How to add duration info to a FLV file with the flvtool2 command

Very useful. Sometimes some flv conversion tools don’t include info that is vital for playback. In this case, the seekbar wouldn’t show up in the player until after playback finished. I’ll be testing to see if this resolves it but either way, this is good to know. The first hint was this post stating that [...]

Enums, Objects and the joys of being typesafe

I like autocomplete. I also like it when the compiler (or IDE) tells me I am doing something wrong BEFORE I compile. Flexbuilder is my AS3 compiler of choice. Although FlashDevelop 3 has come a really long way. It’s PC only though.
Anyway, just did some reading about Enums in AS2. This bit of [...]

Enums, Objects and the joys of being typesafe

I like autocomplete. I also like it when the compiler (or IDE) tells me I am doing something wrong BEFORE I compile. Flexbuilder is my AS3 compiler of choice. Although FlashDevelop 3 has come a really long way. It’s PC only though.
Anyway, just did some reading about Enums in AS2. This bit of [...]

Pure AS3 preloader

Well I wasn’t making a game but I just went through what the author describes: finishing up the app, gotta set up the preloader. I did a manual version of this but I like this idea. However I am not using FlashDevelop. I am in the Flash IDE for compiling. I have thought of [...]

List all symbols and their linkages in a Flash file

I am just wondering out loud… is this possible? Is there a way to list all the symbols in a Flash file and the classes linkages defined for them? Ah, perhaps better still, if the symbols are the same name as the class they are to link to, scan all the symbols and scan all [...]

Google, Search, Flex

Oooooh sweet. According to this article, Yahoo’s search API is still more “developer friendly”. Either way, having them available is quite cool.
Google Search REST API
More than one year after Google discontinued the SOAP Search API, it finally got a proper replacement. The AJAX Search API can now be used from any Web application, [...]

Good list of Eclipse plugins specific to Flex

This list has many of the plugins I already use, and there are more that I haven’t looked at yet. I’ll give them a shot in due time, but it’s a good reference.
dispatchEvent » Pimp my ‘clipse - a list of must-have Eclipse plug-ins for Flex/Flash Development
FlexBuilder may have its ups and downs [...]

Flex, MVC, Cairngorm and Universal Mind Extensions

This podcast with Thomas Burleson probably has the best description of MVC with Flex, why to use Cairngorm, challenges of using Cairngorm, why to use the universal mind extensions, the problem of view locators and how to work with those, etc. Good stuff. I wish there was a transcript of this.
UMEvent, UMCommand, Callbacks, and other [...]

More on MVC

Going to have to do some more reading here later… Joes’ article “An architectural blueprint for Flex applications” was probably the first thing I tried to chew through to understand MVC, Cairngorm, and “separating concerns” while building an app in Flex. Model adapters and view mediators look like something I have been wrapping my head [...]

SWFObject 2.0, SWFAddress 2.1, Flex 3 and getting the starting path

I have a test project running with Flex 3 and SWFAddress 2.1 and SWFObject 1.5. It worked but I noticed that SWFObject was updated to 2.0 and SWFAddress is supposed to work with it. So I upgraded. And getting the first initial URL stopped working. Couldn’t figure it out. Then I saw this:
joeberkovitz.com » UrlKit [...]

Flex form: indicating a required element

Customize the indicator on a Flex form to show a form item is required.
Changing a Flex FormItem container’s indicator skin at Flex Examples
The following example shows how you can change the FormItem container’s indicator skin which appears when the form item’s required property is set to true.

TODO/FIXME extension for Flex Builder 2/3

Gotta keep a note for this one. I was wondering why my tasks weren’t showing up in my new install of Flex!
richinternet.blog
I finally found some time to finish work on an extension plugin for Flex Builder 2 which adds TODO/FIXME Task support similar to Eclipse’s Java Development Tool JDT. This is the nice thing about [...]

Cairngorm factories for xml in and VO out

I’ve linked to this article before but I wanted to bring up another point now. I have a good xml data set that is becoming the local store for a chunk of a UI. But because it is xml, it doesn’t update the way it should. I need to try to implement this xml > [...]

Universal Mind Cairngorm Extensions

There are several issues I have had when developing with Cairngorm. It gets better with time as you work around the issues, but you have to “work around them”, as opposed to working within the system constraints. The constraints are good. They give form and function. But there are some headaches… certainly no offense to [...]

Building Flexlib from SVN source to get openEnd and closeEnd events for WindowShade

Short version: You must provide a path to the manifest.xml file in order for ant to find it! For example:
<arg line=”-namespace http://code.google.com/p/flexlib/ /path/to/manifest.xml” />
Long version: I didn’t know that… thought it makes total sense in hindsight.
I am using the very nifty WindowShade from the life-saving (OK that’s a bit melodramatic… FlexLib library. However, I wanted [...]

Computed properties and binding

This is also something I’ll have to take a look at later.
Computed properties and binding « FLEXYGEN
Updating views in response to model changes is a snap with Flex data binding.
A model property is set to be [Bindable] and and a view property is set to an expression in curly braces that refers to [...]

Cairngorm, Flex and MVC

Cairngorm helps when you’re wanting to know how to structure things. There are other options, especially as you start actually understanding the language. PureMVC is an alternate framework. Then Flexygen has a simple MVC sample… without using Cairngorm. It’s not that Cairngorm is bad! It’s the de facto standard framework for Flex (right now [...]

Using Degrafa for customizable data visualization

You have to see it to appreciate it. I especially like the capacity indicator “distribution ala itunes/ipod”, and the shape renderer. So sweet!
Degrafa & Data Visualization
While syncing in iTunes I was looking at the indication
of how my media was distributed across my iPhone and realized that same
visualization could be duplicated using Degrafa. I [...]

A clean way to define an app wide CustomBusyCursor for Flex

A good tip on how to set and maintain an app wide custom BusyCursor with CSS a custom cursor class and CSS declarations.
How to customize Flex busyCursor | LA Flash - Los Angeles’ Flash Professionals Adobe User Group
The CursorManager class in Flex provides a way to display a busy cursor whenever [...]

Implement clone() in custom events

I have custom components that “relay” events. They pick up events from one place and pass them to the other. (There is a place for that… sometimes… somewhere… I have not hit this error myself, but the lesson is still a valid one. How do you pass an event and make sure it is passed [...]

Responding to the user

More on this later.
The Joy of Flex » Blog Archive » Effects in response to user input
When building a UI in Flex, a common situation is to play some kind of effect as a result of a user action. Take the simple case of the user pressing a button which causes an item [...]

Sweet example of WindowShade + Degrafa

What I hope to be able to do sometime in the (near) future… Gotta like that Degrafa.
Doug McCune » Blog Archive » Examples from my 360|Flex session - Using Open Source Community Projects
WindowShade + Degrafa exampleIn this example I used the newly added WindowShade component in FlexLib, combined with the CanvasButton control [...]

I like WindowShade

I like the WindowShade component from FlexLib. It’s going in a project now. The example on this page uses LinkButtons for the header bit.
One of the reasons I like it though is that it’s light. One poster mentioned it should extend Panel and I have seen implementations of this. But because they extend Panel [...]

CanvasButton!

It has resurfaced from the depths of my memory… and I finally found it again. The CanvasButton. Put what you want in a button, much like the example on this page. Great stuff from the FlexLib crew.
Doug McCune » Blog Archive » Using complex headers with the Flex Accordion
The CanvasButton component in FlexLib
is [...]

Cairngen moving to Google Code

I use Cairngorm. It’s main strength is making sure you put code where it should go. It goes by the MVC mantra which, in and of itself, is really good. The problem? To add one new capability, you sometimes have to add… I forget how many new class files:
“Hmm… need a button here to do [...]