Where to get help with Action Script 3 - User groups, etc? - ruby-on-rails

I am developing in rails and have some programming background.
I'm looking for help with Action Script 3, but most of my googling turns up "copy-paste" style answers from designers who don't understand code, and the solutions rarely work.
Where do I go to find Action Script programmers, rather than designers?
To give you an idea of what I'm trying to solve, here's where I'm currently stuck:
Get the flash file to communicate with rails trying with json, I'm not seeing any requests to the rails server, and I can't tell where the block is. I'm not sure if I'm encountering security issues with the browser trying to stop communication, or if I'm missing something somewhere.
Get the flash file to redirect the browserI assume this is difficult because it's a security issue, so what's the solution? put javascript on the page, call the flash from javascript, get flash to communicate with javascript and then get javascript to get the browser to redirect?
I think overall it would be good to get some tools that helped debug the communications, requests in and out of flash. I can use wireshark, but I think what I need is something that can tell what flash is trying to get the browser to do, and how the browser is responding.

I think SO is a good place to get prompt and useful help / guidance. So, I'd ask here.
Other than that, I've been participating in these 2 groups for some time.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Flash_tiger/
http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders
You'll find some nice and knowledgeable folks over there. Though I'm under the impression that lately these lists are not as active as they used to be a couple of years ago (but maybe that's just me comparing them to SO, which is a very different beast, with a different dynamic).

I mainly use stackowerflow nowadays, but here's two other forums (or a forum and a mailing list):
http://www.actionscript.org/forums/
http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/mailman/listinfo/flashcoders

I like to use
livedocs.adobe.com
(this includes the adobe documentation online as well as tie-ins to forums),
gotoandlearn.com
(this is a great website for purely Flash AS2/AS3 problems),
and here... stackoverflow.com
I also do a lot of google searches, but I seem to come back to these three quite a bit more than the others.

Related

What does my elancer mean when he says this?

What does it mean if my web designer says this," I built custom site with RoR and rails NodeJs angularJs ember backbone fullstack meteor"?
I wanted him to edit an HTML5 template and after some back and forth that was his response. What do those things mean?
Those are different programming/scripting languages that he has built websites/apps in... I find it interesting that after telling you about all the JavaScript he has played with he didn't quite say he had the HTML5 experience you are needing. If you can't understand him now you probably wont have any better luck if you hire him to edit the template. You need to find someone you can communicate with efficiently.

Creating a library application - which method to use?

I was hoping to get some advice. I want to create an application which is like a library that holds a lot of different information including documents, pics etc where a user can log in and search for different topics and see the definition of terminology. For example users would be able to click on the word 'electical current' and a definition of electrical current would appear with also links to supporting information. The user will not be allowed to edit any information only read it.
I am wondering what is the best language to use to do this? I know that storing all the information in a html file is definitely not the way to go. But I am not sure what to use - whether html linked to a database is a good option (I've heard that this is also not great because your database code is still accessible) or whether ror is a good option. I decided that ror would be a good framework to use but I still have some doubts such as:
the application will not be hosted on the internet but only on an intranet would ror still be good for this?
the 'site' is basically static except for a few users who will have admin access although it may have more user specific functions later on.
Any advice would be great. Thanks in advance.
It seems to me that a wiki type system would be fit for your purposes. You can create one without writing any code by using a free service such as Google Sites.
I agree with #Finbarr that your problem statement sounds like it could be solved by a wiki.
I suggest mediawiki since it is open source--you can add to it or change the core software if necessary.
Or any other opensource wiki could be used. See wikipedia article
Re: which language: your problem statement is pretty broad. From what you've told us, any language would do.
Best advice: find the open source wiki that most closely meets your needs and then learn the language that it was developed in. Usually that's php or perl. But you can also find Ruby on Rails wikis such as Instiki
Added: Welcome to Stack Overflow. Note that your question is quite broad. So it may get closed for not being specific enough. Stack Overflow is aimed at answering specific questions about software programming. See the faq.

Implementing reCaptcha into a Rails 2.3.12 app

I need to implement reCaptcha into a Rails app form for my internship. Unfortunately I am still taking my Web Programming classes and haven't gotten into any server side lessons yet, so I am still a complete noob when it comes to submitting forms and sending requests to servers, let alone not using RoR before I started the internship. I have been trying to find a tutorial to follow, but all that I've found assume more experience with web development.
I have the public/private keys from the site and have installed the plugin, but am completely lost now. Obviously I don't want someone to just tell me what I should code, but if someone could tell me where I need to go after this that would be fantastic. I know that I need to add <%= recaptcha_tags %> where I want reCaptcha to appear, but I haven't been able to find anything pertaining to what I need to code for the helpers or what kind of JavaScript I need to implement. I know I need to do some AJAX calls, but again, NO idea what to do or where to start.
Any tips, pointers or references to tutorials would be fantastical and I would love you forever and a day. Thanks!
look here
https://developers.google.com/recaptcha/docs/customization
http://hwork.org/2009/03/08/recaptcha-on-rails/
http://blog.ncodedevlabs.com/2010/01/26/implementing-recaptcha-in-your-rails-app/
or the best place :
http://google.com

Does Ruby on Rails affect how a web page looks?

Most of the time, whenever I hit a website that looks "bubbly" in nature, and all prettified in those pastel-like colors, I think to myself, "This was probably done with Rails." And, lo and behold, after some digging into the site's information pages I discover this is actually true. So, I pose the question, not knowing much about Rails but enough about Django to understand how the database stuff works:
Does RoR have any display-specific qualities that affect how a web page looks? Or do all RoR devs naturally use the same Adobe tools to make everything look so ubiquitous?
Ruby on Rails is a server side technology, so it doesn't lend any specific quality to the user visible design. That said, it is a "trendy" technology so people who are likely to write their back-end code with RoR are likely to choose a particular "Web 2.0" style for their views.
As a Ruby on Rails developer, I can tell you that most Ruby on Rails developers are passionate about their work and we pay a lot of attention to details when building websites as much backend as front end. Its not just a trend, its a way of thinking and working.
No, it hasn't any display-specific qualities.
The theory is that RoR makes that backend stuff easier, so more time can, and apparently is, spent on the front end stuff.
Its all done with Mirrors. And CSS. :)
Rails is a very popular Web framework, it's just be coincidence that all the ones you've looked at have been rails apps.
What kind of sites have you been looking at to draw this hypothesis?
that's a funny question with a funny description :) ... bubbly!
As a madman, I develop with RoR, it's kind of rule in our area. We learn madness from the beginning, as a result of http://railsforzombies.org...
May wise men follow a wise path!
Short Answer: NO
However...
As a Rails developer I can say that due to the Agile nature of Rails and the speed in which you can develop web applications with Rails I do find myself having more time freed up on a project to spend polishing the user interface. I believe this may be a reason you often see more polished looking Rails sites.
So in my mind I believe your choice of framework can have a direct correlation to the end product that is produced!
Rails does add some stuff to the front end. Like to every html form, it will add a hidden input element authenticity_token.
You can also tell because rails URLs and form actions will never end with suffixes like .aspx or .php or .html or .jsp, and they won't usually append ?query=book&encoding=utf8 like you see on google. And they won't usually have superlong crufties like you see on amazon (eg http://www.amazon.com/Agile-Web-Development-Rails-Ruby/dp/1934356549/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1297922135&sr=8-1). Instead Rails prefers simple routing URLs. If amazon were written in rails, you might instead expect amazon.com/books/Agile-Web-Development-Rails-Ruby
So there are ways to spot a Rails app. I expect other web frameworks, especially the ones that emulate rails, would duplicate some or all of these features, so this isn't a sure-fire method, but it helps.

recaptcha challenge issue

I am trying to configure an application for my client and I am using recaptcha for spam control and I am using ruby on rails (also using this plugin http://github.com/ambethia/recaptcha/).
My client wants an easy challenge as he is not able to read, its too hard. Is there any way I can make the challenge easier?
ReCaptcha is a third-party captcha, and I don't believe they give you any control over what captchas they serve.
It is true that a big complaint people have about captchas is that they can be hard to read, but if they were easy to read, they would also be easy for spammers to get past. You really can't win. :(
The good news with recaptcha in particular is that often you only have to get one of the two words right to pass the test, and it's usually the easier-to-read one. If you give your best effort with the other one, recaptcha will often let you through. (see the recaptcha site for details of how it works and why this is the case)
One solution might be to use some logic questions instead of confusing captcha images. There is a plugin for this.

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