NiceComps – AS3 UI components for Flash

NiceComps is a set of ActionScript 3 UI components that I have been slowly working on over about the last six months. I got tired of the ugly built in components that come with Flash and I don’t particularly like the look of MinimalComps. I wanted UI components that looked nice and were easy to use so I set out to create my own. The design of NiceComps was inspired by the Windows Phone 7 UI and one unique feature I wanted to include was the ability to easily and dynamically change the colour of all components being used at once at runtime. Since I started them they have evolved quite a lot as I’ve used them in projects, and therefore they are still not 100% finished. But I have decided to release a ‘Beta’ version which you can try out. There is a demo below of all the components so far (I think it’s all). The code is quite messy at the moment but I plan to tidy it all up in the near future. And please let me know if you find any bugs. Currently the most stable components are the DisplayScroller, CheckBox, InputBox, Button and DropDown as these are the ones I use most. I’ve got a lot of optimising to do because there is quite a bit of duplicate and unused code.

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Windows Phone 7 custom half tiles

Here are some half and quarter tiles that I’ve made for the WP7 home screen. Simply go to the link below on your WP7 device, tap on an image you want and pin the site to your start screen. This was inspired by the custom organisation tiles at http://blog.iqagency.com/?p=3751. At the moment they are only blue on black, but you can get the PSD below to make your own.

Visit this address on your WP7 device: www.purplesquirrels.com.au/blogstuff/wp7tiles/

Get the PSD

Dye Lockscreen Wallpapers for Windows Phone 7

Over the weekend I was playing around with macro shots of dye on paper. The only thing I could find in the house that I could use as ‘Inks’ were a box of red, green, blue and yellow food dyes so thats what I used. Although they didn’t bleed like I was hoping to I still think they looked pretty cool. I sat some paper down on a sheet of clear perspex with a desk lamp underneath and one above and dripped dyes onto the paper. I mostly shot video (which I am currently making into a mock movie title sequence, but more on that in a later post) but I did take a few photos and below are a some of favourites which I have sized to 480×800 which is perfect for the lock screen on a WP7 device. I like how the back lighting has created a metallic look and the colours really pop on my Omnia 7’s Super AMOLED screen!


Inspiring Inspiration #3

Here is a selection of some of my favourite videos on Vimeo.

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