1.0 Overview
JCustom Mod is a mod system for Arcadem Pro powered websites that want to enhance their features, functionalities & design. The system provides better handlers to load, save and display content. It also is a capable of extending it’s functionalities by the adding supported mod plugins. Overall the mod provides a cleaner, simplier, faster for both publisher and users.
1.1 Installing JCustom Mod
1.1.1 Requirements:
- Arcadem Pro (tested to fully work with v2.8 – 2.9.3)
- PHP versions 4.3 or greater
- HTTP Support (Curl/Stream/FOpen for scheduling)
Longest Installation Steps, it really is only 2 steps
Installing this mods really easy, with a few simple steps and without even knowing the technical sides.
- Upload the mod system files & folders at /admin/ through your ftp.
- Open the page at /admin/jcustom_mod/ to start the installation (ex. http://example.com/admin/jcustom_mod/), click the proceeding buttons to install.
- After installation restart your admin panel. A new menu (labeled “jC”) shall be available containing JcMod Plugins and JcMod Settings.
1.2 JCustom Mod Settings Window Details
This window is where all settings for the system can be found. Even plugins can support to include configuring settings on this window through tabs. By default, the window contains two tabs, General and Cache.
1.2.1 General Settings Tab
General Settings Tab
- Play Delay Count – a delay in minutes to determine a valid game page view. A game view shall only increment when the refresh lapse from last page load is greater than this value.
- Timezone – your local timezone. This is going to be used as the displayed time zone on your site by default.
- Date Format – your preferred format when displaying dates by default. Click here for more formatting details.
- Time Format – your preferred form when displaying times by default.
- Week Starts – select either your week starts on Sundays or Mondays.
1.2.2 Cache Settings Tab
Jcustom mod supports sql caching. No need to worry about dynamic changes, as long as these changes occur within the system, the caches will be refreshed and updated correspondingly.
If however you experience errors, try turning these off if they are the source of it. Otherwise it is recommended to turn on caching.
Cache Settings Tab
- Cache All SQL Queries – This cache files are the basic cache files that are cleared everyime you update a setting anywhere or make any editing throughout the system. These cache files are found on the folder /cache/.
- Cache specific query results when a system asks it – This cache files can’t be cleared conventionally with usual clearing of sql caches, they can only be cleared via respective system events or cleared out manually. Specific data grabbed from database that occasionally updated are cached and updated respectively by their handlers. You can locate these cache files under /cache/jcustom/ and organized by folders.
- Cache Life Span – Cache files don’t die on their own hence will be killed every after this time. In such case the cache was not deleted on the current run it will be killed in the next run.
- Clear Cache – clears the basic cache files.
- Clear All Cache – clears all cache files incl. specific caches.
1.3 Plugins Manager Window
Launched from jC » JcMod Plugins, this is where plugins can be installed, enabled and disabled. Currently, we don’t fully support uninstalling plugins but we will work on it once stable builds are made available.
Managing Plugins
Some plugins also provide shortcuts to their settings or options window, this can be found on lower part on the plugin’s action column.
1.3.1 Adding Mod Plugins
For the moment the only way to install a mod is uploading the plug in files at /admin/jcustom_mod/plugins/. Once uploaded, the plugin should be displayed on the JCustom Mod Plugins window (select jC » JcMod Plugins from arcadem menu) where you can click “install”.
JCustom Mod • Publisher Documentation • Developer Documentation
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3 May 09 at 6:25 am
Jayc this is so great! Thanks for writing all this up.
3 May 09 at 9:20 pm
No problem mate.
I might have to do some more research and experiments to look for more issues and stuffs about SO’s – with time in mind though.
19 Jun 09 at 4:22 am
THis is great! Fixed my problem. I was trying to use SO to skip a flash intro page after you have seen it once before. This was pretty easy until I wanted to add a “replay intro” in flash swfs on other pages. But the pages kept creating their own .sol file and not re-using the variables. So this directory fix took care of that. Thanks!
19 Jun 09 at 12:21 pm
Great that it helped you… so I assume that your pages are separate swf files.
SO files is a royal pain when not seriously dealt with.
19 Jun 09 at 4:29 am
And YES, this does work on Mac. Using Firefox and OS 10.5.7
19 Jun 09 at 12:22 pm
oh great! now I assume that it all works on most machines 85% of the time. And yes that number is just a wild guess without the right proof and tests..
3 Jul 09 at 2:52 am
Thank you! Thank you so much! I have been searching for this answer for a long time! This helped a lot in my video game.
20 Aug 09 at 9:24 am
I try to avoid _root all together just because it was used by me in nearly every line of code back in AS2. I find that avoiding it keeps me on track with learning AS3 and staying away from bad practice. Nice article though, I’m aware it’s old but I checked it out anyways
20 Aug 09 at 9:48 am
Great that old articles are still able help… and it will continue to until AS2 dies w/c I doubt would be somewhere near. I still tackle AS2 with a few projects and especially now that I’m playing around with flashlite and flash player for mobile (just for fun) so it’s still quite limited by AS2.
Nice for you to drop by mate.
13 Sep 09 at 6:05 am
it’s good to see my old record still holds. maybe i’ll post my solutions in the future…maybe not
great game (even though i don’t play it anymore because of the lack of challenge
best regards
orange
19 Sep 09 at 1:23 am
yeah you still own it.. still unbeatable
maybe you can drop me your contact or follow me on twitter, I could notify you with any update related, if you want though? unless you already have the feeds.
thanks again!!
20 Sep 09 at 1:50 am
Amazing work Jayc, really awesome job. I’ve made Smith’s site my “rival” site since the first time I saw this (he still doesn’t know that yet, he might now hehe). I’ve always just found it fun competing with Alexa ranks and trying to compare myself to that site, I was new and he wasn’t that much further along than I, it seemed like the thing to do. One day I head over to his site to check out something pertaining to the article system built into Arcadem, and I see that he has a new design, very new. I instantly thought it was you, it looked great and reminded me of allgamesallfree (in style, not at all a copy in design). Amyway, I was definitely feeling like Smith got a boost over me once again, so I have to step up my game in SEO work and other areas. Overall, excellent design.
I’m really interested in knowing how you built upon arcadem, I may eventually have you fix up my site (who knows when, I’m broke at the moment). How much does a redesign like this cost? Can we still log into an admin panel of sorts and upload games, edit files and so on? Are we still able to upgrade Arcadem when new versions come out without compromising the new design? Feel free to respond here, or email me at contact@princeporter.com, I’m very interested in knowing how you went about this. Great job, keep it up.
20 Sep 09 at 2:50 pm
Thanks Porter! Now Smith will know and might realize you as his rival too.
Also style might be similar to AGAF due to that they both asked for the same color style (light text over dark background) & quite similar color scheme (orangey(?) & black). Although AGAF runs with a different CMS, HNG uses Arcadem + JCustom Mod.
As for me building the site around arcadem, it’s basically just my mod (JCustom Mod). All basic features of arcadem are still there but is quite no longer used (by the new theme) since the mod already has better alternative solutions (esp w/ the plugins). See here for the brief intro into it.
I still have to make more formal documentations for it, so watch out.
21 Sep 09 at 3:21 am
I thought this site theme is really nice, and I liked your worked man. really awesome man good work
25 Sep 09 at 10:52 am
You know Jay. All I can really say is WOW. I’d bore you with a wall of text, but I’ll spare you. Amazing job, well done!
3 Oct 09 at 1:03 pm
Jayc did an AMAZING job. Before all of this, when I was contemplating getting a new design, I wasn’t so sure if it would be worth it. But trust me, now looking at it I have no doubt in my mind that it was the right thing to do. I’m so happy with the way it turned out.
Thanks Jayc!
PS: Porter, hello my fellow rival, looks like I have the upper hand now!
1 Jan 10 at 8:30 am
i love this game i will love to have this on meez
8 Feb 10 at 12:21 am
Thanks a lot! I am checking my code if it violates your recommendations.
10 Mar 10 at 7:17 am
Hi. There is allways a dummy one that cant make it work! I read all about SO. I can save data and recover it at the same SWF. But if I reload it or call another one, data is not there anymore. It incrase space at local storage, but are not recovered. People developing for flash lite use a listener object that call some onLoad function. Why aren’t you using one? Data recovering is so quicly? Anyway, there is more like me in the net, so if you got a suggestion, we may share here. Best regards.
1 Apr 10 at 2:16 am
If you want to have even more space in your SharedObject, use ByteArray with deflate/inflate or compress/uncompress method. I had an xml in Local SharedObject that used to always pop the security panel and now its gone!
Got a nice compress ratio 242421 bytes to 35535 bytes after compress for a huge XML.
5 Apr 10 at 3:14 am
Hello,I have an Arcadem based arcade site.I would be interested
in your system,the only thing is we are waiting for a 3.0 upgrade and we are told they will be implementing your system.Is it possible to have a forum added to the site with this system? As that is one of the things i am looking for
Thank you
Allen
12 Apr 10 at 1:42 am
i am facing one issue in flash publish settings i can i get both local and network playback here only one option i can select
15 Apr 10 at 6:33 am
what you do to play?
15 Apr 10 at 6:34 am
im the name guy got creative really how you play?
3 May 10 at 9:58 am
Senor Santos,
Podria usted por favor, facilitarme el FLA file que corresponde con su classe …?
De antemano agradeciendole, desde Holanda,
Carlos
8 May 10 at 7:01 am
Afraid this isn’t a reliable Method to use – if allowscript access is set to never then the externalinterface.call will fail even though navigatetourl may work..
I don’t think there’s a way to tell if navigatetourl will work before using it, which is pretty poor on adobe’s part, to be honest…
22 May 10 at 6:08 am
I just have a “simple” AS2 question… Is there anyway I can reposition the cursor or mouse position when you hit a button. I need to move the mouse out of the button in order for the button to be hidden.
thanks in advance.
22 May 10 at 11:53 am
I don’t think there is a way (yet). Flash is not allowed to natively reposition mouse positions.
I’m not 100% certain, but why would there be a problem on hidding the button after being clicked?
25 Jun 10 at 10:17 pm
i hope it is fun