Ding! You have gained a level in Flash
This week has been about how important experience is. You just can't learn somethings without doing them and doing them and doing them. If you pay attention, sometimes you can pick out the point were you gain that next level in whatever you're doing.
Earlier this week, I was finishing up a Flash-based slideshow project for Heath Robbins Photography. When I loaded the correct images, rather than my test images, I noticed that there was a white flash over images as they faded in. There was nothing on the "stage" visible at the time that might cause that flash, and I couldn't find any specific issue that other programmers were talking about. As I kept poking at it, I noticed that slideshows with fewer images were not exhibiting the issue. Eventually, I figured out that if you have "too many" items in the DisplayList, the Flash Engine displays artifacts when displaying images. I hit on the idea of taking things out of the DisplayList when I don't need them anymore, rather than just fading them out. A little coding later, I no longer had the problem. In this case, I could almost feel the glowing "level up" animation when I figured this out, since it isn't something that I read anywhere or could research. It was something I only got out of actually doing the project.
In contrast, I haven't had that feeling with CSS (Cascading Style Sheets, used for editing the display of web pages). I know that I have the experience by looking at how my students are struggling with CSS, but there hasn't been that moment of clarity.
Earlier this week, I was finishing up a Flash-based slideshow project for Heath Robbins Photography. When I loaded the correct images, rather than my test images, I noticed that there was a white flash over images as they faded in. There was nothing on the "stage" visible at the time that might cause that flash, and I couldn't find any specific issue that other programmers were talking about. As I kept poking at it, I noticed that slideshows with fewer images were not exhibiting the issue. Eventually, I figured out that if you have "too many" items in the DisplayList, the Flash Engine displays artifacts when displaying images. I hit on the idea of taking things out of the DisplayList when I don't need them anymore, rather than just fading them out. A little coding later, I no longer had the problem. In this case, I could almost feel the glowing "level up" animation when I figured this out, since it isn't something that I read anywhere or could research. It was something I only got out of actually doing the project.
In contrast, I haven't had that feeling with CSS (Cascading Style Sheets, used for editing the display of web pages). I know that I have the experience by looking at how my students are struggling with CSS, but there hasn't been that moment of clarity.