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September 30, 2009

BETA ActionScript 3.0 Reference for the Adobe Flash Platform released on help.adobe.com

I just "tweeted" this, but thought it warranted a nice little blog post as well.

The documentation team released a cool new version of the Adobe Flash Platform Language Reference (which includes all APIs from the following products: Adobe Flash CS4 Professional, Adobe AIR, LiveCycle Data Services, Adobe ColdFusion, Adobe Flex, and Adobe Flash Player -- as well as the Text Layout Framework (TLF) classes). And the great news is, you can filter content based on Runtimes (Adobe AIR and/or Flash Player) as well as by Product (Flex, Flash Authoring, LiveCycle, and/or ColdFusion).

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/beta/reference/actionscript/3/

For more information, check out the following blog posts by real live members of the Adobe Learning Resources team:
"Introducing the ActionScript 3.0 Reference for the Adobe Flash Platform " via Adobe Flash Platform Runtime Documentation Team blog
"One ActionScript Language Reference to rule them all" via FlashLit blog (Rob Dixon)

Posted by Peter deHaan at 12:07 PM | | Comments (0)

June 7, 2009

This Two Week's Top Posts (6/7)

Here is a collection of blog posts from my coworkers on the Flex SDK, Flash Builder (formerly Flex Builder), Adobe AIR, Flash Player, Flash Authoring, Text Layout Framework (TLF), LiveCycle, and Flash Media Server teams.

Flex 4 SDK, Flash Builder 4 (formerly Flex Builder), Flash Catalyst (formerly "Thermo") news:

General Flex, Flash Builder/Flex Builder stuff:

Conference stuff (360Flex, Adobe MAX, etc):

AIR stuff:

Flash Authoring and Flash Player stuff:

LiveCycle stuff:

Flash Media Stuff:

Other stuff:

Posted by Peter deHaan at 11:07 AM | | Comments (0)

May 17, 2009

This Week's Top Posts (5/17)

Here is a collection of blog posts from my coworkers on the Flex SDK, Flex Builder, Adobe AIR, Flash Player, Flash Authoring, Text Layout Framework (TLF), and LiveCycle teams.

Conference-type stuff:

Flex SDK-type stuff:

Flex Builder type stuff:

Adobe AIR type stuff:

LiveCycle/BlaseDS type stuff:

Flash Authoring, Flash Player, Text Layout Framework (TLF) type stuff:

Posted by Peter deHaan at 7:54 PM | | Comments (0)

March 14, 2009

This Week's Top Posts (3/14)

Here is a collection of blog posts from my coworkers on the Flex SDK, Flex Builder, AIR, and LiveCycle teams:

And some posts on Adobe MAX 2009 conference (Los Angeles CA - Oct 4-7 2009):

And from our friends on the Flash Authoring, and Flash Platform Evangelism teams:

Posted by Peter deHaan at 9:17 AM | | Comments (0)

February 24, 2009

This Week's Top Posts (2/24)

Here is a collection of blog posts from my coworkers on the Flex SDK, Flex Builder, AIR, Text Layout Framework (TLF), and LiveCycle teams (as well as a bonus tech note):

And from our friends on the Flash Authoring, Flash Player, and Flash Platform Evangelism teams:

Posted by Peter deHaan at 8:44 AM | | Comments (0)

February 6, 2009

This Week's Top Posts (2/6)

Here is a collection of blog posts from my coworkers on the Flex SDK, Flex Builder, AIR, and LiveCycle teams (as well as a bonus tech note):

And from our friends on the Flash Authoring, Flash Player, and Flash Platform Evangelism teams:

And today's "bonus link" comes to us today from Adobe's own Alan Musselman: Have you migrated from AS2 to AS3 yet?, which is a list of the top 8 Resources for learning ActionScript 3.0.

Posted by Peter deHaan at 7:15 PM | | Comments (0)

January 6, 2009

This Week in ActionScript Examples (1/6)

Here is what I have been blogging about over the past few weeks on my new Flash/ActionScript examples blog, actionscriptexamples.com:

Posted by Peter deHaan at 8:05 AM | | Comments (0)

December 22, 2008

This Week's Top Posts (12/22)

Here is a collection of blog posts from my coworkers on the Flex SDK, Flex Builder, AIR, and Text Layout Framework teams: And from our friends on the Flash Authoring, Flash Player, and Flash Platform Evangelism teams: Finally, a bunch of post-MAX Europe wrap-ups, and session notes/files:

Posted by Peter deHaan at 1:26 PM | | Comments (0)

December 7, 2008

This Two Weeks in ActionScript Examples (12/7)

Here is what I have been blogging about over the past couple weeks on my new Flash/ActionScript examples blog, actionscriptexamples.com:

Posted by Peter deHaan at 3:17 PM | | Comments (0)

November 26, 2008

This Week's Top Posts (11/26)

Here is a collection of blog posts from my coworkers on the Flex SDK, Flex Builder, AIR, and Text Layout Framework teams:

And from our friends on the Flash Authoring, and Flash Platform Evangelism teams:

Finally, a bunch of post-MAX wrap-ups, and session notes/files:

November 24, 2008

New ActionScript blog - http://actionscriptexamples.com/

I started another new blog (actionscriptexamples.com/) a few months ago, but have been holding off on posting the URL until I got some content posted. Well, content has gone a lot slower than planned, but I think I finally have enough entries where the site may be useful to somebody out there.

The ActionScript Examples blog mainly focuses on ActionScript 3.0 solutions in the Flash Authoring IDE (Flash CS3 and CS4 specifically). My Flex SDK and Flex Builder specific examples will continue to be posted on blog.flexexamples.com. There are also a few interesting examples of using the Flex SDK compiler in Flash CS4 though, so there will definitely be a bit of overlap between the two blogs.

And since I love using unordered lists, here's what I've posted about in the past nine months since I first set up the blog:

For lots of information about using the new Motion Editor features in Flash CS4, check out Jen deHaan's blog, Flashthusiast, and for more information on Flash+Flex integration from Tareq AlJaber on the Adobe Flash Authoring team, check out his blog at http://flashauthoring.blogspot.com/.

Posted by Peter deHaan at 5:14 PM | | Comments (0)

November 21, 2008

This Week's Top Posts (11/21)

Here is a collection of blog posts from my coworkers on the Flex SDK, Flex Builder, AIR, Text Layout Framework, Flash Player, and LCDS/BlazeDS teams:

And from our friends on the Flash Authoring, and Flash Platform Evangelism teams:

Finally, a bunch of post-MAX wrap-ups, session notes/files, and news on the upcoming RIA Hackathon hosted by Adobe India:

Posted by Peter deHaan at 8:40 PM | | Comments (0)

November 16, 2008

This Week's Top Posts (11/16)

Here is a collection of blog posts from my coworkers on the Flex SDK, Flex Builder, AIR, and LCDS/BlazeDS teams:

A couple of Flex SDK/Flex Builder related Tech Notes:

And from our friends on the Flash Authoring, Flash Player, and Flash Platform Evangelism teams:

Today's bonus link comes to us from Robert Penner:

Posted by Peter deHaan at 7:24 PM | | Comments (0)

October 30, 2008

This Week's Top Posts (10/30)

Here is a collection of blog posts from my coworkers on the Flex SDK, Flex Builder, AIR, and LCDS/BlazeDS teams:

And from our friends on the Flash Authoring, Flash Player, and Flash Platform Evangelism teams:

Various posts on Adobe MAX 2008, RIA Hackathon in India, the past Flash 10 Camp in San Francisco, as well as some videos from the past 360Flex conference in San Jose:

Posted by Peter deHaan at 8:28 AM | | Comments (0)

October 24, 2008

Using Flex classes in Flash CS4

A coworker of mine on the Flash Authoring team, Tareq AlJaber, has an excellent blog at flashauthoring.blogspot.com where he explains how you can take advantage of some of the classes in the Flex.swc and use them in your Flash applications.

For more information, see the following posts:

As a long time Flex, Flash, and ColdFusion user I was very intruiged after reading Tareq's blog, and within minutes was using the Flex ObjectUtil class in Flash CS4 to trace out large objects and arrays, using the [Embed] metadata to embed PNGs and assets from library SWFs into Flash CS4 components, using the Flex HTTPService classes to load remote XML and text and display it in the Flash TextArea control, and creating custom label functions in Flash which used the Flex CurrencyFormatter class. The best part is that it was all very easy! Just point to the correct Flex SWCs, import the correct mx.* packages, and then start coding.

Posted by Peter deHaan at 7:04 AM | | Comments (2)

October 17, 2008

Adobe Creative Suite 4 available for purchase now, trials available mid-November

As I'm sure you are all aware by now, Adobe recently released Creative Suite 4 (PDF press release), but what you may not have known about is when the trial versions will be available to download! <spoilerAlert>mid-November 2008!</spoilerAlert>

After a bit of investigation [and asking around] I found the Creative Suite 4 product notification page on Adobe.com, where you can sign up to be notified by e-mail when Adobe Creative Suite 4 trials are available. The dates were actually hidden within the Creative Suite 4 trial FAQ, which says the following:

When will Creative Suite 4 trials be available?
Trials for all products except those in Japanese should be available by mid-November 2008. Japanese-language trials are expected to be available by early December 2008. To be notified about trial availability, you may sign up to be contacted via the product notification form located at www.adobe.com/go/cs4notify.

For more information on which products are available for trial download and how you can get a DVD of the various Creative Suite trials, check out the FAQ at http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/trial/faq/.

Posted by Peter deHaan at 8:09 PM | | Comments (2)

This Week's Top Posts (10/17)

Here is a collection of blog posts from my coworkers on the Flex SDK, Flex Builder, AIR, and LCDS/BlazeDS teams:

And from our friends on the Flash Authoring, Flash Player, and Flash Platform Evangelism teams:

Various posts on the past Flash 10 Camp in San Francisco, as well as some videos from the past 360Flex conference in San Jose:

Today's bonus link comes to us from Renaun Erickson, Flash/Flex Developer on "Pacifica" at Adobe:

Posted by Peter deHaan at 7:34 PM | | Comments (0)

October 7, 2008

The Adobe Creative Suite 4 Documentation is live!

In an earlier blog post, "The Adobe Flash CS4 Documentation is live!", I mentioned that the Flash CS4 documentation was live. Tonight I did a bit more searching and found that all of the Adobe Creative Suite 4 documentation is live.

Get ready to get your CS4 on:

If you think I missed a product, please leave a comment (and link to said Adobe documentation) in the comments and I'll add it to the list above.

Posted by Peter deHaan at 8:37 PM | | Comments (0)

October 6, 2008

The Adobe Flash CS4 Documentation is live!

In case you haven't heard the news, the Flash CS4 Professional documentation is live on the Adobe website at http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Flash/10.0_Welcome/.

I also did a bit of quick Googling and found this useful page on Google Groups which lists all the various books in the Flash CS4 documentation set: "Flash CS4 Professional Help is live on the web".

Posted by Peter deHaan at 1:52 PM | | Comments (1)

September 28, 2008

This Week's Top Posts (9/28)

Here is a collection of blog posts from my coworkers on the Flex SDK, Flex Builder, and LCDS/BlazeDS teams:

Various posts on upcoming conferences, as well as some videos from the past 360Flex conference in San Jose:

And from our good friends at the Adobe Developer Connection, and the Adobe Labs site:

And from our friends on the Flash Player, Flash Authoring, and Flash Platform Evangelism teams:

Posted by Peter deHaan at 2:03 PM | | Comments (0)

September 24, 2008

This Week's Top Posts (9/24)

Here is a collection of blog posts from my coworkers on the Flex SDK, Flex Builder, and LCDS/BlazeDS teams:

Various posts on the upcoming Adobe MAX (North America), as well as some videos from the past 360Flex conference in San Jose:

And from our good friends at the Adobe Flex Developer Center, Adobe Developer Connection, and the Adobe Labs site:

And from our friends on the Flash Player, Flash Authoring, and Flash Platform Evangelism teams:

Posted by Peter deHaan at 8:47 AM | | Comments (0)

September 9, 2008

This Week's Top Posts (9/9)

Here is a collection of blog posts from my coworkers on the Flex SDK, Flex Builder, and LCDS/BlazeDS teams:

Various posts on the upcoming Adobe MAX (North America) and mx:devsummit conferences, as well as some videos from the past 360Flex conference in San Jose:

And from our good friends at the Adobe Flex Developer Center and Adobe Developer Connection:

And from our friends on the Flash Player, Flash Authoring, and Flash Platform Evangelism teams:

Posted by Peter deHaan at 7:09 AM | | Comments (0)

August 29, 2008

This Week's Top Posts (8/29)

Here is a collection of blog posts from my coworkers on the Flex SDK, Flex Builder, and LCDS/BlazeDS teams:

And from our good friends at the Adobe Developer Connection (as well as a couple Flex SDK and Flex Builder Tech Notes):

And from our friends on the Flash Player, Flash Authoring, and Flash Platform Evangelism teams:

Posted by Peter deHaan at 10:38 PM | | Comments (0)

August 13, 2008

This Week's Top Posts Blogroll

Somebody recently asked me which Flex blogs I subscribed to for my "This Week's Top Posts" posts. So I spent a few minutes trolling through my Google Reader feeds and came up with this list. Enjoy.

Flex SDK/Flex Builder/LiveCycle/Etc.:

Flash Authoring/Flash Player:

Adobe Developer Connection, Flex Developer Center, Flex TechNotes, Flex Builder Tech Notes:

And remember, my "Top Posts" updates only include Adobe employee blogs. I still read and enjoy dozens of other blogs from various Flex developers. If you think I've omitted an Adobe Flex, AIR, Thermo, Flash Authoring, or Flash Player blog (by Adobe employees only), leave a comment and I'll update this list add the link to my Google Reader.

Posted by Peter deHaan at 5:16 PM | | Comments (1)

August 1, 2008

This Week's Top Posts (8/1)

Here is a collection of blog posts from my coworkers on the Flex SDK, Flex Builder, and Adobe AIR teams:

And from our friends on the Flash Player and Flash Authoring teams:

And from our good friends at the Flex Developer Center and Adobe Developer Connection (as well as a Flex Builder TechNote):

Posted by Peter deHaan at 7:19 PM | | Comments (0)

March 7, 2008

Using embedded fonts with the Flash CS3 ComboBox control

The following example shows how you can use embedded fonts with a Flash CS3 ComboBox control's drop down menu.

Full code after the jump.

Continue reading "Using embedded fonts with the Flash CS3 ComboBox control" »

Posted by Peter deHaan at 12:08 PM | | Comments (15)

February 25, 2008

Did I mention that Adobe AIR was released for Flash Authoring and Dreamweaver also?

This may have been a bit lost in the shuffle, but Adobe AIR was also released for Flash CS3 and Dreamweaver CS3. For more information, check out Jen deHaan's blog post over at Flashthusaist.com, So this AIR thing was released but I use Flash CS3… what now?.

Posted by Peter deHaan at 7:44 PM | | Comments (0)

February 24, 2008

Flashthusiast what now?

It seems like Adobe's own Jen deHaan (no relation) has started up yet another blog, Flashthusiast.com. It seems she has a thing for unpronounceable and unspellable domain names.

So, for those of you keeping track of Jen's imaginary made-up words, that makes:
deseloper = designer + deseloper;
flashthusiast = flash + enthusiast;

Are you a Flashthusiast, interested in all things Adobe Flash related? Head on over and sign up to the official Flashthusiast RSS feed. With any luck she'll update the blog 2-3 times before getting distracted by some shiny object and then starting up yet another blog. ;)

Posted by Peter deHaan at 11:31 PM | | Comments (0)

February 12, 2008

Using embedded fonts with the Flash CS3 DataGrid component

A reader asked me the other day if it was possible to embed fonts into a Flash CS3 DataGrid control's HeaderRenderer in an ActionScript 3.0 project.

After a bit of code shuffling, it seems it is possible. The trick was I had to create a HeaderRenderer instance and set the embedFonts style to true. Next, I set the row renderer's embedFonts style to true and the textFormat style using the setRendererStyle() method, and finally set the headerTextFormat style using the setStyle() method.

Full code after the jump.

Continue reading "Using embedded fonts with the Flash CS3 DataGrid component" »

Posted by Peter deHaan at 10:12 AM | | Comments (3)

February 11, 2008

Using embedded fonts with the Flash CS3 Button control

The following example shows how you can use embedded fonts (normal weight and bold weight) with a Flash CS3 Button control.

Full code after the jump.

Continue reading "Using embedded fonts with the Flash CS3 Button control" »

Posted by Peter deHaan at 7:27 PM | | Comments (8)

February 4, 2008

Toggling specific compiler warnings in Flash CS3

The following question came up today, so I thought I'd post the answer here in case it helps a few other people out there.

In Flex, the following code generates a couple warnings:

<mx:Script>
    <![CDATA[
        private var i;

        private function init() {
            return true;
        }
    ]]>
</mx:Script>

1008: variable 'i' has no type declaration.
1008: return value for function 'init' has no type declaration.

However, if you do the same thing in Flash CS3, you don't get the same warnings:

var i;

function peter() {
    return true;
}

If you want to see the same warnings in Flash, you can edit the EnabledWarnings.xml file in your /Configuration/ActionScript 3.0/ directory:

PC: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Flash CS3\en\Configuration\ActionScript 3.0\
Mac: /Applications/Adobe Flash CS3/Configuration/ActionScript 3.0/

Simply change the enabled attribute from false to true for the desired warnings (in this case, the warning id == 1008).

Hope that helps, and a big thanks to Nivesh for the explanation.

Posted by Peter deHaan at 11:50 AM | | Comments (3)

September 14, 2007

Catch Colin Moock's free ActionScript 3.0 training course

I just got a note from my local Flex User Group (yay silvafug!), saying that Colin Moock is giving several free full-day training courses on ActionScript 3.0. For more information, see www.adobeas3tour.com/. It looks like there are already dates for San Francisco (Oct. 27), Los Angeles (Nov. 5), and New York (Nov. 12), and other cities (without dates) are Chicago, Tokyo, Amsterdam, London, Munich, Bangalore, and Sydney.

If you're close to any of those cities, I recommend registering and checking it out. I've had the pleasure of seeing Colin speak on several occasions and he is outstanding. Plus, if you haven't checked out his latest book, "Essential ActionScript 3.0", I highly recommend it. I've been reading through it at home and it is full of great information, tips, and tricks. For more information on this great (and "ILLUSTRATED" -- according to Amazon.com) book, check it out at Amazon.com.

Posted by Peter deHaan at 11:33 AM | | Comments (3)

July 30, 2007

Creating "reflection effects" with Flash and Flex

I forgot to post this last week, but Ben Pritchard of pixelfumes.com wrote a great article on the Flash Developer Center on "Creating movie clips with reflections in ActionScript 3.0". Definitely worth a read if you want to add a nice reflection effect to your Flash projects.

Being the curious person I am, i also did a quick search on doing the same thing in Flex and came up with the following: Live “reflection” component on NJ's awesome much ado about something blog.

Posted by Peter deHaan at 3:35 PM | | Comments (0)

June 28, 2007

Setting a Flash data grid's background color based on a row's data (ActionScript 3.0 edition)

Hot on the heels of the previous post... Here is another section of the third [and final] quick start on the Flash ActionScript 3.0 DataGrid component.

In this section we cover setting a row's background color/skin based on the row's data. And again I apologize for what will most certainly be hard to read formatting.

Continue reading "Setting a Flash data grid's background color based on a row's data (ActionScript 3.0 edition)" »

Posted by Peter deHaan at 6:50 PM | | Comments (11)

Alternating background colors in a Flash data grid (ActionScript 3.0 edition)

Somebody was asking me today how to alternate background colors for the DataGrid component in Flash CS3 today (using the new ActionScript 3.0 components). Well, as luck has it, I wrote a section on it in an upcoming Flash Quick Start for the DataGrid component (my third and final installment on DataGrid).

The wording/code may change, but here's the latest draft of the "Alternating background colors in a data grid" section. Oh, and don't worry, the formatting will be *much* better once the Developer Center people clean it up.

Continue reading "Alternating background colors in a Flash data grid (ActionScript 3.0 edition)" »

Posted by Peter deHaan at 6:38 PM | | Comments (8)