BUG : Include Device Font

While I was optimizing size of VGTrailers (I always try to be under 100K), I find something strange about device fonts, on Flash CS3 IDE.
Your best friend about size optimizing is size report (I suggest you to read this interesting post at Paul Burnett's madblog)

So, about the bug
If you create a dynamic textfield with a special font (I'll use Arno Pro) but with 'Use device fonts', you'll got something like this on the report size

Arno Pro 31

Switch to 'Bitmap text (no-alias)' and include the Latin character set
you have now

Arno Pro  12 pts 4539 !"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_`abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{}~

now switch to a static textfield THEN come back to 'Use device fonts'

Arno Pro 31

if you switch back to a dynamic textfield (still using 'Use device fonts'), you should still find 31bytes...but you have

Arno Pro 29683 !"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_`abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{}~

congratulation, you now have a font included for nothing...and 29k!
Why 29k ? switch to 'anti alias for animation' and you'll find the same size!
So, this bug includes an anti-aliased font while asking to include nothing but use system font.

I know you'll almost never make all these steps but I did, while trying the best font vs the best size, which ended to select a device font and so...

Note I was also able to include a '_sans' font if I switch to '_sans' while switching to dynamic field

Top 136 Mobile Advertising Companies

GomoNews published a very interesting list of the Top Mobile Advertising Companies

It seems I have some more companies to contact!

New game of GamesPlaza : Miner's Castle

2 weeks ago, GamesPlaza.mobi published a new free Flash Lite game : Miner's Castle.

This game include a score API available to any game on GamesPlaza
More info coming soon.

Playyoo helps you to win 100$ minimum

I'll already talked about Playyoo Premium Program some weeks ago.
Basically, if you upload a game which include Playyoo API and it's cool enought, you may win 100$ each 5000 download.

Now, to add more and more great games, Playyoo gives you the first 100$ !!
It means that even if you never reach the 5000 download, you'll win 100$
Of course, it means you need to reach the 10000 download to win another 100$

Check Playyoo blog for more info.
Note Playyoo selects the games they want to include in the PPP and so give 100$).

Mobile Advertising Solution : AdMob

Like I said some days ago, I'm currently looking for the best ads solution to use in VGTrailers, my Flash Lite developer challenge entry.

I contacted 6 companies and got 4 replies.
I already reviewed Smaato, I'll now review AdMob

AdMob is the solution I'm currently using on my mobile version of WillNa
I really like their publisher program, with analytics, smart support and their Google group.
Plus their new House Ads product seems very interesting : include ads for others of your products on your site or app...for free !
I also note they are one of the ads networks Smaato is linked to...

Their solutions includes Web, pittyPhone and Android support...but no longer 'any' client support.
They abandonned the Client Solution early this year, right when I was about to use it.
So, while my AS code was ready, I had to look back to existing mobile ads solutions.

Why, if they dropped their Client Solution, AdMob is still a solution ?
Because the xhtml their api gives back is easy to parse.

If you want to know more about their API, you should browse their AdMob for Developers Wiki.

Using urlencoded key/value pairs parameters, you could ask for an ad.
You should use ma=xhtml&f=html_no_js to get a useful return.
Good points, a 'test' parameter let you make test (only text) and an optional 'k' (keyword) parameter will help you to get targetted ads. Hint : don't use 'search', it won't return anything on false search!
Bad points for Flash Lite developer, you NEED to send ip, user agent and headers.
And no way to ask for a specific ads size (even MMA's one)....

Like you know, you can't retrieve ip, user agent and headers within Flash Lite.
To bypass this problem, I wrote a server side PHP script which gives them back to my Flash Lite app...
But it means you had to make 2 requests to got your first ad !
1 - get ip, user agent and headers
2 - using these data, ask for ads
On some phones, Flash Lite player won't let you make 2 requests on the same frame...
So you need to handle this problem using a frame to ask information THEN, on success, jump to the frame which ask for ads.

It's not that easy, unfortunatly.
The tests I made with my AdMob renderer were successfull but I didn't test on a lot of REAL platforms.


Besides technical point, I still don't understand why they support pittyPhone & Android but not Flash Lite or J2ME or WiMo....
They aren't alone, a lot of others ads network got a SDK for each platform, so it seems I'm missing a point : why not use a common API ?!
If you have hint, post a comment please !


Their previous Client Application solution was very easy to use, if they ever re-open it, I will be the first to promote it but, waiting for this time, I'll avoid my 'hacked' solution.
I personnaly will use it ONLY if I don't find a better solution and, only after tests on more phones....

See you soon for the 2 others reviews !

FlashLite Phone Browser v1.2

At last, I just released FlashLite Phone Browser v1.2.
Nokia listing is now fully functionnal.
Thanks to Forum Nokia Team for their support after they made some changes on the database access process.

If you have v1.1, it will updated at next launch.

Else you could launch the v1.2 install using the install button at the right.

note : AIR 1.5.2 was released this week, it will perhaps be updated at the same time.

Flash Lite Nokia phone browser

Good news, someone on the forum point me to the correct person and I finally got an answer about my no longer available Nokia db access.
I hope to fix it soon. This time, I hope Flash Lite Phone Browser will automatically be updated !

Meanwhile, you can use Forum Nokia Advanced Search.