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Archives
August 18, 2006
MAX Sessions by Track Now Include Dates and Times
I was just browsing the MAX event page and noticed that the dates and times are now added to the session details. So, now you can start planning out what sessions you want to attend. If you're interested in LiveCycle Designer, I'm giving the Hands on LiveCycle Designer course on Tuesday at 10:30 AM and 3:00 PM, Wednesday at 10:30 AM and Thursday at 3:30 PM.
Those of you interested in Adobe Flex and PHP will be happy to know that David Zuckerman will be giving two sessions: One on Tuesday at 10:30 AM and one on Wednesday at 4:15 PM.
technorati tags:adobe, adobemax06, adobemax, php, flex, livecycle
Great new tutorial for LiveCycle Forms
If you're interested in LiveCycle and seeing what its capable of, Zee at Flexlive.net has a great new tutorial showing you the power of LiveCycle Forms. The tutorial and sample code show how to bind XML data to a PDF form. Its a fairly simple example, and for now requires the LiveCycle Forms product, however I think you can do something similar with the XPAAJ library, which is available for use for Adobe enterprise customers - owners of LiveCycle, ColdFusion or Flex enterprise licenses.
One thing to keep in mind while you watch the tutorial: what Zee is not showing there is the fact that the PDF form can grow or shrink in size depending on the content that you send to it. I'm not sure that the example shows the power of LiveCycle and PDF forms. But, if you think about areas where you need a PDF printed document that grows or shrinks depending on the content (an invoice for example), then you begin to understand the power of LiveCycle and PDF form technology.
August 17, 2006
Ruby on Rails and Flex
I've decided to take the plunge and at least explore Ruby on Rails, inspired by a few posts to the FlexCoders email list. Here are the list of resources that I've found that are most useful in getting started with Ruby on Rails, Flex and other Adobe products.
Chritophe Coenraets: Christophe's tutorial is the best that I've seen so far that shows how to create a sample store using Flex and Ruby on Rails.
Stuart Eccles: Stuart wrote two articles (first article here, second article here) integrating RoR and Flex 2. Although written for beta 2 (I think?), they're still useful, though be aware that some properties have changed in newer versions of Flex.
This webpage has some tips on getting Ruby on Rails code highlighting and code completion working in Dreamweaver 8, however one of the links on the page is broken. This page is what they were linking to, telling you how to get Ruby files recognized in Dreamweaver. This page has a list of XML functions for code completion in Dreamweaver.
The group at Midnight Coders is working on an implementation of Flex Data Services for Ruby. As I write this, it will be released in 4 days, 19 hours, 3 minutes and 20 seconds. They've got a countdown timer for it.
This Google search (flex and ruby on rails) may provide more useful links for you.
If you've found other useful links, please post them as replies to this blog entry.
technorati tags:flex, rubyonrails, gettingstarted, adobe
Updated (unofficial) Adobe PHP SDK
I've updated the (unofficial) Adobe PHP SDK to fix some problems after the initial release. Turns out a few files were missing from the .zip file, and some files were misnamed. I've fixed these problems and also added in a new, more simple sample to show how Flex can retrieve XML data from a PHP backend, without requiring the use of a MySQL database. Finally, I've also removed the .svn files from the .zip file, reducing its size to only 1.5 MB.
You can download the updated .zip file here.
If you would like to contribute to this project, please:
- Join the mailing list at Google Groups.
- Email me to request access to the SVN repository at Google Code (posting a reply in this blog will do the same thing).
August 16, 2006
Internet Connection Speed Test Using Flash
Speedtest.net is a service that allows you to check the speed of your Internet connection. Rather than use Java to do this, as I've seen so many others do, this one uses Flash and has a much nicer interface than any others I've seen. Thanks to Alistair Lee, a fellow Adobe employee who really should be blogging, for the link.August 15, 2006
Running a Flex application locally and remotely
One of the problems working with Flex and a PHP backend is that the HTTP Service calls and RemoteObject calls need a complete path to the server. They don't accept relative URLs, only absolute URLs. This becomes a problem if you try and move things from a local testing server to a remote server. The URLs can get messed up, and it becomes painful to have to recompile a .swf file just to update a server name.
Here's a pattern that should help you as you create Flex applications and move them from a local server to a testing server to a production server. With this code, you don't need to modify the MXML file every time you move the resulting SWF file. Note: The code assumes that the default is http://localhost and will change to the server if it is being requested by something other than a file:// URL (this allows local testing to still work, again assuming that when you test locally, you're hitting the localhost server.)
Add the following code to your MXML file:
[Bindable]
public var hostname:String = "http://localhost";
public function onInit():void
{
var protocol:String = ExternalInterface.call("window.location.protocol.toString");
if( protocol != "file:" )
hostname = protocol + "//"+ ExternalInterface.call("window.location.hostname.toString");
}
Then, use something like this in ActionScript:
gateway = new RemotingConnection(hostname+"/adobe_php_sdk/libraries/amfphp/gateway.php");
or something like this in MXML:
<mx:HTTPService id="userRequest" url="{hostname}/adobe_php_sdk/samples/flex/simple_flex_php/request.php" useProxy="false" method="POST">
<mx:request xmlns="">
<username>{username.text}</username><emailaddress>{emailaddress.text}</emailaddress>
</mx:request>
</mx:HTTPService>
Note: This functionality is now implemented in the Adobe PHP SDK. You can see this by updating your code from SVN. The next release (.zip file) will have this implemented as well.
August 14, 2006
Announcing the (unofficial) Adobe PHP SDK
Today I'm happy to announce that I've started a new project called the (unofficial) Adobe PHP SDK, which is intended to enable PHP developers to build solutions with Adobe RIA technologies quickly. The (unofficial) Adobe PHP SDK contains samples and libraries that show how to connect to a PHP backend system with either the Adobe Spry Framework (for Ajax applications) or Adobe Flex (for Flash based applications).
You can download the adobe_php_sdk.zip file immediately, extract it and explore the samples and demos immediately.
In true open source fashion, all the code in the project is currently available in various open source licenses, and the content for the HTML page is available under the Creative Commons license.
There is a project hosted at Google Code for the Adobe PHP SDK, and a mailing list at Google Groups as well. Developers are encouraged to participate in a number of ways:
- Test out the samples in the project.
- Develop cool new samples to include in the project.
- Add cool features to samples already in the project.
- Improve the look of samples already in the project.
- Add links to great resources for PHP developers.
technorati tags:adobe, ria, ajax, php, spry, flex
Blogged with Flock
Google Maps + Flash = Google Maps Flight Simulator
What do you get when you take Google Maps data and add a Flash interface? Try the Google Maps Flight Simulator game here. Use the arrow keys to navigate the plane. If you're thinking of developing a Flash based site or need help with creating a o, you should think about hiring the creator of that site: Mark Caswell-Daniels. He's looking for work and you can get his email address from his site.technorati tags:flash, flightsim, googlemaps, adobe
August 10, 2006
Interested in LiveCycle? Check out this intro to LiveCycle Designer
Adobe intern Zee has created a great introduction to LiveCycle Designer. This Breeze overview gives you an introduction into a series of articles designed to show the integration between LiveCycle and Flex. In this initial article, Zee shows you how to create a form in LiveCycle Designer (try it free) using an XML schema created in XMLSpy. Future articles will show how to connect this form to Flex, using a similar input mechanism but based on Flex, and merging the data into a LiveCycle form, so that users could view the information offline.August 01, 2006
Real World Flex Seminar in New York - August 14th
Sys-Con is hosting a Real World Flex Seminar in 2 weeks time, on Monday, August 14th in New York City. The lineup looks really great - Adobe VP David Mendels will speak, as will Flex evangelist Christophe Coenraets. If you want to get a preview of Adobe Apollo, Luis Polanco, who is the Product Manager for Apollo, will be speaking at the event as well.
If you register before midnight tonight, the cost is only $395, and includes breakfast, lunch and snacks throughout the day, as well as a t-shirt and backback. I'm not sure I should be blogging about this, but I have heard that if you use the discount code "adobe1", you can save an extra $150.
The entire schedule of the event is posted online on the website. Sessions start at 9:00 AM and go until 6:00 PM. Topics covered include Flex and Java, Extending Ajax with Flex, Flex Data Services, Flash and Flex, Designing Great RIA Experiences, Creating Great Mashups Using Flex and Planning for Adobe Apollo.