Peter deHaan

I was quickly skimming some old “Flex” topics in my Google Reader this morning and thought I’d share some posts which you may or may not have missed in the past week or eleven…

• Flex Camp Toronto 75% Sold Out (now 86%, according to the TorontoFlex! user group page) — If you’re anywhere near Toronto, and remotely interested in Flex, definitely check this out. I had the opportunity to check out the Flex Camp in San Francisco. Go hang out with Adobe’s own Mike Potter and others and enjoy some food and free stuff. If you’ve attended a previous Flex Boot Camp, Matt Chotin is/was soliciting your feedback.
• Redesigned Flex cookbook — Check out the new-and-improved Flex Cookbook. Heck, submit a few of your best tricks and you may even get them published in the printed O’Reilly Flex Cookbook! (for more information see, “Call for topics for the Flex 3 Cookbook from O’Reilly Media“.)
• Flex Builder Free For Students — Students and faculty will soon be able to download Flex Builder 2 for free (Yahoo! Finance Press Release).
• Adobe MAX 2008 in San Francisco Nov. 16-19 — Mark your calendars! Next year Adobe will have home-court advantage for the Adobe MAX conference! Hope to see you all there.
• Flex 3 Beta 2 – Lower Price Flex Builder 3 — Ted Patrick outlines the new pricing scheme for Flex SDK and Flex Builder 3.
• Flex Family Expansion – Linux Alpha, “Thermo”, “Elixir”, Skin Extensions — Flex Builder on Linux? What is Thermo? Head over to Ted’s blog and get the scoop!
• The Export Release Wizard — Tim Buntel posts on making production-ready Flex SWF files by using the export release wizard in Flex 3 beta 2.
• Debugging Tricks — Alex Harui also discusses how Flex Builder 3 beta 2 no longer makes debug/release versions of your SWFs on every build, and offers a few very useful snippets.
• ActionScript Read/Write Performance – Alex talks ActionScript performance. Very detailed and definitely worth reading!

Of course, that only scratches the surface. A few weeks ago Adobe also released a completely overhauled version of the Adobe Developer Center (now renamed the Adobe Developer Connection). Stop reading this and check it out right now!

Also, if you’re playing with the Flex 3 SDK or Flex Builder 3 beta, or are a Flex 2 user, you should definitely subscribe to the Flex Doc Team’s blog at http://blogs.adobe.com/flexdoc/. You can check out the latest versions of Flex 3 chapters, unpublished chapters, ZIP files, and all sorts of other gems. Subscribe to their RSS/Atom feeds and get notified whenever the post new docs/news.

Lastly (and definitely not leastly), Flex software engineer and superhero Deepa Subramaniam started her very own Flex blog last month, http://iamdeepa.com/blog/. In her blog she discusses the cornerstone of every Flex application, the SystemManager (SystemManager: Every Flex application’s best friend), as well as her plans to overtake the Flex book market with her new book “Flex 3 for Dummies” (tentative release date of “late spring/early summer” of 2008), with coauthor Doug McCune. More info can be found on Doug’s site at Writing Flex for Dummies!.

Happy Flexing!
Peter

A collection of my posts over at blog.flexexamples.com for the month of October.

• Data binding in Flex
• Positioning controls in Flex 3 using constraint columns
• Displaying images from an XML file using the Repeater component
• Migrating from Flex Builder 3 Beta 1 to Flex Builder 3 Beta 2
• Creating view states in a Flex application
• Changing a Flex FormItem container’s indicator skin
• Changing a Flex ProgressBar control’s direction
• Changing the indeterminate move interval of a Flex ProgressBar control
• Programmatically resizing a Flex HDividedBox container
• Embedding fonts by name instead of location
• Changing the background color of a disabled Flex TextInput control
• Changing the default easing function on a Wipe effect
• Creating clustered, stacked, overlaid, and 100% Bar charts in Flex 3
• Globally setting modal styles in a Flex application
• Styling the ColorPicker control in Flex 3
• Creating a custom creation complete effect on a Flex Alert control
• Creating donut shaped Pie charts using the innerRadius style
• Styling the Flex HRule control
• Rotating labels in a Flex chart axis using the labelRotation style
• Changing the bar width ratio on a Flex Bar Chart
• Using data effects to animate chart data
• Dropping labels in a Flex Chart
• Creating a simple multiple-choice quiz using the RadioButton and RadioButtonGroup controls
• Using the Image control as a pop up
• Creating a credit card validator in ActionScript
• Determining when the selected radio button has changed
• Publishing a release version of a Flex project
• Publishing a project’s source code in Flex Builder 3 beta 2
• Adding a title icon to a Flex Alert control
• Loading and modifying remote images
• Programmatically removing an Alert using the PopUpManager
• Adding a status message to a Flex Alert control
• Setting a font’s anti-alias type, sharpness, thickness and grid fit type in Flex
• Embedding fonts from a Flash SWF file into a Flex application
• Customizing the Accordion header in Flex 3
• Creating multi-line list rows with variable row heights

According to my WordPress blog stats, that makes 240 posts and 453 comments, contained within 85 categories (and a grand total of 4,957 spam comments caught by Akismet).

A big thanks to all the readers and commenters out there for helping me keep the site going!

OK, so it seems like I’ve been a bit lazy when it comes to posting updates here from FlexExamples.com. So here is a brief glimpse of what you may (or may not) have missed in the second half of September:

• Changing text alignment in an Flex Accordion header
• Checking to see if a Flex CheckBox is selected before allowing a user to press a Button
• Checking whether a color name is a valid color in Flex using the StyleManager class
• Rotating images using the Matrix class
• Viewing an FLV video’s metadata using a Flex VideoDisplay control
• Drawing complex rectangles in Flex using the GraphicsUtil class
• Changing a form item’s background color when a child control has focus
• Setting a Flex container’s background disabled color and disabled overlay alpha
• Changing a form item’s background color when a child control has focus
• Drawing complex rectangles in Flex using the GraphicsUtil class
• Building a simple tip calculator in Flex
• Programmatically changing a Flex Accordion container’s selected child
• Programmatically changing a Flex Accordion container’s selected index
• Setting a Flex application’s style name
• Dynamically adding new children to a Flex Accordion container
• Setting a Flex ProgressBar control’s text indent
• Sequencing effects in Flex using the mx:Sequence tag
• Comparing two bitmap images using the BitmapData class
• Converting XML to objects using the Flex SimpleXMLDecoder class
• Converting XML to objects using the Flex HTTPService MXML tag
• Dragging rows between two different Flex DataGrid controls
• Determining a Flex application’s current security sandbox type
• Changing the text alignment in a Flex ComboBox control
• Limiting the amount of text you can enter into a Flex TextArea control
• Triggering effects when a container’s visibility is changed
• Uploading files in Flex using the FileReference class
• Truncating labels in a Flex ComboBox dropdown menu using an item renderer
• Triggering effects when a container is resized
• Setting a Flex component or control’s width to a percentage value
• Creating drop shadows on the Flex TextArea control
• Setting a Flex Pie Chart’s start angle
• Animating data changes in a Flex Pie Chart
• Creating a simple Flex Accordion inline header renderer
• Creating a custom ComboBox item renderer in Flex
• Creating a simple label function on a Flex ComboBox control
• Specifying a custom label field on a Flex ComboBox control
• Using the TabNavigator control’s tabOffset style in Flex 3
• Using the flash.* classes in MXML
• Positioning items in Flex using a constraint based layout
• Styling the Flex TabNavigator control
• Detecting changes to an Object using the Flex ObjectProxy class
• Using the Flex TileList class’s new dataChangeEffect style in Flex 3
• Adding your own custom CheckBox control icons in Flex
• Using a Flex TextArea control as a drop-in item editor

With any luck I’ll be posting a similar entry shortly on all the entries so far in October. Whew!

It’s been a while since I posted here, but I thought this was definitely worth it. As a subscriber to the Adobe Flex team blog, I just got an email notification that they’re looking for topics for the Flex 3 Cookbook from O’Reilly Media.

What does this mean to you? Well, if you want to be published by one of (if not the) best technical publishers out there, this is your chance! All you have to do is head over to the Adobe Flex Cookbook online (http://www.adobe.com/go/flex_cookbook), post an entry (do a quick search first to make sure it hasn’t already been covered), select “Yes…” in the “Interested in future publication of your post?” section and that’s it.
The main authors of the O’Reilly Flex 3 Cookbook (Josh Noble, Todd Anderson, and Abey George) will go through each submission and consider your post for the printed version of the Flex Cookbook. If chosen, you can get your name, URL, and a brief bio printed in the book.

You can head over to the Flex Team blog site for more details, and topic ideas.

Recently I’ve started posting some of my examples from http://blog.flexexamples.com/ into the Adobe Flex Cookbook site, and so far I think it is absolutely fantastic! I’ve learnt some really great tricks and tips from other users and look forward to seeing what other people contribute. In fact, this weekend I should go through and migrate more of my blog entries over to the Flex Cookbook and see if i can get them published into the O’Reilly book!

Good luck, and happy Flexing!

Peter

Here’s my rough draft notes from the Sneek Peeks session (still in progress)…. I think they have 4 more demos coming up… Look for a few infrequent updates after the jump….

Adobe would like to remind you that…
“Adobe is under no oblication to release any of the technology shown here today and in any current or future product or service.”

I would like to remind you that….
“I’m bad at taking notes and details/names may be wrong.”

Read at your own risk. So far the winners are the bone model in Flash and Adobe Photoshop Express.

Continue reading…

OK, so here are my very very very crude notes for the day two keynote session…. Forgive the copious amounts of typos and vague information. Its can be a bit tricky typing for 2 straight hours. ;)

Enjoy, I’ll try and update with new information/clarifications or at the very least fix my horrible spellings as time permits.

Continue reading…

T-minus 21 minutes until the Keynoote is going to kick off. Look here later for semi-frequent updates throughout the week. Yesterday I went (TAed) at the excellent day-long session on “Flex 3: Integrating with ColdFusion” by Matt Bowles (look for his slides later on the new Adobe Developer Connection (formerly Adobe Developer Center)).

Later throughout the week I’ll be TAing at several other Flex 90-minute hands-on sessions on “Building a Rich Internet Application with Flex 3 and PHP” and “Deploying Flex and HTML/JavaScript Applications to Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR)”. I, like many other of the Flex team members, will be wearing nice black “Flex Team” shirts, and will be armed with USB thumb drives loaded with the latest betas of Adobe Flex Builder 3, the Flex 3 SDK, and Adobe AIR. Pull one of us over if you want to grab a copy of the latest beta without having to download the files from Adobe Labs.

14 minutes to go, and it looks like the doors are opening to the Keynote! Look forward to a lot of fun and exciting news over the next 48-72 hours!

Continue reading…

I woke up this morning, and what did I see? Adobe Labs got updated with a whole bunch of new apps. You can find new versions of:

• Flex 3/Flex Builder 3 (beta 2) (more info on the Flex Team blog, “Flex Team: Beta 2 Baby!”)
• Adobe AIR (beta 2)
• Adobe Media Player (prerelease)
• Adobe AIR Extension for Adobe Dreamweaver (beta 2)
• Flash Player 9 Update
• Spry framework for Ajax (prerelease 1.6)
• Adobe AIR Update for Adobe Flash Professional (beta 2)
• Share (beta)

Pretty impressive list! Expect lots of new announcements and information over the next few days due to Adobe MAX 2007 in sunny/warm Chicago. You can find more information on the Adobe MAX 2007 North America conference at http://adobemax2007.com/na/.

Also, I just noticed that we relaunched the Adobe Developer Center as the “Adobe Developer Connection” and gave it a stunning new makeover. Check that out at http://www.adobe.com/devnet/.