FlexAbility

Boston Flex User Group meeting :: Tomorrow, January 12 :: Daniel Rinehart on AIR 2.0

Douglas McCarroll — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 00:30:03 +0000

From the announcement at http://bostonfug.org:

“Daniel Rinehart will discuss his experiences and insights into developing for the 2.0 release of the Adobe AIR player. Daniel is known for his programming and architectural skill and his talk will be dense with worthwhile nuggets.”

I can personally vouch both for Daniel’s expertise and for his ability to clearly communicate technical information. If you’re interested in Adobe’s AIR technology, this meeting is definitely worth attending. For details, see the URL above.

See you there!

Douglas

Boston Flex Application Incubator Group meeting tomorrow :: in Boston and Worldwide via Acrobat Connect!

Douglas McCarroll — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 01:04:56 +0000

The meeting starts at 6:15 PM, Eastern Standard Time.

Details at: http://www.bfaig.org/blog/?p=135

The main agenda item wil be a brainstorming session with Jack Hotchkiss from The Nature Conservancy about a project that he’s contemplating. See the above URL for details.

We hope to see you there!

Douglas

Speeding up searches in Eclipse

Douglas McCarroll — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 20:58:10 +0000

This is probably obvious to many of you, but I just discovered that placing the string ‘*.as, *.mxml’ in the ‘File name patterns’ field of Eclipse’s search dialog results in blazingly-fast code searches.

Guessing the Schedule for AIR 2.0 on Mobile and the Slider Framework

Douglas McCarroll — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 23:55:15 +0000

Lately I’ve been trying to get some sense of when AIR 2.0 might be finding its way onto mobile devices, and when the Flex Mobile Framework (aka Slider) might be available to developers. I’ve talked/emailed with a couple of people from Adobe but I’m not sure who would want to be quoted on what – so I’m not going to quote anyone. Just consider these to be my more-or-less informed best guesses.

This first point I’m fairly sure of: While mobile devices with Flash 10.1 installed should be getting into the public’s hands by July 1, 2010, this won’t include AIR 2.0. So you’ll be able to run Flash applications in your device’s browser, but you won’t be able to install and run any AIR applications. (And, of course, even your browser based content will need to be designed so that it uses a lot less memory and CPU cycles than we’ve become accustomed to having at our disposal when creating Flash content for the desktop. For example, applications created with the current Flex framework won’t run satisfactorily, if at all.)
It’s my impression that AIR 2.0 will be available for development devices some time in “late 2010″. I’ll go out on a limb here and predict that this will happen by October 1st. But be warned – I’m an optimist!
Then – guessing wildly here – it will start to appear on devices in the public’s hands – by January 1, 2011?
And – more guessing – a beta version of Slider will be available to developers around November 1, 2010. With a commercial release by April 1, 2011?

It will be fun to check back in a year or so and see how well these predictions/guesses have fared.

I should also mention that we have another option available to us much sooner – Adobe is publicly saying that the CS5 Flash “export to iPhone” option will be available in a beta by the end of 2009. I won’t predict how well this is going to work, but for simple applications it’s probably worth considering.

If you know something that contradicts what I’m saying here, or even confirms it, I’d love to hear it – please add a comment!

Boston Flex Application Incubator Group – Meeting Tomorrow (Tuesday) – Online & In-Person

Douglas McCarroll — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 19:12:37 +0000

Meeting:

Date: Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Time: 6:15 PM EDT
Where:
- Online, at http://adobechats.adobe.acrobat.com/bfaig20091020/
  - See our Attending BFAIG page for details on attending online.
- In-Person, at the Boston office of Broduer Partners, 855 Boylston Street, a short walk from the Hynes & Copley Green Line T stops.
Agenda:
- Announcements & opening discussion
- The floor will be open to anyone who wishes to present. If you’d like to insure that you’ll get a slot please contact us and we’ll put you on the agenda.
- If time allows, Douglas McCarroll will show how he uses the “strategy” design pattern to sequence audio in his Language Collaborative project.
Attendees will be eligible for our bi-annual software raffle:
- Twice a year Adobe allows us to raffle off a software package – of the winner’s choice – worth up to $2100. Here’s how it works:
- Attend monthly meetings of this group or of ABUG (our parent group)
- Your name will be entered to win the software
- Attend multiple meeting and your name will be added to the raffle list multiple times
- Raffle will occur twice a year, some time in the second and fourth quarters of each year
- Read the fine print at http://www.abug.us/blog/?p=4!

See you there!

About BFAIG:

BFAIG’s focus is on helping new and intermediate developers with problems and questions that arise in the course of their work and study. While we may occasionally host an expert presenter, for the most part meetings consist of learner presenters presenting to the group and obtaining input and solutions for the issues that they raise. For a fuller explanation of how BFAIG operates, please see our website.

Apologies for the Spam

Douglas McCarroll — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:09:02 +0000

I’ve always wondered why it occasionally happens that a bunch of old blog posts from one blog come through Adobe’s blog aggregator (MXNA). Now I know.

This happens when you realized that your posts haven’t been appearing, and ping the aggregator (see http://feeds.adobe.com/PingProxy.cfm) to let it know that you’ve published something new.

There may be other scenarios as well – if you know what they are, please leave a comment.

Anyway, the Boston Flex User Group and Boston Flex Application Incubator Group meeting announcements that appeared on MXNA on Saturday are for meetings that have already happened. My apologies for any confusion. I’ll have a new BFAIG announcement out shortly, for tomorrow’s meeting.

Boston Flex User Group :: Meeting Tuesday :: Libby Freligh on This Business of Flex

Douglas McCarroll — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 16:52:50 +0000

The Boston Flex User Group presents Libby Freligh on This Business of Flex:

This talk is a departure from our usual technical focus, and we think it will be an especially exciting one. Our speaker, Libby Freligh, was a key player in the original definition, creation and launch of the Macromedia Flex platform, and our talk will take a fascinating look at the genesis of the platform from a business and product management angle, as well as a look at the present and the future.

Libby will start with a perspective on the early history of Flex platform, discussing how Flex evolved from an initial concept into the major force in RIA development that it is today. The rest of the talk will provide a business perspective on current RIA development, looking at how the landscape has evolved and how Flex and other platforms have essentially changed the terms of how software gets built now. Libby will also talk about her experience since Macromedia in designing and developing RIA products that successfully address the online market.

More info at http://www.bostonfug.org

Please RSVP at http://bostonfug14.eventbrite.com/

See you there!

Boston Flex Application Incubator Group meeting this Tuesday – Online & in Dedham, MA

Douglas McCarroll — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 15:57:19 +0000

The Boston Flex Application Incubator Group – a subgroup of the Adobe Boston User Group – is being reactivated after being inactive for about a year.

The group will be meeting monthly on the third Tuesday of each month, from 5:45 – 7:15 PM. Meetings will have a combined online/in-person format, with the in-person aspect happening at the offices of Metatomix in Dedham. The next meeting will be this Tuesday.

BFAIG’s primary focus is on helping new and intermediate developers with problems and questions that arise in the course of their work and study. The group has a somewhat unusual format – rather than a “presenter dispensing knowledge and wisdom” we have “learner-presenters” who present a question or problem and get help from the other attendees.

Meeting details are at http://www.bfaig.org/blog/?p=83

BFAIG’s website at http://www.bfaig.org has a lot of details on how the group works.

BFAIG’s Yahoo Group mailing list is at http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/BFAIG/

I hope to see you there.

Using the Flex Framework source code in a project

Douglas McCarroll — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 16:33:22 +0000

You would think that it would be fairly simple to include the Flex framework source code in a project, rather than using the framework.swc library. Simply include the [SDK]\frameworks\projects\framework\src folder in your source path and delete framework.swc from your library path, and you’re good to go, right? Well, it’s not quite that simple.

First of all, you also need to include the [SDK]\frameworks\projects\framework\assets folder, or you’ll get a lot of compile errors similar to this: “Invalid Embed directive in stylesheet – can’t resolve source ‘Embed(source = “Assets.swf”, symbol = “__brokenImage”)’”.

You’ll now be able to compile without any errors, but if you run your project it will throw this error – “TypeError: Error #1010: A term is undefined and has no properties.” – in StyleManagerImpl.initProtoChainRoots(). I’m not going to go into detail on why this occurs, but the root cause is that the compiler doesn’t find the default.css file in the [SDK]\frameworks\projects\framework folder. As a result the info() method in the generated* _[your_app's_name]_mx_managers_SystemManager file contains a line that looks like this:

mixins: [ "_ClassFactoryDemo_FlexInit", "_advancedDataGridStylesStyle", "_ClassFactoryDemoWatcherSetupUtil" ]

instead of like this:

mixins: [ "_ClassFactoryDemo_FlexInit", "_richTextEditorTextAreaStyleStyle", "_DividedBoxStyle", "_alertButtonStyleStyle", "_textAreaVScrollBarStyleStyle", "_headerDateTextStyle", "_globalStyle", "_ListBaseStyle", "_todayStyleStyle", "_windowStylesStyle", "_ApplicationStyle", "_ToolTipStyle", "_CursorManagerStyle", "_opaquePanelStyle", "_TextInputStyle", "_errorTipStyle", "_dateFieldPopupStyle", "_dataGridStylesStyle", "_DataGridStyle", "_popUpMenuStyle", "_headerDragProxyStyleStyle", "_activeTabStyleStyle", "_DragManagerStyle", "_ContainerStyle", "_windowStatusStyle", "_ScrollBarStyle", "_TextAreaStyle", "_swatchPanelTextFieldStyle", "_textAreaHScrollBarStyleStyle", "_plainStyle", "_activeButtonStyleStyle", "_advancedDataGridStylesStyle", "_comboDropdownStyle", "_ButtonStyle", "_HDividedBoxStyle", "_DataGridItemRendererStyle", "_weekDayStyleStyle", "_linkButtonStyleStyle", "_ClassFactoryDemoWatcherSetupUtil" ]

which is how it should look. In particular, the missing “_globalStyle” bit causes you app to break.

So you need to either include the [SDK]\frameworks\projects\framework folder in your source path, which will cause ‘overlapping source path’ warnings, or copy this file to another folder and include that folder in your source path. Personally, I just copy it into the [SDK]\frameworks\projects\framework\src folder, which accomplishes the same thing.

Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “This is all wonderful, Douglas, but why would I want to do this in the first place? It works just fine to use framework.swc. Flex Builder sets up new projects so that this and other SWCs have a ’source code attachment’. You can set breakpoints and step through the code, etc. Why do you need to actually compile the framework source code as part of your project?”

Well, in my case I’m doing this because, while all of that is true, it doesn’t seem that Eclipse’s ‘Mark Occurrences’ feature works with ’source code attachments’. I rely heavily on this feature when I’m trying to figure out what code is doing, which is the whole purpose of this exercise in the first place.

But it seems as though there must be a simpler way to do this. If you know of one, please add a comment!

* If you aren’t familiar with generated code, try adding the ‘-keep’ option to your compiler options. Then recompile and look for a ‘generated’ folder your project’s main source folder. It will contain the ActionScript classes that are created based on your MXML files. These files are normally compiled into your project’s SWF then deleted. Turning on the -keep option simply tells the compiler not to delete them when it’s done with them.

Eclipse’s “Team – Ignored Resources” Ignored?

Douglas McCarroll — Thu, 07 May 2009 14:07:33 +0000

I’m trying to use the Eclipse “Ignored Resources” preference so that I can maintain my own personal settings for Flex projects that I’m working on. Specifically, when I make changes to the .actionScriptProperties, .flexProperties & .project files, I want SVN to ignore them. We use the Subversive Eclipse plugin and these settings seem to have no effect on how it operates. When I go to Team | Synchronize with Repository, Subversive still lists these files as files that need to be committed.

If you have any idea on how to make this work, please add a comment!