The new model-driven development features in LiveCycle Data Services 3 offer a huge leap in productivity and ease-of-use for end-to-end applications. You start an application by creating a data model (a simple XML file) in the new "Modeler" editor that plugs into Flash Builder. From that model, you automatically generate data access logic on the server and Flex client code for working with the server code.
You can even generate much of a model by dragging existing SQL database tables into the Modeler editor. When you save the model, client code is automatically generated. When you deploy the model to the server, a fully functional Data Management Service destination is automatically generated on the LiveCycle Data Services server. You can support even the most advanced Data Management Service features just by creating and deploying a model.
Using Flash Builder with LiveCycle Data Services, you can now build simple or complex data-driven applications without writing any server-side code or configuration files. You can also take full advantage of the new Flash Builder 4 features for building the client side of data-driven applications.
We would love to get your feedback on this release and the documentation. To learn more:
Download the PDF: Advanced Spark Visual Components in ActionScript
Download the PDF: Spark list-based controls
]]>I've just updated the tutorials to provide access to the database files necessary to run the tutorials on Paging and Data Management. I've also updated several of the tutorials to make sure they work as designed.
This version of the tutorials is more current than the one installed with Flash Builder 4 Beta.
We are currently working on improving and updating the tutorials. Your feedback can help us provide a better introduction to Flex 4 and Flash Builder.
Of course, we are interested in any bugs you might find. But feedback on the scope, content, complexity, and length of time it takes to complete a tutorial is useful.
I hope to provide additional updates to the tutorials during the Beta period.
]]>When checking out the Beta documentation, notice that the TOC of the docs has been reorganized to make it easier to find topics. Of course, your feedback on the organization and content of the docs is always welcome.
The Flex 4 Beta Language Reference is also available online.
If you want to refresh the docs in your installation of Flash Builder, download flex4_beta_help_refresh.zip (26MB). In the Flash Builder help plugin directory, replace the html folder and toc.xml file with the contents in this file.
Here is the path to the Flash Builder help plugin directory:
<InstallDir>/Flash Builder Beta/plugins/com.adobe.flexbuilder.help_4.0.0.235740/
]]>Blueprint is an innovative code-centric search application, initially delivered as an Eclipse plug-in. It is a custom search tool that searches only for code (for now, it searches just for MXML and ActionScript). So, for example, if you search for DataGrid, it returns a set of code examples that use the Flex DataGrid control. But what's really cool is that you can easily highlight, copy, and paste chunks of code right into your application, all without leaving Flex/Flash Builder.
For more information, see the Blueprint page on Adobe Labs
You should probably start by reading the introductions from our Product Managers:
Although we still have a lot of work to do, we've provided a fairly rich set of beta documentation.
And finally, if you really want background information, there are updated specs on opensource.adobe.com:
Known issues:
And I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge and thank the Flex Learning Resources team: Erich Champion, Janice Campbell, Linda Adler, Matt Horn, Pam Araki, Shimi Rahim, Stephen Gilson, and Vince Genovese. They've been working hard for quite a while and I really appreciate their excellence and their effort.
Regards,
Randy Nielsen
Download the PDF: Spark Containers
]]>You should also read this post on Mylenium's blog, which provides some additional tips and color commentary.
If you want to discuss the new forum software (rather than the Flex forum specifically), please do so using this forum, which was created for exactly this purpose.
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new links and some navigation tricks
Each forum features an RSS feed. The web interface for the forum also sorts threads with recent activity to the top, and the titles are shown as bolder and darker for threads that have unread posts in them. You can navigate to the most recent post in a thread from the list of threads by clicking the "[some time] ago" text in the Last Post column.
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disabling automatic flooding of your email inbox
Todd Kopriva answered a question about multiple email messages with a screenshot here.
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forcing the forums to use the full width of the browser window
By default, the forum messages only take up a fixed, somewhat narrow part of the browser window. If you want to force the messages to take full advantage of the horizontal space available in a wide browser window, follow these instructions from forum host Andrew Yoole.
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using the History navigation tools
If you spend a lot of time on several different forums, you might benefit from bookmarking this page: History page showing recently visited forums (If you haven't visited any forums yet, or if you're not signed in, that's not going to be very useful.) This page gives you direct links to your favorite forums. Or, if you're just on the Flex forums, then you could bookmark the main Flex page and use the subforum pod on the side.
Many thanks to Todd Kopriva for letting me crib his After Effects forums post.
]]>Download the PDF: Using States
]]>What I found really useful was the list of vulnerabilities that SWFScan looks for. You can read through them (there's about 50) as sort of a "refresher" on what a secure app should look like. To do that:
Download the PDF:Using Spark Effects
I used an HTTPService with the resultFormat set to e4x to get the status information. In the result handler, I set the result to an XML object. Twitter.com has some very comprehensive documentation that cover all the service call APIs and return types here:
http://apiwiki.twitter.com/REST+API+Documentation
To display the Twitter statuses, I used an inline item renderer inside a List control. Simple to do and it looks good for a minimum amount of effort.
You need a proxy page that requests data from Twitter, since Twitter.com does not have an open crossdomain.xml file. In this case, we have an ASP.NET server available with an open crossdomain file, so my proxy page (twit.aspx) is written in C# and put up on that server. I am more familiar with PHP server-side code, so it was a little tricky to get the C# syntax right.
My ASPX syntax uses the System.Net.WebClient.DownloadData() method to do the same thing that the file_get_contents() PHP function does.
If you have a PHP server, there's already an example written in PHP that you can also look at:
http://www.blackcj.com/blog/tag/cross-domain-xml/
Twitter statuses are sent out every 60 seconds, so I used a timer that calls send() on the HTTPService every 60 seconds. This is configurable, too, but there's no point in making the updates shorter than 60 seconds, according to the Twitter documentation.
This example is currently set up so you can use the twit.aspx page on aspexamples.adobe.com as a test page. You just pass a username to it with a GET request, setting the p parameter to the username you want to track. In my example, I hardwired my Twitter address so you can see it running, but you can put any username in there that you want when you build your own client. Please don't use the service for production reasons, or we'll have to lock it down.
Download the files mentioned in this article:
Download file (2K)
Enjoy!
]]>What does this mean?
For more information:
And, finally, there is currently a IE 6 bug in which a Server Communications error displays for pages that have no comments. I'm told that this will be fixed in the next iteration.Regards,
Randy Nielsen
The first example shows a LineChart. You can click on an item in the chart, which brings up a ColorPicker. You select a color and Flex applies that color to the selected series.
The meat of the example is in the itemClick handler. This is where you get a reference to the LineSeries by accessing the LineSeriesItem's element property. Here's the code:
private function selectItemHandler(e:ChartItemEvent):void {
var hitData:HitData = e.hitData;
csi = LineSeriesItem(hitData.chartItem);
el = ChartElement(csi.element);
cp = new ColorPicker();
myChart.addChild(cp);
cp.addEventListener(ColorPickerEvent.CHANGE, changeItemColor);
cp.x = e.localX;
cp.y = e.localY;
cp.open();
}
The changeItemColor() method is pretty straightforward. For a LineChart's series, you define a new Stroke and then apply that Stroke to the series' lineStroke style. You then remove the ColorPicker from the display list so it doesn't pollute the chart's appearance. Here's the code for that:
private function changeItemColor(e:ColorPickerEvent):void {
var s1:Stroke = new Stroke(cp.selectedColor, 4, 1);
el.setStyle("lineStroke", s1);
myChart.removeChild(cp);
}
Here's a running example:
To change the color of a series like a ColumnSeries or a BarSeries, you have to apply the style a little bit differently. In this case, you define a SolidColor and then apply that to the series' fill property.
var c:SolidColor = new SolidColor(cp.selectedColor);
el.setStyle("fill", c);
Here's the running example:
The final example is a little different in that it applies the color to a single item in the series and not the entire series. I thought it was interesting, so I figure I'd share it.
Instead of applying a style to the series, you set the fill property on the ColumnSeriesItem:
var c:SolidColor = new SolidColor(cp.selectedColor);
csi.fill = c;
In addition, to get it to work requires a little workaround: You have to trigger a call to the series' updateDisplayList(). To do that, you just set a property on the itemRenderer, like this:
csi.itemRenderer.height = csi.itemRenderer.height;
Here's the running example:
Here is a ZIP file of the 3 running examples and the source code:
Download file (985KB)
You might notice that these examples also use the live data that I blogged about recently.
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