A small issue with Flash Player 9 shows up when you do this AS2 code:

styles = new TextField.StyleSheet();
styles.setStyle(".green", {fontSize: '24px', color: '#00CC00'} );
//styles.setStyle(".almostblack", {color: '#010000'} );

this.createTextField("theField_txt", 1, 10, 10, 300, 300);
theField_txt.multiline=true; theField_txt.html = true;
theField_txt.styleSheet = this.styles;

var theHTML='<ul><li>stuff</li><li>some green text: <span class="almostblack"> </span><span class="green">Green!</span></li><li>more stuff</li></ul>'

theField_txt.htmlText = theHTML

will show up like this:



If you uncomment the almostblack style then the green bullet will look black.


If you make the almostblack style color really black 000000 instead of almost black, then the bullet will be green.

I'm assuming this will get fixed at some point and when that happens the almostblack hack won't really do anything other than be extra code that needs to be removed.
If/when it gets fixed then any pretty colored bullets made by doing this
var theHTML='<ul><li>stuff</li><li> <span class="green"> </span>black text with a green bullet</li><li>more stuff</li></ul>'
will suddenly be black.

there's also this
var theHTML='<ul><li>stuff</li><li><span class="green"> </span>black text with a black bullet</li><li>more stuff</li></ul>'
which makes a jumbo sized black bullet.

I'm doing some experimenting and trying to update some very old projects and getting kind of off the beaten track and finding some weirdness in Flash CS3 IDE..

If I open a custom panel that I've made and dropped into the windowswf folder, or if I open a panel someone else has made, I can right click somewhere on it and I get the full Flash Player context menu (Zoom In, Zoom Out, 100%, Show All, Quality, etc) and I can even add to that context menu via my code in the windowSWF. Now in other panels such as Window>Other Panels>Accessibility that are from Adobe you don't get that context menu.

So that breaks the user experience some.. but it gets even more broken. In my custom panels if I try using the "flyout" menu in the upper right corner of that panel all I see is "Help" in the menu. Clicking that takes me to the Help page for the Movie Explorer panel. Huh? I've tried this with custom panels from other folks and see the same thing.

I would expect if I specify a custom context menu from a WindowSWF that the menu items would show up in that little flyout menu but that is not what is happening. There might be some secret way of adding to that flyout menu and also disabling the "flash player" context menu that shows up in my windowSWFs. If you know that secret please share it.

Two vulnerabilities have been reported for the Flash Player ..it's been reported [here (the main source)] [here] and slighly different version [here]

So.. rapid7 notified Adobe on Sept 18th, Adobe has built the fix into the beta version of Flash Player 9, and now a 30-day "grace period" has passed and rapid7 is letting all the script kiddies know about this (before Adobe can roll out the final build of the Flash Player). Bah!

Here's the list of solutions according to rapid7
* Upgrade to the beta version (Flash Player 9.0.18d60 for Windows), which is fixed;
* Only allow trusted Websites to use Flash;
* Use alternative Flash Plugins (GplFlash, Gnash); or
* Uninstall Adobe Flash Player.

umm.. how about "Let's keep our mouth shut about this until the public beta is complete (which if it goes like other Flash Player betas will end very soon) and the new version of Flash Player 9 is released to the public"?? THEN tell everyone and their sister to upgrade to the latest Flash Player. Or.. if you're serious about helping people --> provide a freakin' link to install the Flash Player 9 beta. Sheesh..

My bet is (and I'm betting I'll get some comments to this effect) they're of the mindset that the Flash Player should be updated IMMEDIATELY after they report a flaw. Like it should be updated the next freakin day. I'll say it - hell no. If the Flash Player gets updated it's a major deal for me and many other Flash developers. It has a long beta period in which people like rapid7 are allowed to bang on it, and then we developers need to be able to count on it not changing for quite a while. Rapid7.. . you had your chance to find this long ago and you didn't. Now you want to claim some glory at our expense... that's very uncool.
And that bit about "Use alternative Flash Plugins (GplFlash, Gnash);".... oi..

So they've just told every script kiddie out there how to exploit this.. and those of us who make our living as Flash developers have to tell our bosses/clients/friends to go install a BETA version and then they'll have to install the final release when it comes out. Thanks!
Yeah, I'm spreading the word about this vulnerability too, but unlike rapid7 I'm providing a link to install the Flash Player 9 beta

I was having a bit of trouble with the Flash v2 scrollpane again… it was cutting off the bottom of loaded content because the scrollbar wouldn’t go all the way to the bottom.  I thought the last time I had this same problem it was solved with an onComplete() to the scrollpane, but it turned out to be a little more.  Read on if you don’t already know the solution..  or shoot..  read on because you might have a better solution. ..  not that this is really a solution.