides the loop to true. (default is false) */ //initialize vars var myflashvars:Object = new Object() var myColors:Array = new Array(“random”); var myLoop:Boolean = true; var myDelay:Number = 1; var randomOrder:Boolean = false; var allRandom:Boolean = false; //read flashvars in actionscript3 //if colors flashvars doesn’t exist use these defaults if (!this.loaderInfo.parameters.colors){ myflashvars = {colors: “random”, delay: 1}; } else{ myflashvars = this.loaderInfo.parameters; } //assign flashvars to variables within flash for (var item:String in myflashvars) { trace(item + “:\t” + myflashvars[item]); if (item == “colors”){ myColors = myflashvars[item].split(‘,’); } else if(item == “loop”){ myLoop = parseBoolean(myflashvars[item]); } else if(item == “delay”){ myDelay = myflashvars[item]; } else if(item == “random”){ randomOrder = parseBoolean(myflashvars[item]); } } //use my variables! if (myColors[0] == “random”){ allRandom = true; } var counter:Timer = new Timer(myDelay * 1000); counter.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, nextColor); trace (“color number: 0”, “color hex: “+myColors[0]); setColor(myBox, myColors[0]); counter.start(); stop(); function nextColor(e:Event):void{ //cycle through colors if (!allRandom && !randomOrder){ if (counter.currentCount+2 > myColors.length){ if (myLoop == true || myLoop == “true”){ counter.reset(); counter.start(); } else{ counter.stop(); } } trace (“color number: “+counter.currentCount, “color hex: “+myColors[counter.currentCount]); setColor(myBox, myColors[counter.currentCount – 1]); } //randomly select a color from the myColors array else if (!allRandom && randomOrder){ var randomColor = Math.floor(Math.random() * myColors.length); trace (“random number: “+randomColor, “color hex: “+myColors[randomColor]); setColor(myBox, myColors[randomColor]); } //randomly create colors else{ trace (“number: “+counter.currentCount, “color hex: “+myColors[0]); setColor(myBox, myColors[0]); } } function setColor(item:DisplayObject, col):void{ if (col == “random”){ setRandomColor(item); } else{ setHexColor(item, col); } } function setHexColor(item:DisplayObject, col:Number):void { var myColor:ColorTransform = item.transform.colorTransform; //check color bounds if (col > 16777215) col = 16777215; else if (col < 0) col = 0; myColor.color = col; item.transform.colorTransform = myColor; } function setRandomColor(item:DisplayObject):void{ setColor(item, (Math.floor(Math.random() * 16777215))); } function parseBoolean(str:String):Boolean { switch(str.toLowerCase()) { // Check for true values case “1”: case “true”: case “yes”: return true; // Check for false values case “0”: case “false”: case “no”: return false; // If all else fails cast string default: return Boolean(str); } } [/cc]

Stomper999

Interactive Design project for StomperNet’s tease of the announced reveal on 09/09/09 at 09:09:09!

“Online Marketing Changes Forever!”

stomper999-black
Wanted it to be unexpected, and I think we hit it! Check it out live at stomper999.com!
stomper999-white

Details:
For this project I used flash, html, css and javascript. Tweener for the fading effects. Found a nice stock flash from activeden for the countdown and used jquery and the easing and color plugins.

#tweetcoding

If you didn’t know, Grant Skinner has introduced an interesting competition called tweetcoding!

Mixing as3 with the 140 character limit of tweeting he calls for the community to tweet visually interesting source code.

I’ve played a bit with it and tweeted my first #tweetcoding entry! See more tweetcoding here

[cc lang=”actionscript”]
g.clear(),o[++i]={x:mouseX,y:mouseY,c:r()*0xFFFFFF};for each(k in o)k.c*=.9,g.beginFill(k.c),ls(i,k.c),g.drawCircle(k.x,k.y,1),g.endFill();
[/cc]

Want to see my entry? Here it is!

tweetcode_circlecube_a png

Random Movement | Brownian revisited for as3

I have had feedback that certain random movements I program are a bit “jumpy”. Such as my old brownian movement tutorial and I really noticed it in my last tutorial, the parallax 3d depth effect tutorial. I’ve been thinking about it and looking around at some code and now have this updated brownian movement example! Updated for as3 as well as making it less jumpy.

as3brownian thumb pngFirst I’ll explain what I’ve found to be the reason of the jumpiness. And then explain and show what can be done to make this movement be more smooth.

So to examine the old jumpy code. Jump back to the first version post here. I think my technique was well thought out here, but the application was poor. It was recalculating the velocities every single frame and then incrementing the coordinate positions by the newly calculated velocities… This is where the jumpiness comes in. Even though the random value was named velocity, it didn’t actually affect the dot’s velocity, it was just a variable that stored the random value used to move the current x/y coordinates.
To help the animation be more smooth, the velocity needs to be more smooth. The velocity, rather than calculating it fresh each frame, should be randomly modified each frame. And then the new velocity will calculate the new ‘random’ position. Another addition is to introduce another force to dampen the velocity over time, so things don’t get too crazy…

Steps:

  1. Modify velocity randomly
  2. With velocity and current position, calculate a new position
  3. Dampen the velocity

Example:

Here I have a velocity for the x coordinate as well as the y. I’m also experimenting with a z velocity. This adjusts the alpha and scale for depth perception. It doesn’t actually edit the depth or layer the dot shows up on the stage however… keyword here: experimenting. 🙂
[kml_flashembed fversion=”8.0.0″ movie=”https://circlecube.com/circlecube/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2009/02/as3random_brownian_movement.swf” targetclass=”flashmovie” publishmethod=”dynamic” width=”550″ height=”550″ wmode=”transparent”]

Get Adobe Flash player

[/kml_flashembed]

Actionscript:

[cc lang=”actionscript”]
//number of balls
var numBalls:uint = 50;
var defaultBallSize:uint = 30;

//init
makeDots();

function makeDots():void {
//create desired number of balls
for (var ballNum:uint=0; ballNum stage.stageWidth) {
thisBall.x = 0 – thisBall.width;
}
else if(thisBall.x < 0 - thisBall.width) { thisBall.x = stage.stageWidth; } if(thisBall.y > stage.stageHeight) {
thisBall.y = 0 – thisBall.height;
}
else if(thisBall.y < 0 - thisBall.height) { thisBall.y = stage.stageHeight; }if (thisBall.scaleX > maxScale){
thisBall.scaleX = thisBall.scaleY = maxScale;
}
else if (thisBall.scaleX < minScale){ thisBall.scaleX = thisBall.scaleY = minScale; } if (thisBall.alpha > maxAlpha){
thisBall.alpha = maxAlpha;
}
else if (thisBall.alpha < minAlpha){ thisBall.alpha = minAlpha; } }function randomColor():Number{ return Math.floor(Math.random() * 16777215); } [/cc]

Source:

as3random_brownian_movement.fla

Dynamic 3d space | Floating Sketches Tutorial

parallax_thumbI’ve had quite a few questions about how to make depth in flash. Earlier (like, 2 years ago) I put up an experiment file to give some interactive depth to some sketchbook sketches, see Floating Sketches. I’ve finally gotten around to translating that into as3. It’s still the same basic idea, Create layers of levels, and have each one respond to the mouse a little differently. The ‘closer’ depths will move faster while the farther away depths will be slower. A simple technique called Parallax.

  1. Seperate the scene into layers
  2. Place the layers in the correct depth
  3. Make closer layers react fast and farther layers slower

Example

[kml_flashembed fversion=”8.0.0″ movie=”https://circlecube.com/circlecube/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2009/01/depth.swf” targetclass=”flashmovie” publishmethod=”dynamic” width=”550″ height=”550″]

Get Adobe Flash player

parallax_thumb
[/kml_flashembed]

Actionscript

[cc lang=”actionscript”]
//define number of layer.
var numLayers:uint = 15;
//number of items in a layer
var numBallsPerLayer:uint = 100;
var defaultBallSize:uint = 25;

var stageWidth3d:uint = 800;
var stageHeight3d:uint = 800;

var layers:Array = new Array();
//init
makeMatrix();
//3d created by layers and placing objects on each layer – the layer has it’s own distance, simulated by movement and alpha

function makeMatrix():void {
//walk through desired number of layers
for (var layerNum:uint=0; layerNumSource

depth.fla

ColorTransform | RGB, Hex and random colors | Actionscript Color Tutorial

Overview

Color can sometimes make or break your design. I’ve put together this flash to show how to set a movieclip to a certain color, I’ve had to do this at runtime and had to go by different values such as a hex number, rgb values and have even wanted to just set a random color, so this example does them all! It’s even nice for translating a Hexadecimal color into RGB color.

Flash uses a Transform object to control certain properties of movie clips. To set color we need to use a Transform object as well as a ColorTransform object. ColorTransform objets are used to, you guessed it, tell the Transform object what color we want to set our clip to. It was a little unintuitive for me to learn, but now it makes sense, or at least enough sense to use.

I’ve made a function that does all this for you. You just send it the movieClip reference and a color. setColor(myMovieClip, myColor)

There are functions to convert rgb values to a hex value, and from a hex value to red, blue and green values as well.

To make a random hexadecimal number Math.random() * 16777216 (the total number of hexadecimal numbers)

Steps

  1. Imports
    import flash.geom.ColorTransform;
    import flash.geom.Transform;
  2. Make a Transform object
    var myTransform:Transform = new Transform(item);
  3. Make a ColorTransform object
    var myColorTransform:ColorTransform = new ColorTransform();
  4. Set the rgb color of the ColorTransfrorm object
    myColorTransform.rgb = myColor;
  5. Set the colorTransform property of the Transform object to your ColorTransform object
    myTransform.colorTransform = myColorTransform;

Flash Color App

[kml_flashembed fversion=”9.0.0″ movie=”https://circlecube.com/circlecube/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2008/10/color/color.swf” targetclass=”flashmovie” publishmethod=”dynamic” width=”550″ height=”400″]

Get Adobe Flash player

[/kml_flashembed]

Source Actionscript (as2)

[cc lang=”actionscript” tab_size=”2″ lines=”40″]
//method to set a specified movieClip(item:movidClip) to a specified color(col:hex value number)
function setColor(item, col) {
//make transform object and send the specified movieClip to it
var myTransform:Transform = new Transform(item);
//make colorTransform
var myColorTransform:ColorTransform = new ColorTransform();
//check color bounds
if (col > 16777215) col = 16777215;
else if (col < 0) col = 0; //variable to hold the color value var myColor:Number = col; //set color through color transformation myColorTransform.rgb = myColor; myTransform.colorTransform = myColorTransform;trace("the hex number: 0x" + addZeros(myColorTransform.rgb.toString(16))); var rgbObject = hex2rgb(myColor); trace("the hex number in rgb format: "+rgbObject.r+", "+rgbObject.g+", "+rgbObject.b); trace("the hex number in decimal format: " + myColorTransform.rgb); displayColors(myColorTransform.rgb); }//bitwise conversion of rgb color to a hex value function rgb2hex(r, g, b):Number { return(r<<16 | g<<8 | b); } //bitwise conversion of a hex color into rgb values function hex2rgb (hex):Object{ var red = hex>>16;
var greenBlue = hex-(red<<16) var green = greenBlue>>8;
var blue = greenBlue – (green << 8); //trace("r: " + red + " g: " + green + " b: " + blue); return({r:red, g:green, b:blue}); }//BUTTONS randomColor.onRelease = function() { //make random number (within hex number range) var theColor = Math.floor(Math.random() * 16777215); //set ball color to random color value setColor(colorBall.inner, theColor); } readHexColor.onRelease = function() { //convert 6 character input string into hex color format used by actionscript var theColor = "0x"+hexColorIn.text; //set ball color to hex color value setColor(colorBall.inner, theColor); } readRGBColor.onRelease = function() { //convert rgb values into hex value var theColor = rgb2hex(redColorIn.text, greenColorIn.text, blueColorIn.text); //set ball color to converted hex color value setColor(colorBall.inner, theColor); } readDecColor.onRelease = function() { //convert rgb values into hex value var theColor = decColorIn.text; //set ball color to converted hex color value setColor(colorBall.inner, theColor); } [/cc]

Open Source Download

color.zip (containing color.fla and color.swf)

Event Tracking with Google Analytics | Flash Integration | Tutorial

Many have read my Integrate Google Analytics with Flash Tutorial in which I express enthusiasm for the new event tracking at google analytics! Well, it’s been a while, but I was admitted to the Beta testing group! So I’ve now had the chance to play with event tracking a bit and wanted to publish my findings!

Overview

Almost a year ago Google Analytics announced their new event tracking model and have had help documents published and code samples up. And as with many of Google’s products the beta stamp has lasted a very very long time. Many have seen my earlier tutorial exploring using traditional Google Analytics Tracking from within Flash, and it does wonders to track your flash apps in this manner, but there is a problem with it. We’re using supposed object oriented concepts to track objects as pageviews. One thing is it really isn’t a very intuitive way to represent that data, and another it inflates your pageviews! The solution? the long awaited and announced Event Tracking model. I’ve been itching for this to be released so I could refresh my analytic tactics I use in my flash projects. No, to answer your questions, it has not been released yet, but I contacted Google and explained that I would be a great beta tester for this feature and after a bit of correspondence they invited me to join in the beta testing! This is good news for you too! Because I will tell you all about how to do it and even show you what the reporting looks like and when it is released finally, you will know what you’re in for after this sneak peak!

UPDATE: Here are the reports for this very example: Report from Event Tracking with Flash Tutorial

The very quick summary is this:
_trackEvent(category, action, optional_label, optional_value)
Note that the _trackEvent function is called on the pageTracker object itself. (initially Google had you instantiate a separate event tracker for every object (or category) you wanted tracked)

For example, if we want to track a ball. All the actions that can apply to the ball are: it being created, dragged, dropped, bounced, deleted… You get the idea. We can have direct user actions tracked or even automatic actions. If we have gravity and physics running, the ball may bounce a lot without any direct user interaction. But it will never be dragged or dropped without direct interaction. I’d recommend only tracking user interactions because who cares how often a ball bounces on your page (unless you’re doing an experiment, of course), want we want to know is how and when a user interacts with the ball.

category:string (required)

This is the name of the object you are tracking.

action:string (required)

This is the action that happens to your object you want to track.

optional_label:string (optional)

This can be more information to accompany the action.

optional_value:integer (optional)

A number to provide numerical information to accompany the action.

Steps

  1. First, I’d recommend reading up about Event Tracking at Google
  2. Decide your object oriented structure for tracking events. What objects do you want to track and what useful information do you want to get through tracking user interaction?
  3. Make sure you have the new Google analytics tracking code on your page
  4. Use these functions to communicate Google Analytics from your flash
    1. Call the main function with the specified parameters
    2. It will call the appropriate function and send the data to your pageTracker object through javascript with externalInterface calls
  5. See the reports in your analytics profile! (if your a beta tester, or else, wait until it is released)

Source code

The tracking functions are below, I enhanced the earlier trackGA function I wrote about. Now you call trackGA with 2 required parameters, categoryOrPageTrack and action. categoryOrPageTrack is where you have to pay attention. I wanted to keep the ability to track pageviews as well as have event tracking, so as the first param you either send in the string ‘page’ to explicitly state that you want to track the page view, or you send in another string to state you want to track an event on that specified object. Action remains the same, the action you want tracked (either on the pageview, it is the path that will appear in your reports; or the event tracking will be the action tracked to the category)…
So to track a pageview I call
trackGA("page", "swfLoaded");
and to track an event to an object I call ball:
trackGA("ball", "created");
The trackGA function will rout your call to the appropriate place and send the info to Google through either the trackGAPage function or the trackGAEvent function.
[cc lang=”actionscript” tab_size=”2″ lines=”40″]
//trackGA (categoryOrPageTrack [required], action [required], label [optional], value [optional]
//categoryOrPageTrack – either the category string or a string saying ‘page’
function trackGA(categoryOrPageTrack:String, action:String, optional_label:String, optional_value:Number) {
//call page tracking version of Google analytics
if (categoryOrPageTrack == “page”) {
//trace(“GATC pageTracker call”);
trackGAPage(action);
}
//call event tracking method
else {
//trace(“GATC event tracker call”);
trackGAEvent(categoryOrPageTrack, action, optional_label, optional_value);
}
}

var prefix:String = “flashGA”;
//Google Analytics Calls Page Tracking – for tracking page views
function trackGAPage(action:String) {
//GA call
if (prefix != null && !eventTrack){
var call = “/” + prefix + “/” + action;
//Old Google Analytics Code (urchinTracker)
ExternalInterface.call(“urchinTracker(‘”+call+”‘)”);
//New Google Analytics Code (_trackPageview) pageview
ExternalInterface.call(“pageTracker._trackPageview(‘”+call+”‘)”);
trace(“==GATC==pageTracker._trackPageview(‘”+call+”‘)”);
}
_root.tracer.text = action;
}

//Google Analytics Event Tracking Calls – for tracking events and not pageviews
//category, action, label (optional), value(optional)
function trackGAEvent(category:String, action:String, optional_label:String, optional_value:Number) {
/*
objectTracker_trackEvent(category, action, optional_label, optional_value)
category (required) – The name you supply for the group of objects you want to track.
action (required) – A string that is uniquely paired with each category, and commonly used to define the type of user interaction for the web object.
label (optional) – An optional string to provide additional dimensions to the event data.
value (optional) – An optional integer that you can use to provide numerical data about the user event.
*/

theCategory = “‘” + category;
theAction = “‘, ‘” + action + “‘”;
theLabel = (optional_label == null) ? “” : “, ‘” + optional_label + “‘”;
theValue = (optional_value == null) ? “” : “, ” + optional_value;
//New Google Analytics Code (_trackEvent) event tracking
theCall = “pageTracker._trackEvent(” + theCategory + theAction + theLabel + theValue + “)”;
ExternalInterface.call(theCall);
trace(“====GATC====”+theCall);
_root.tracer.text = theCategory + theAction + theLabel + theValue;
}
[/cc]

Here’s the actionscript lines where I call the trackGA function:
[cc lang=”actionscript” tab_size=”2″ lines=”40″]
//Tracks that the swf loads, so I pass ‘page’ to let it know I want a pageview tracked…
trackGA(“page”, “swfLoaded”);
//Tracks various objects sending various actions
trackGA(“gravity”, “on”);
trackGA(“gravity”, “off”);
trackGA(“friction”, “on”);
trackGA(“friction”, “off”);
trackGA(“ball”, “deleted”, count);
trackGA(“ball”, “created”, ballCount);
trackGA(“ball”, “drag”, this.ballNum, this.ballNum);
trackGA(“ball”, “drop”, this.ballNum, this.ballNum);
trackGA(“ball”, “bounce”, “right”, this.ballNum);
[/cc]

Example

[kml_flashembed fversion=”9.0.0″ movie=”/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/integrategoogleanalytics/integrategoogleanalytics.swf” targetclass=”flashmovie” publishmethod=”dynamic” width=”400″ height=”400″]

Get Adobe Flash player

[/kml_flashembed]

View example in it’s own html page, I even added a couple html buttons with javascript hooked in to show javascript event tracking implementation.

Download

Download Source

Concerns

I’ve noticed while putting this together that the calls to google analytics are not completely fullfilled, this example sends out correct calls to javascript, but (in firefox at least) a max of about 1 tracking call is registered with the tracking code every 5 seconds or so. I noticed this as I was monitoring the drag and drop events for each ball, although the drag and drop events are both fired, usually the drag event was received and the drop is not. After verifying that my code was consistent, I noticed that no matter how fast I interacted with the objects, the calls were much slower. I’m guessing this is a limit placed by the google team to keep us from sending pointless data such as is posted at the bottom of the event tracking implementation guide, titled Events Per Session Limit.