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FREE ActiveDen File of the Month – December ‘09

// December 2nd, 2009 // No Comments » // Flash

Christmas comes early on ActiveDen! It’s the start of a brand new month which means it’s time once again for a fresh, fabulous, FREE ActiveDen file! In addition, we’re giving away one free file on each of the other marketplaces ( ThemeForest, AudioJungle, GraphicRiver, and VideoHive).

Author: Barisintepe

File: Magic Christmas Star

Features

• It’s magic
• It’s full of holiday cheer
• Santa likes it
• It’s 100% vector making it totally resizable
• It’s only 3kb

Usage:

You are granted ONE free usage of the item in a project, either commercial or non-commercial. You may not use the file in multiple projects unless you purchase licenses in the usual way. You may not redistribute the item in any way. If you need a different license for this file, you may purchase it here.

A big thanks for the free file, Barisintepe! Here are some of his other great files:

Download it here!

Also, be sure to check out this month’s free files from all the other Envato marketplaces.

Holiday Hiatus on Down the Foxhole

// December 2nd, 2009 // No Comments » // Flash

We would like to announce that Down the Foxhole will be taking a “holiday hiatus” over the festive season and will be back in 2010. The wait will definitely be worth it however as we’re going to be changing the format of all our blogs in the new year. Meanwhile, site news and announcements will continue to be posted right here on the existing blog.

Flash Farewell

On a personal note, I would also like to announce that this will be my final ActiveDen blog post. I’ve been blogging here on ActiveDen pretty much every week day for the past 8 months and it has been an absolute honor, I’ve enjoyed every single minute of it! I would like to thank everyone who has stopped by and read each blog post, commented, written to me and liaised with me personally, and supported the blog during my residency. I also want to thank ActiveDen site manager Lance for the opportunity of blogging for ActiveDen, it’s been brilliant working with you, Lance!

My favorite part of the blog has always been writing about and promoting all the outstanding files you guys produce and sell on ActiveDen: Features such as Under the Radar, Author Salute and the ActiveDen Files of the Week roundup. It’s also been awesome to get to know more about authors via the interview series we also ran on Down the Foxhole. Hopefully, these type of articles have helped promote and expose your terrific work a little more.

Farewell fellow Flash fans, and Down the Foxhole will see you again in the new year!

Buy Now, Better Deposit Expiry and Fees for Bank Transfer Payments

// November 26th, 2009 // No Comments » // Flash

The last 9 months we’ve been working hard on the financial parts of our system. During this time we’ve been building a better, more bulletproof accounting system into the app. It’s the kind of super important work that for the most part nobody notices, but ensures everything is working as it should. Along the way we’ve also been working on some other aspects which WILL be noticeable, and I’d like to tell you about three of them:

1. Buy Now! (Without Depositing)
   Easily one of the most common complaints on our marketplaces is that people need to use our depositing system, often meaning they need to deposit more than they might actually want to spend. While the system rocks for repeat users – something we really like to encourage – it does have its drawbacks.

   We’re currently beta testing our Buy Now system which will let users buy items one-off without depositing a minimum amount. It’s going to make life a lot simpler for first time and one off users.

   That said, our preference will always be to push buyers towards depositing, because that way they are more likely to be repeat users, to join in the community and to buy more! So we’re introducing a $2 price difference for Buy Now purchases that will be split at the usual %’s between authors and Envato.

   So an item that is currently priced at $10 will be $12 for Buy Now customers and $10 for prepaid deposit customers. Similarly an item that is $3 to Buy Now will be $1 for prepaid deposit customers.

   This also makes it possible to offer one-off purchases on items that cost just one dollar – given that payment fees could eat up most of the price otherwise.

   All in all, Buy Now will mean more flexibility, additional sales for authors, additional commissions for authors coming out of the extra $2, and most importantly happier buyers!

   Buy Now should be out of beta testing *very* soon!

2. Better Deposit Expiry
   When you deposit cash on the Envato Marketplaces it has a one year expiry date. In other words it’s a time-sensitive credit that you need to spend. We send out notifications as the expiry date approaches and given customers the ability to extend the credit should they wish.

   Since last week we’ve also upgraded the system so that a new deposit will automatically extend any previous deposits so that the whole balance has a single expiry date.

   So if you deposited $100 on Jan 1st 2009, then you deposited $100 on Nov 1st 2009, your total account balance of $200 would now be set to expire on Nov 1st 2010.

   This is a subtle change that ensures we don’t expire credits unless a user really has just gone away.

3. Introduction of Fees on Bank Transfer Author Payouts
   Authors on the marketplaces have always had the choice of payout via PayPal/Moneybookers or Bank Transfer. While PayPal/Moneybookers automatically add charges, for three years we’ve kept the bank transfers charge free, despite the bank fees and considerable time it takes to organize transfers to dozens of banks around the world.

   Unfortunately this is no longer sustainable as the number of authors requesting transfers has grown large enough that it requires Jun who manages all our payouts to spend days at a time processing the transfers, while the bank charges mount up on top. Given how fast the marketplaces are growing it’s clear that it’s finally time to add a charge.

   As a result we’re going to be introducing a processing fee of $35 for each withdrawal via SWIFT transfer. This is to cover both bank fees and administration time.

   The fee will be applicable from the January 15th 2010 payment cycle onwards. In other words, if you withdraw your December earnings via bank transfer, when it’s paid in January the fee will be applied.

   We’re exploring additional ways for authors to be able to withdraw their earnings, and will hopefully be able to add additional useful options for payouts in the future.

In related news over the December/January period we’re going to be carrying out some major performance tuning and infrastructure upgrades. Since the redesign the app has been humming along, but experience has taught us that it’s better to improve things *before* they need an improvement

So it’s onwards and upwards around here as we round out what has been a very big year with a slew of upgrades and improvements! Thanks, as always, for buying and selling with us!

20 Outstanding 3D Flash Files

// November 26th, 2009 // No Comments » // Flash

The quest to recreate 3D objects and interfaces and display them in a Web browser has been made all the easier because of Flash and software libraries such as Papervision3D. Here on ActiveDen, authors have been creating and uploading 3D Web sites, image galleries, carousels and interfaces for several years, selling thousands of files along the way.

We’ve looked through our entire library of stock Flash files and have picked out some of our favorite and most impressive 3D files that are available to purchase from ActiveDen. Don’t be fooled by the simplicity of some of the screenshots below: Be sure to click on them to view the full previews to see how effective and impressive images, videos and other content can look, all of which can be manipulated and customized by the user.

Papervision3D Cube Website

3D Tree 2

Advanced XML Website

CarouselDesigner v2

3D Pic Tail

3D Multimedia Studio v1: The Photo Package

Flashized Carousel

Advanced Wall 3D

Ultimate 3D Carousel AS2

3D Fine Art Gallery

Paper Box Image Gallery

Newton3D XML Website

3D Spherical Gallery

True 3D Carousel Gallery

Floating Media Gallery

3D Book Shelf

Flip Tab Image Rotator

Gallery FLASH V7

Textured Plane3D class

3D Photo Album Interactive

Visible Tweets: A Visual Treat

// October 21st, 2009 // No Comments » // Flash

Love it or loathe it, Twitter is everywhere. People are using Twitter to communicate with friends and family, to share ideas, to promote products and services, to raise money for charity… you name it, Twitter is a vehicle for it. People are Twittering at home, at work, on computers, and on cell phones. It’s one of the most pervasive social media applications in the entire world.

Twist on Twitter

But all those short, 140-character messages, whether it’s on Twitter.com in your browser, on an iPhone application, or a super-cool desktop application, it’s just not exciting enough. What all those bland messages need is a helping hand from Flash! And that’s where Visible Tweets comes in.

Visible Tweets is a Flash-based tool that takes the simplicity of Twitter but gives it a fresh new spin with elegant text-based animations. Simply enter a word, a name, or something you’re interested in, and the application will buffer all Tweets based on the subject you typed, and animate them in, one by one, in a creative way only Flash can successfully achieve.

Visual Verbs

There are three animation options at the time of writing: Letter-by-letter, Rotation, and my personal favorite, Tag Cloud. Designers will appreciate the typography and creative ways letters and words appear and later get re-used for following Tweets. Vivid, bright, vibrant background colors rotate with each Tweet that makes for an engaging way to read messages from the world of Twitter.

Public Display

It seems like the entire premise of the Web site is to get Visible Tweets in motion, enter fullscreen mode, and then leave it running on a machine in a public space for curious eyes to follow at every available opportunity. That public space might be a shop window, your office, or in a cafeteria… It doesn’t really matter where because the end results are always the same: Wandering eyes will always be drawn into the extremely simple yet strangely addictive animated broadcasts of this Twitter API and Flash mashup.

Visit Visible Tweets.

Sneak Peek at new ActiveDen Photo Assets

// October 21st, 2009 // No Comments » // Flash

We realize that our current asset library is looking a little old. Revitalizing the asset library is always a good thing to do as it provides new ways for you to present your ActiveDen files and also gives customers something fresh and different to look at.

New Assets!

We’re delighted to announce that we have some brand new photo assets coming to ActiveDen very soon! However, to whet your appetite, we’re going to show you some of the awesome photos we’ll be adding and give you an early opportunity to download them and start using them in your brand new Flash files!

Thank You!

But before we do that we really would like to thank the photographer who provided us with this superb collection of new photos! His name is Olaf Ernst. Olaf, take a bow! Olaf, an ActiveDen customer, took a look at our asset library and got in touch with us with the idea of adding new photos. When we saw Olaf’s photography we simply couldn’t say no! We really want to give a huge “thank you!” to Olaf for his contributions to the asset library, and if you like these photos or plan to use them, why not give a shout out to Olaf in the comments to this post?

Examples

Here are just a smattering of the photos in this new asset collection. There are a total of 72 new photos!

Download Now

Until we officially add the new photo assets to ActiveDen, the only way to grab the new assets is via the Dropbox link below. Click the link to view all the available images and download the images you need. And yes, you can start using them in your ActiveDen files straight away!

View / Download New ActiveDen Photo Assets

Usual Asset Library rules apply.

Important news: FlashDen is changing its name to ActiveDen

// October 16th, 2009 // No Comments » // Flash

For just over three fantastic years FlashDen has been the jewel in Envato’s crown. It is our longest running and most active community, and thanks to the amazing authors who showcase their work here, has become the largest Flash marketplace in the world.

This week Adobe asked us to change our name and URL so that it would no longer contain the term ‘Flash’, which is a registered trademark of Adobe. And so here at Envato HQ we’ve been busy thinking up new names and we think we’ve found a great new home for our community.

As of Monday 19th October, FlashDen.net will be changing its name to ActiveDen.net.

The new name amends the use of the word Flash, and it also opens up the marketplace for the future. In the last year we have added a budding Flex library and we now look forward to listing other interactive products like Adobe Air and maybe even Microsoft Silverlight!

We realize some members may have concerns about this decision, and to be honest I know I am always going to feel a little wistful about our old name, but we feel strongly it’s the right choice for FlashDen and will serve us in good stead for the future, allowing us to focus on what we do best – providing the very best marketplace for selling digital goods online.

As of Monday, the URL FlashDen.net will redirect to the new ActiveDen.net site. Everything will stay just as it always has been – we’ll just have a nifty new name!

I am sure the community will get behind us during this period of transition, and we’ll do everything possible to ensure it’s a smooth one with plenty of redirects in place to make sure no traffic, links, and especially buyers, are lost.

Thanks to everyone at FlashDen for three years of amazing growth and community, and here’s to many more as ActiveDen!

Blog Action Day 2009 – Eco:Drive

// October 16th, 2009 // No Comments » // Flash

Blog Action Day is an annual event that brings together blog communities from around the world to post about the same issue on the same day. The objective is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion.

Founded in 2007 by none other than Envato’s very own Collis & Cyan Ta’eed, over 20,000 bloggers were originally recruited to write about the issue of Environment on October 15, 2007. In 2009, Collis & Cyan asked the team at Change.org, the world’s leading blog network for social issues, to take over responsibility of Blog Action Day and expand its reach.

This year, the subject of Blog Action Day is Climate Change. And on Down the FoxHole today, we’re going to be taking a look at an awesome Flash Web site and Adobe AIR application that gives some great advice on how to lower gas emissions that may ultimately help reduce the possibility of climate change.

Eco:Drive

European car manufacturer FIAT produce cars with the lowest CO2 emissions of any car manufacturer in Europe. They’ve created an Adobe AIR application for both Mac and PC called Eco:Drive. The application will help improve how efficiently you drive. It does this via a USB drive that contains software. You plug-in the USB drive into your FIAT car while you’re out driving, then bring it back home and plug it into your computer. Eco:Drive then analyzes your driving style, examining acceleration and deceleration patterns, speed, and how and when you shift gears. From this analysis, the application then gives suggestions and ideas on how you can use less fuel next time you’re out driving. This helps reduce CO2 emissions and also saving money, as much as 15% per year.

Web Site

Once you’ve chosen which language you prefer, the FIAT Web site begins with a colorful and inviting animation explaining what the Eco:Drive system is in very easy terms. It features clean vector-style animation with peppy music and an informative voice over. This is a great way to explain very easily and quickly what Eco:Drive is all about.

What I like about the Web site is the colorful and inviting branding, and also how simple everything is communicated. Take a look at the Eco Tips section for example, FIAT are using a slideshow mechanism with thumbnails to list all their tips and ways to save fuel. No annoying back and forth page navigation, not too much information, just a simple and easy-to use experience:

Processing Driving Data

Once you’ve uploaded your data to Eco:Drive, it starts to anaylze your personal data and scores your driving style out of 100 points. This is called the eco:Index. This shows how efficiently you’ve driven. To improve your driving style in order to lower your CO2 emissions, there are several tutorials that show you what you can do to improve your driving technique.

Online Community

Users can also participate in a unique online community called Ecoville. Populated by all the FIAT Eco drivers that have submitted data, contributors can compare driving stats and learn new ways to save even more money while also helping the environment by reducing carbon emissions. I think Ecoville really enforces the concept of working together as a team and a community to really make positive changes. Change seems quicker and more likely when there is a community of people rather than an individual.

Change for the Better

It’s always impressive to see how technology can be leveraged for something good. Even if FIAT drivers each lower their carbon emissions by only 15% through Eco:Drive, those extra 15% reductions when combined together, soon add up to a positive change: A change that not only puts a little bit of money back in the pocket of the consumer, but more importantly, facilitates an improvement to the environment that the entire world can benefit from.

For more information about how the world is blogging about climate change,
check out Blog Action Day. Visit FIAT’s Eco:Drive to learn more about how they are helping the environment.

Last Week on FlashTuts+

// October 12th, 2009 // No Comments » // Flash

Flashtuts+, the “sister” Web site of FlashDen, is part of the envato Tuts+ network, and features some of the best Flash, ActionScript and Flex tutorials on the Web in an easy-to-follow and engaging format.

Each week on FlashDen we will provide a roundup of all the previous week’s tutorials from Flashtuts+ as a reminder to brush-up on your Flash skills or to learn something new.

An Introduction to Tweening with ActionScript 3.0

October 9th in ActionScript, Novice by Daniel Apt

Flash is known for delivering rich interactive experiences with a lot of “eye-candy”. Often, this eye-candy is achieved by means of animation and Flash has great animating capabilities. During this tutorial we’ll discuss tweening; Flash’s automated animation.

Creating a Reusable Flash Uploader with ActionScript 3.0 and PHP

October 7th in ActionScript, by Bratu Sebastian

In this tutorial I’ll show you how to build a Flash uploader for uploading files from the user’s computer. The result will be ideal for large file sizes as it will display a progress bar and the percentage left to upload. We’ll even show the user the number of bytes uploaded per second.

Throwing Dice With the Jiglib Physics Engine and Away3D

October 5th in 3D by Yagiz Gurgul

In this tutorial we’ll build a box which we can throw dice into. To do this we’ll use Away3D as the 3D engine and Jiglib as the physics engine. Let’s get stuck in..

Working with the New “Envato Marketplace Items” WordPress Plugin

// October 9th, 2009 // No Comments » // Flash

Just a few days ago, Envato’s very own WordPress ninja, Derek Herman, released a new “Envato Marketplace Items” plugin for WordPress. Now, with only a few minutes worth of work, you can display your recent files, popular files, and even files according to a specific category on your site. Not only that, but you can additionally attach your referral id to each item and earn 30% of your referred user’s first deposit!

In only a few steps, I’ll show you exactly how to implement this plugin into your own project.

Screencast Version

Written Version

Step 1: Install the Plugin

We begin by accessing the control panel of our WordPress installation. Next, within the sidebar, we choose “Add New”, under the “Plugins” widget.

Once the page loads, search for “Envato Marketplace Items.”

Look far to the right, and click “Install.” A modal box will pop up where you can then officially install the plugin. Once the installation has completed, simply click “Activate!”

Step 2: The Settings

The next step is to choose your settings. Don’t worry, it’s simple. Refer back to the sidebar of your control panel, scroll to the bottom, and under “Settings,” choose “Envato Marketplace.”

Most of the options are self-explanatory. You have the ability to choose your marketplace, select which kinds of files to display, and the text for the heading of your widget. An additional nifty little feature is the ability to append your referral id to the end of every link. This means that you’ll receive 30% from your referred user’s first deposit! Please refer here for more details.

When choosing which files to display on your blog, you have three options:

1. Files According to User
2. Files by Category
3. Popular Files

If working with one of the first two options listed above, you’ll need to fill out the following textbox, “API Set Parameter.” The value within this box should reflect your desired outcome. For example, if I wanted to display only WordPress templates, I would type “wordpress.” Alternatively, if I only wanted to display my personal items, I would simply type in my username.

Step 3: Add the Code Snippet

The final step is to place the provided code snippet (available in the “Envato Marketplace” settings page) anywhere within our project:

Most likely, you’ll choose to place this snippet somewhere within your sidebar, as I have.

Once you’ve added this snippet, save it, and upload the revised file to your server! That’s all! It’s as easy as that.

Please note that this tutorial assumes that you’re using WordPress 2.8 or newer. If you happen to be using an older installation, you’ll need to manually download the files, and then upload them to the “Plugins” folder of your WordPress installation.