Programming Behavioral Experiments in Flash Session 2 of 3 Building Your First Flash Experiment January 30, 2009 – Jeff Galak (NYU)

Session /30/ Agenda for the Week Session 1: Thursday, January 29 th (2-4pm): Intro to Web Programming, PhP, and Flash Session 2: Friday, January 30 th (10-12pm): Building Your First Flash Experiment Session 3: Friday, January 30 th (3-5pm): Advanced Topics if Flash (Sounds, Videos, and Real Time Ratings)

Session /30/ Agenda for Today Working with Pictures Reaction Times Create a new experiment from “scratch”

Session /30/ Two Ways To Get Pictures Into Your Program 1.“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 2.Use ActionScript

Session /30/ 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 /30/ 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 /30/ Creating a New Experiment: Steps 1.Duplicate existing experiment 2.Rename all the files to the new experiment name 3.Update “experiment”.php Change experimentname Set the right number of conditions

Session /30/ Creating a New Experiment: Steps 4.Program your experiment Update the preamble to reflect the correct conditions Do everything else Test your program in Flash (use Trace when needed) 5.Compile your experiment: Shift + F12 6.Create debriefing

Session /30/ Creating a New Experiment: Steps 7.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 Test your program online 9.Check that the data file is created and looks right 10.CHMOD the data file to 777

Session /30/ 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 /30/ Next Session Session 3: Friday, January 30 th (3-5pm): Advanced Topics if Flash (Sounds, Videos, and Real Time Ratings)