Just finished it, the detailed pages of my arcadem pro mod jcustom mod are up and running with initial contents.

JCustom Mod details page

We likez to muztomize yuor stufz

I’ll be writting more info about it soon especially filling up a proper documentation for other developers and will be updating it’s contents as progress goes by too. I also opened comments so feedbacks are very welcome.

Now the main question left are, is it for sale? for how much? My answer to that will arrive in a few moments, for now I have put up a poll so please vote of what you think. I’ll put up the price depending on poll results and especially people’s interest. Vote on the poll here.

We hear what you say

Here is another website to be added to my portfolio, HiddenNinjaGames.com.

The website is owned by a friend and young flash game developer, Eric Smith. Running the website HiddenNinjaGames.com reflects that it is not just a ninja but is hidden and playing games or something of the like.

Basically the website is powered by Arcadem Pro but is now supported by the newly developed JCustom Mod that I made. Obviously it no longer looks like another generic arcadem template, now this site probably is the most unique design and probably has the most functionality (both according to me ) from other sites running the same script/cms engine.

The New HiddenNinjaGames.com brought to you by your friendly neighborhood developer

By running the mod system, the back end is easily managed and updated by the administrator even with out any knowledge of the scripting language (php). The user front end is also fantastically dynamic taking advantage of the newest technologies of Web 2.0. For developers, the mod system is also in efficient coding manner where as extending and plugging into already available features is like a feast of mixing drinks.

Take a peak into Hidden Ninja Games we know you’ll like it.

Hello all! Its been a long time, roughly 94 days since my last post (on my own site!). I’m breaking the silence now that I wasn’t just on vacation, sleeping all day or doing nothing. I am currently working on a Mod system, you heard it right, a modification and its a system.

Added Admin Menu

I have a friend who has a website (a game arcade site, and it’s powered by Arcadem Pro) who asked me to redesign his site. It is really tough to redesign something good especially great from their architecture (specifically coding structure, no offense meant), no wonder I can easily know which site uses the same arcade script just by looking at the generic layout design. Of course I wouldn’t want to dramatically edit all specific files on the site just to apply a single Mod, so I decided to make a subsystem for mods of my own (well I called it a “system” as I like it better than “subsystem”).

JCustom Mod System

It’s basically a bunch of files and folders that you add to your site. And by just opening a single page, you’ll be presented a user friendly way of installing it. After installation, a new menu will be available on the admin panel, yeah it’s that simple! It’s a mod that doesn’t ask you to modify your files manually.

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Having a SAVE feature in a project/game is one of the common things that could lead users to be more attracted and increase replay value for potentially recovering what was done in a previous visit. Using the SharedObject class in actionscript project/games is sometimes a requirement or at least a need, may it be AS1 (FP6), 2 or 3. It can be used to store valuable data like progress, settings, statistics, achievements and a lot more without dedicating storage on the server. Basically, SO or shared objects are like the browser cookies for flash, it is used to store some amount of data on the user machine, therefore it also has some limitations on its use (for security purposes really).

By reading the documentations or the livedocs, either for AS2 or AS3 (it’s really the same), you might have a gut start of what key points to remember.

• created shared objects can only be stored/retrieved on the same domain
• shared objects cannot be shared across domains, meaning a shared objects from “examplesite.com” cannot read shared objects created by another domain “mywebsite.com”
• users can disallow local storage per domain or opt-out globaly, then the object would not be saved locally
• data size to be stored is limited by which the user sets it (none, 10kb, 100kb, 1mb, 10mb, unlimited), although a dialog box can request an increase in storage if what is set is exceeded
• if the user sets a limit smaller than the shared object, the shared object would be deleted
• shared objects are stored on the user’s local machine not on the server, something shared over another machine cannot be accessed by another machine

The most essential part when using SharedObject is the SharedObject.getLocal() method, which is what we will be discussing more through out. Basically, AS1/2 and AS3 syntax haven’t really changed (although a few more rules were imposed in as3).

getLocal(name:String, localPath:String = null, secure:Boolean = false):SharedObject
[static] Returns a reference to a locally persistent shared object that is only available to the current client.

var mySo:SharedObject = SharedObject.getLocal( 'mySaveName', localPath, secure );
mySo.data.thingtoSave = myVariable; // your variables
mySo.flush(); // stores data into disk

Avoiding Known Issues

It might seem that using shared objects could be the simplest when you are only storing a couple of variables and objects like statistics or even could be the more complex when saving a game progress/state together with the players preferences. The bigger the system, more likely, the more complex your variables/objects are (same for games), and this is where possible issues during saving/loading/handling the shared objects.
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