SE Analog Red (Various, FL 1.1)

Earlier when I posted my AnalogBlue FL Menu, someone had wanted it in a red theme as well. Here two zip files corresponding to the AnalogRed resolutions (176 x 220 and 240 x 320):

I also quickly made a matching thm file, but it is by no means the best theme for it.

Links:
176 x 220: Download
240 x 320: Download

Looking forward to seeing some screenshots of this.

Hope this helps,
phirewerkz

w850i Frame Rate Profile and the '2 Button Phenomena'

The next phone we have the privilege to look at is the SE 850i. Special thanks goes out to lithium3r for providing the test results and generously using his phone to run the tests. This is the first 240 x 320 SE phone we've taken a look at. For more specifications on this phone, take a look here.

This is a particularly interesting SE phone to look at, as lithium3r has discovered something very interesting. The w850i runs swf files extremely slowly, but once 2 buttons on the keypad is pressed, the performance of the swf increases drastically!

I have one flash lite standby and it runs much faster when it's set to standby than just running it through that browser. So I think that when you press 2 keys down it shows the real speed. I don't know that is this some kind bug in the firmware [R1ED001] because i have the release firmware on my phone [CID49].

That being said, lithium3r proceeded to run the frame rate profile on his phones once using normal methods, and once pressed down 2 buttons on his phone. The results will surprise you. We start with the theoretical vs actual graphs:

The above graph shows the test being run in 'normal mode'. As you can see, the time it takes to run the swf is very long (~22 s) and seems to be constant regardless of what frame rate you're running at. Here is the same graph using data obtained using the '2 button mode':

Here we see the more familiar shape as seen with other SE phones we've looked at. The times are reduced to around 8 seconds (achieved at fps 30-40), and comparable to results seen with the w300i frame rate profile. How can 2 buttons make your swf run twice as fast?

Now we can compare the time ratios from these two different modes:

Regardless of what you're doing to the phone, both display a linear relationship. The 2 button pressed mode of course shows a much lower time ratio (preferable). The apparent FPS graph follows:

Again, the normal mode only shows a mere 8 fps, while the 2 button pressing mode shows a nice fps of 23. Also, the 2 button pressed mode seems to have an optimal frame rate (35) while the normal mode remains indifferent to frame rate.

What conclusions can we make from this? I'm afraid not much. Although pressing 2 buttons drastically improve performance, it is unrealistic to mash buttons whenever a swf is on your screen. The frame rate profile of the SE w850i under normal conditions is not impressive at all, showing no preference to any frame rate at all.

This makes me strongly feel that there must be some firmware (R1ED001) bug associated with this phone that causes a bottleneck effect on swf performance, that is somehow alleviated when 2 buttons are pressed. I need to get a hold of another phone (preferably with different firmware version) to draw some conclusions.

Please keep in mind that this test has only been completed on lithium3r's w850i. If you would like to contribute to this test using your 850i, please don't hesitate to contact me: phirewerkz [at] gmail [dot] com.

Analog Clock Tutorial (FL1.1)

Many of you have asked for me to create a tutorial on how to create your own animated analog clock. In this tutorial, we will go through this process using a couple simple FSCommands.

First off, you will need to create 3 graphic symbols. Each symbol will represent the different hand on the clock. Thus, there will be a minuteHand, secondHand and hourHand graphic symbol (they don't have to be named this way).

Update: Registration does not have to be at the pivot point. Read below for more info.

Next you will need to create 3 movieclips. Each movieclip will house the corresponding graphic symbol undergoing a 360 rotation motion tween. Thus we can name them minuteAnimation, secondAnimation and hourAnimation.

UPDATE: The registration point does not need to be at the pivot point. Here are the clarified directions.

In your movieclip, place your graphic symbol at frame 1 pointing upwards (corresponding to '12' on the clock). Then, click on the graphic, right click and select Free Transform. There should now be some handles on the graphic that let you scale and transform the object. More importantly there will be a white dot in the middle of graphic. Click this dot and drag it to the pivot point of the hand (the end opposite to the pointing hand). This dot placement ensures that the graphic will rotate around this point.

Next, right click at frame 60, add a keyframe so that the same graphic should be shown at frame 60. Right click the frames in between and Create Motion Tween. The motion tween will be 60 frames long, but it can be longer given you modify the actionscript code that ensues. After creating the motion tween, in the motion tween properties, select CW rotation with 0 rotations. Next, you will need to select your endframe and rotate your pointer CCW by 6 degrees. You can do this by selecting the Align Window and clicking the Transform tab. We need to do this because, if we don't frame 1 and frame 60 will be at the same position, and will screw up the clock dynamics.

You will need to repeat this process for each of the three movie clips that animate each hand movement.

Now we take a look at the other parts of the clock. In another layer, create the face of the clock with the ticks and whatever else you want to add. Place this layer BELOW the main layer that will house your clock hands. It is a bit tricky to create the ticks on the clock but try to use the rotate function in Flash to rotate a circle with 1 tick 12 times, each time by 30 degrees.

Now on your main layer, place your three movie clips. Try to center them in the center of the clock face. Again, use the align function in Flash to help you with that. We will now name each animation with a instance name; we will name ours: minVar, hourVar, secVar.

Now in frame 1, we put in actionscript:

/:seconds=FSCommand2("GetTimeSeconds");
/:minWhole=FSCommand2("GetTimeMinutes");
/:hourWhole = FSCommand2("GetTimeHours");

The above three lines retrieve the values for the current hour, minute and second. Please note that the hour value is [0,23] format.

To make it easier to code, we will have to convert the 24-hour format to it's 12 hour equivalent. We will also designate AM/PM, by checking whether the returned hour value is greater or less than 12:

if(/:hourWhole>12){
if(/:hourWhole>11){
/:ampm = "PM";
}
/:hourWhole=/:hourWhole-12;
}else{
if(/:hourWhole==0){
/:hourWhole+=12;
}
/:ampm = "AM";
}

The next following lines compensate for fractions of an hour/minute, since the values returned above are whole numbers. For example, if it is 2:30, you want the hour hand to be between 2 and 3, not just at two:

/:hourFraction = (/:mins / 60)*5;

We multiply by 5 to yield a number between 1 and 60 (we will see why later).

/:minFraction = /:seconds/60;

Note that we do not need to calculate fractions for seconds, since it is a finite amount.

We then calculate the total number of hours and minutes by adding the remainder:

/:mins = int(/:minFraction + /:minWhole);
/:hours = int((/:hourWhole*5)+ /:hourFraction);

Now, /:mins is a variable between 0 and 60 (because there are sixty minutes in an hour). /:hours is also a variable between 0 and 60 because we multiplied hourWhole by 5, and hourFraction was multiplied by 5 in a few lines before this. We want /:hours in this format because our original animation had the hand rotating in sixty frames. Thus, we can use this number to refer to the frameNumber for which the time corresponds to.

*UPDATE: The following lines account for when the hour hand is at 12am and 12pm. It fixes the bug of not moving...

if(/:hours>60){
/:hours-=60;
}

*UPDATE: These blocks of code add the '0' in front of the minute or hour when it is a single display and is solely for display purposes. That's to say, it will say 9:05:01 instead 9:5:1.

if(/:minWhole<10){
/:minFormat = "0" add /:minWhole;
}else{
/:minFormat = /:minWhole;
}

if(/:seconds <10){
/:secondsFormat = "0" add /:seconds;
}else{
/:secondsFormat =/:seconds;
}


Here we use tellTarget() to tell the movieclips that are placed on the stage to go to their specific frame. Note that the movie clip contains frames 1-60, while any returned value will be between 0-59. This is why we add one to the variable:

tellTarget("secVar"){
gotoAndStop(/:seconds+1);
}
tellTarget("minVar"){
gotoAndStop(/:mins+1);
}
tellTarget("hourVar"){
gotoAndStop(/:hours+1);
}

Now in the main timeline, extend the frames such that the animation lasts 6 frames, lets say. This number is completely arbitrary and will vary depending your cellphone. Basically, you're determining the number of frames that pass after which the phone rechecks the time and updates the clock. Thus, an optimal frame duration would be one in which it updates at every second. But as we've seen with the frame rate profiles, frame rates run much slower on cellphones, so beware.

w810i Frame Rate Profile

The next phone we have decided to look at for our frame rate profile is the SE w810i, a very successful and popular phone on the market that is FL1.1 enabled. You can take a look at the specifications here

If you do not understand the rationale behind these tests, take a look at my previous posts to see what I'm doing this for.

Here is the Actual vs. Theoretical Times for a rotating ball swf file for the w810i:

As with all the SE phones we've looked at, there seems to be a sharp drop in the actual times midway through the frame incrementing. Let's take a look at the time ratios:

From the graph, it seems like the lowest (and most desirable) time ratio comes at around fps 35, which is a bit lower compared to the w300i and w550i profiles we looked at earlier.

To get a better idea at what apparent FPS the phone will be displaying, I've decided to add another graph which compares the Actual FPS achieved from a defined FPS in FL 1.1:

Drawing from the above graph, you can see that the best FPS you're going to achieve with the w810 will be around 20 frames per second (achieved from FPS 35-110). Although the apparent FPS is the same regardless of FPS>35, it's a better bet to settle with 35 to spare the processor from higher loads.

I'm currently looking for other phone models to test out. If you would like to participate, please contact me: phirewerkz [at] gmail [dot] com

Updating the Battery and Reception Levels

A good question from someone who contacted me:

"I added this script [which inputs signal and battery levels] to one standby and it works like a charm but it doesn't update it at all. So is there any command that updates after some time in flash lite 1.1 ?"

Unfortunately, there is no function to update. However, an easy solution to this problem is to place this actionscript into a movieclip which contains x number of frames. Since a property of a movieclip is to play, it will continue looping through the movie when it's placed on the stage. So, if you place your actionscript in frame 1, it will 'update' every time it loops through the movie:

Hope this helps.

Displaying Volume Levels

Just a quick heads up, you are able to retrieve volume levels as well using FSCommand2. The algorithm for displaying volume levels is completely identical to that mentioned in the Battery Level/Signal Tutorial except for the fact that the FSCommand is different:

status = FSCommand2( "GetMaxVolumeLevel" );
status = FSCommand2( "GetVolumeLevel" );

Using these two values, we can once again calculate the fraction of total volume and convert this to a number in which corresponds to a frame number in a movieclip which contains several frames of increasing volume level. Please refer to the other tutorial for a more indepth look on this.

SE AnalogBlue (Various Resolutions, FL 1.1)

Here's the finished product of my second flash lite menu. This one is totally built from scratch, featuring a scrollable text menu, battery, signal levels and the analog clock. I hope everyone enjoys this. There are three different resolutions to fit your SE phone needs.

I've also included a basic thm file that matches the colour scheme, but it is no way intended to be perfect thm file for the swf. If you wish to make your own to match this, I'd like to see what you can come up with.

Enjoy. If you decide to modify my menu, please let me know.

Download:
128 x 160 (w300i): link
176 x 220 (w550i): link
240 x 320 (w850i): link

FL1.1 SE: AnalogBlue: Preview

In the process of testing and finalizing my latest flash lite menu for SE phones, named AnalogBlue. It features an animated analog clock displaying the time, battery and signal levels. Also decided to switch up the menu style to a scrolling text menu gradient instead. This FL menu will be available in several different resolutions to fit your phone. Here is a preview below on the SE w300i:



Stay tuned for the official release soon.

I2fly: Sakura Screensaver

Vivek over at i2fly has posted a beautiful screensaver that features a clock along with themed wallpapers of the japanese flower sakura. I really like the theme as it is very simple elegant and professional:

I've tested the 176 x 220 version on my w300i (128 x 160) and it runs quite nicely:

Flash Lite Themes for SE Phones

Many of you have been emailing me asking for a place to download Flash Lite Themes that are out there on the web for FL enabled SE phones (w300,w550,w850, etc). So I've decided to upload the ones I already have and share them with you. Note that I did not create these flash lite files, merely uploading them for your convenience. I've also uploaded a RAR containing the corresponding THM files that match the SWF theme, though I do not have all of them. Hope this helps.

Download:
Flash Lite SWFs
Flash Lite THMs.

If you need to create a THM file to go with your SWF, please look at my tutorial on How to Install Flash Menus.