Filed under: Developer, Web services, Adobe, Open Source
SWFUpload: Open source Flash multi-file upload
So you're building a web site and want users to upload files--lots of files at once. Using an ordinary HTML file dialog is easy and gets the job done, but if the user wants to upload 30 files he has to click on a "Browse..." button 30 times and select each file one at a time. Some sites, like Flickr, solved this problem with a downloadable desktop app. Others used Java applets. And then along came Flash 8, which had perhaps the most promising solution: Built-in support for uploading multiple files at once. Brilliant! However, harnessing this power was not simple--it required, for one thing, a copy of Flash MX, which ain't cheap, not to mention the actual knowledge to use it.By now I'm sure you know where I'm going with this: SWFUpload. It's an open source Flash widget that lets you add multiple simultaneous file uploads to your web service without spending so much as a cent. It's fairly robust, allowing you to specify your own custom graphics and dimensions for the upload button, choose which file types will be allowed, as well as JavaScript callback functions for showing upload progress, errors, and so on. And like I said, it's open source, so if you do happen to have Flash MX and some skills, you can tweak the .FLA source til your heart's content. Very cool.
With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet.
They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...
