Syllabus

SCHEDULE

Oct 4
Oct 11: Telegraph presentations (influences, proof of concept)
Oct 18: Junction final crit
Oct 25
Nov 1
Nov 8: Telegraph prototype
Nov 15

Nov 29
Dec 6: Final crit

LABS

• Sep 27 Browse Download
• Oct 25 Browse Download

• Connect to ernie.art.yale.edu, as networks user, networks volume
• Browse to Sites/nt2/labs

DOCUMENTATION

• Flash
  • Learning ActionScript 2.0. See the “Working with Text and Strings” chapter
  • ActionScript 2.0 Language Reference. See the following ActionScript classes:
    • TextField
    • TextFormat
    • MovieClip class’s createTextField method
    • String
• Openfire (our Jabber protocol chat server)
• Xiff (the ActionScript library we use for talking to the Jabber server)

• Stina Carlberg -> Video telegraph
• Tomas Celizna -> Predictive chat
• Daniel Harding -> One liner
• Ken Meier -> Studio presence
• Kyungmin Oh -> Paper conversation
• Bethany Powell -> Speech/pause
• Nicholas Rock -> News board
• Stewart Smith -> Word value?
• Fan Wu -> Harkness
• David Yun -> Difference

BOTS

Here is an interesting architecture to think about: a “bot” running on the server, listening to yr chat room, and taking actions & sending responses based on all messages or specially-formed messages. Can be useful (although probably not the only solution) for things that you can’t do directly in Flash, such as database access, text-to-speech, or other heavy processing.

Here are bots written for Jabber (what we’re using) in Perl (good article), PHP, and Ruby.

• Stina Carlberg -> Construction site music
• Tomas Celizna -> Hull’s camera
• Daniel Harding -> Architecture printer
• Ken Meier -> Hotspot landing page
• Kyungmin Oh -> Murder mystery
• Bethany Powell -> Hey
• Nicholas Rock -> Gas pumps
• Stewart Smith -> Ghost balloons
• Fan Wu -> Everyday memorial
• David Yun -> Bike maps

CREATE A TEXT FIELD WITH SOME GOOD OPTIONS

No need to specify a depth or a height- this function gueses them, sets some good options for the textfield, and returns a reference to the new textfield instance.

Put this function at the bottom of yourChat.as (or however you’ve called it):

function easyCreateTextField(instanceName, attachToWhat, x, y, width) {
attachToWhat.createNewTextField(instanceName, attachToWhat.getNextHighestDepth(), x, y, width, 10);
var tf = attachToWhat[instanceName];
tf.embedFonts = true;
tf.multiline = true;
tf.wordWrap = true;
tf.autoSize = true;
return tf;
}

Then to use it, e.g. within displayMessage, you might do:

var newTextField = easyCreateTextField("message" + messageNum, attachTo, xPosition, yPosition, 400);

ADD TEXT TO THE END OF A TEXT FIELD WITHOUT OVERRIDING THE FORMAT OF PREVIOUS TEXT IN THE TEXT FIELD

Put this function at the bottom of yourChat.as (or however you’ve called it):

function easyAppendTextField(textField, text) {
textField.replaceText(textField.text.length, textField.text.length, text);
}

Then to use it, e.g. within displayMessage, you might do:

var newTextField = easyCreateTextField("message" + messageNum, attachTo, xPosition, yPosition, 400);
newTextField.setNewTextFormat(myFormat1);
easyAppendTextField(newTextField, "Some words ");
newTextField.setNewTextFormat(myFormat2);
easyAppendTextField(newTextField, "and some more words.");

READINGS

For discussion 9/20: Flaming and the Design of Social Software

For discussion 10/4: Bow, Nigger (and if you like that here is another good one, although not required: All About Eve)

For discussion 10/11: Street View

NETWORKS & TRANSACTIONS

Film festival (unrealized)!

Thursday evenings, in the computer lab (room 209)

Sep 27: Blue
Oct 11: Red
Oct 18: The Conversation
??: The Boss of It All

AGENDA

10/25 class

1:30-3:30: Tutorial: Typography in Flash
3:30-6:30: Charette in the lab

GRAPHIC DESIGN, Art 752a, Networks & Transactions 2
209 Green Hall Thursday 1:30-5:30

This class explores the dynamic relationship between data and visual form by making connections between multiple networks of information and people, all of which are in motion. The overall focus is on experimentation, visualization, and designing new ways of working with dynamic content. We also discuss how to site, show, or publish work in ways that are appropriate to each student’s thesis. Assignments are completed in Junction and Messenger. Previous experience with Flash not required. Prerequisite: Graphic Design 742b or permission of the instructor. Dan Michaelson