April 8th – Jeff Galak (CMU) Programming Behavioral Experiments in Flash Session 2 of 3 Building Your First Flash Experiment April 8th – Jeff Galak (CMU)

Agenda for the Week Session 1: Thursday, April 8th (10-12pm): Intro to Web Programming, PhP, and Flash Session 2: Thursday, April 8th (2-4pm): Building Your First Flash Experiment Session 3: Friday, April 9th (10-12pm): Advanced Topics if Flash (Sounds, Videos, and Real Time Ratings) Session 2 - 04/09/2010

Agenda for Today Working with Pictures Reaction Times Create a new experiment from “scratch” Session 2 - 04/09/2010

Two Ways To Get Pictures Into Your Program “Hard Code” them Drag an image file from a folder directly onto the stage. Note that Flash adds it to the library. File -> Import to Stage/Library Use ActionScript Session 2 - 04/09/2010

Pictures and ActionScript Use the “empty movie clip” place holder Name it something: “imageLoader1” Save an image file in the same folder as the program In ActionScript, use the following code: loadMovie(“img.jpg", "imageLoader1"); Name of image file. Can be variable or string. Name of place holder. Can be variable or string. Session 2 - 04/09/2010

Reaction Times in Actionscript gettimer() Starttime = gettimer() Put this somewhere in the main part of the frame Endtime = gettimer() Put this wherever you exit the frame (e.g. when a button is clicked) storedate(“reactiontime”,endtime-starttime); Put this just below the endtime=gettimer() line Done! Session 2 - 04/09/2010

Creating a New Experiment: Steps Duplicate existing experiment Rename all the files to the new experiment name Update “experiment”.php Change experimentname Set the right number of conditions Session 2 - 04/09/2010

Creating a New Experiment: Steps Program your experiment Update the preamble to reflect the correct conditions Do everything else Test your program in Flash (use Trace when needed) Compile your experiment: Shift + F12 Create debriefing Session 2 - 04/09/2010

Creating a New Experiment: Steps Server Stuff Connect to your server via FileZilla Create a directory with the same name as your experiment Upload everything CHMOD the folder and files to 777 Test your program online Check that the data file is created and looks right CHMOD the data file to 777 Session 2 - 04/09/2010

Homework 1. Install software!! 2. Try and upload the existing files to your webserver and see if everything works Make sure to check permissions (CHMOD 777 works well)…ask me for help 3. Take any simple questionnaire you have and try to turn it into a program (at least 2 conditions) If you can’t get the web version to work just yet, try and get it to work locally (e.g. with CTRL+ENTER) If you don’t have a questionnaire, I will give you one Session 2 - 04/09/2010

Next Session Session 3: Friday, April 9th (10 – 2pm): Advanced Topics if Flash (Sounds, Videos, and Real Time Ratings) Session 2 - 04/09/2010