Flip Book
I’ve known Ruben through the actionscript.org forums for some time now – a top guy, and he’s just released the alpha of a very nice Flipbook. Great work Ruben!
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I’ve known Ruben through the actionscript.org forums for some time now – a top guy, and he’s just released the alpha of a very nice Flipbook. Great work Ruben!
7 comments
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Hey Frances was right this was done over a year ago by Ely Greenfield and the code is available.
http://www.quietlyscheming.com/blog/components/flexbook/
Nice re-skinning though.
I just don’t understand why anyone would use Flex for this, unless the pages where full of Flex components/charts (i.e. making some use of the Flex framework).
That said here’s a pretty advanced version from Ely http://www.quietlyscheming.com/blog/components/flexbook/
@Mike – Francis? Perhaps a comment on another site?
I hadn’t seen Ely’s version (or any version using AS3 to date), but I knew the effect was nothing new. Pixelwit did it way back in 2002 (http://www.pixelwit.com/blog/index.php/page-flip/)
I believe Ruben wrote the code for his version from scratch.
@Tink – I totally agree. The overhead of using Flex is unnecessary given what Ruben has demonstrated here. I’m sure there’s nothing in there that’s even using using the framework, other than the outer container.
———
There are particular reasons I wanted to post an entry about this – and I meant to link to the blog post, not directly to the book (edit: now changed)…
Ruben is releasing his code, and I thought would be of interest to people learning AS3. I also think he’s done a great job with the transparency as well as the hardback pages – they look more realistic than the skewing effect used on other Flipbooks books I’ve seen. Finally, it’s always nice to see someone come to actionscript.org and mature as a coder :]
Oddly enough I followed a link to Ely’s blog (via Doug McCune’s site for a totally different reason) and saw this discussion:
http://www.quietlyscheming.com/blog/2007/03/14/
why-the-flex-in-flexbook-orwhy-a-flash-author-should-care-a-lot-about-flex/
Here is the problem I have. Ely says it straight out that he verted it from flash version to flex. He gives credit where credit is do and let everybody know where it came from. He turned it into a flex piece and supplied everyone with the code.
Now Ruben is going to get that and make a few adjustments and claim that it is his own. He has the nerve to post a grand Alpha release. I mean he says that he built it from ground up? Sure he wasn’t digging through the exact same thing that has been done over and over. He oddly enough knew what Ely’s was doing because before he removed all the comments from his blog he replied to me stating what’s diffrent from his. version and Ely’s. But he never looked at it right. Come on man.
How would you feel if someone swiped the code you supplied everybody with and then made this GRAND RELEASE without giving credit? This is bad for all of us because I guarantee people will stop sharing their code if guys like Ruben out there pull the piracy act and claim it for there own. Think about it.
Hi Mike,
Thanks for the feedback. I certainly understand the problems you express/perceive with this. I feel unable to provide a particularly balanced response to much of it without having seen (and compared) all the source code (heh, don’t expect me to do that!). I certainly don’t wish to get embroiled in an argument based on conjecture, but I’ll simply step through what you said bit by bit and respond with my immediate thoughts :]
1) Credit not given.
Yes I completely agree that Ruben should give credit for his inspiration (and any code used). I’ve seen this effect many times before so I knew it wasn’t original, but as far as I know full credit may be given in the source code, so I won’t be too quick to judge him on this. You are right, full credit should be given *somewhere*.
2) QUOTE: “Sure he wasn’t digging through the exact same thing that has been done over and over”.
Truth is, I simply don’t know, do you? This brings up an interesting point though, because I was very active on the Flash forums when the iparigrafika.hu pageflip came out, and I vividly remember someone pointing to a Java pageflip that they claimed it was ripped from. Now, I don’t see the iparigrafika.hu version give any credit to anyone else – maybe they did invent the effect completely from scratch, but if they improved an existing effect or had inspiration then where’s the credit? Wouldn’t this whole thing be ironic if the very version that led the way for Ely, Pixelwit and Ruben’s versions, was itself ripped off without credit. Also, see point 7…
3) QUOTE: “I mean he says that he built it from ground up”.
No, I think *I* inferred that in my last comment above. I haven’t seen Ruben claim that himself (please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong). Actually, I see from his blog comments that his code was based on this: http://labs.flexcoders.nl/?p=33 , not Ely’s version.
4) QUOTE: “Ely says it straight out that he verted it from flash version to flex. He gives credit where credit is do and let everybody know where it came from”
Heh, yeah but you’ve got to admit, while it is there on the page, it’s not like it yells out at you – I had to look for it ;) http://www.quietlyscheming.com/blog/components/flexbook/
5) QUOTE: “Now Ruben is going to get that and make a few adjustments and claim that it is his own.”
Is he? Has he? A few adjustments? I take it you’ve seen the code. I simply can’t answer this. I have no idea what Ruben will do next.
6) QUOTE: “He has the nerve to post a grand Alpha release”
As far as I’m aware he’s posted it on his blog … where to be fair he also posts about various Flex topics freely in order to help others.
Let’s assume for one moment that he did write the vast majority of this from the ground up. Is he not entitled to (a) be proud of what he did and (b) post it on his blog? It’s not as if he’s selling it. He is offering to give the code away for free (at which point you can make all the comparisons you need), but I don’t quite understand the reason behind this apparent vitriolic remark – sorry but I really don’t. I’ve seen 101 Flash MP3 players written and given away or sold in this manor. No one makes a fuss about that. Why is this so different?
7) QUOTE: “He oddly enough knew what Ely’s was doing” / “But he never looked at it right. Come on man.”
Did he say he never looked at the code? I don’t know, but I don’t think it’s particularly odd if he did look at the code.
I personally don’t think that looking at someone else’s source code is bad at all (as long as it’s intentionally public). Quite the opposite in fact. I learn the most from other people’s code, not from books. I see a big difference between looking at someone’s code to see how they do something, and straight copy & paste. Standing on the shoulders of giants and all that. If it’s completely ripped off then that’s a different matter, but if he rewrote it to make it better, well then that’s part of development isn’t it? He’s taken an idea and developed it further. Good on him.
8) QUOTE: “How would you feel if someone swiped the code you supplied everybody with and then made this GRAND RELEASE without giving credit?”
Hmmm, the nearest I can get to that experience is having seen my tutorials (not currently on this new site) ripped off word for word without credit, more than a few times – usually when they were translated. Okay they were just tutorials(!), but I can tell you, some of them took hours of sweat ! Personally it was never a big issue for me. Sure, it would be nice to get credit, but really it depends what your motivation is for doing stuff in the first place. Is it something for your CV, did you do it as a learning experience, did you do it to further development on your platform or just to massage your ego? Usually it’s a combination. I don’t think most of the really good developers I know would care as much as you’d think, as long as they intentionally put the code out there for free – they’d be far too busy working on the next great thing, not looking back.
9) QUOTE: “This is bad for all of us because I guarantee people will stop sharing their code if guys like Ruben out there pull the piracy act and claim it for there own. Think about it.”
I understand that you want to make your point firmly, but I have thought about it, and you guarantee it? I heard the same arguments on Flashkit back in about 2000. In fact I was probably the one making that argument. It’s simply not true though. Don’t get me wrong, you may be 100% correct in your perception if what is going on, but I don’t know Ruben personally, and I certainly don’t know enough to throw accusations at him.
I should clear up this one last point – as i said I don’t know Ruben personally. I’ve spoken to him on the forums (infrequently, but over a number of years) so I don’t think there is bias towards him in my reply, and I feel no need to defend him on a personal level, but I do know that he gives something back to the community in terms of his blog and forum contributions though, and that should count for something.
Cheers,
Neil
Ruben’s credits in his code:
* Credits:
* – Didier Brun
* For making his pageflip rendering class (com.foxaweb.pageflip.PageFlip)
* Site: http://www.foxaweb.com
* – Thomas Pfeiffer (aka Kiroukou)
* For letting me use his distortion class (org.flashsandy.display.DistortImage)
* Site: http://www.flashsandy.org
* – the Factor.e
* For allowing me to publish the demo and the source-code.
* Site: http://www.tfe.nl
* – Maikel Sibbald
* For helping me with (among a lot of things) thinking out the structure of this component. He also made a usage-example of Didier’s pageflip class (labs.flexcoders.nl/?p=33) which I used as reference in the early days of the Book class.
* Site: labs.flexcoders.nl
* – Theo Aartsma (aka Sumeco)
* For letting me use his artwork in the Book demo.
* Site: http://www.sumeco.net