Flex Containers – From Lightweight to Most Expensive
When to use the appropriate Container may not be as straight forward.
Out of many projects I’ve seen in Flex, there is too many too often, nested containers and extraneous properties that aren’t serving any purpose.
Below is a reference guide for you to choose your containers wisely. (click to view in separate window)
HTML5, Javascript & CSS3 – The “Basic” language of Web Developers
As it stands today, the web developer needs to know HTML5, Javascript and CSS3 like the back of their hand. With all the hype, such open standards developers are experiencing what Flash Developers experienced in 2004, and the know how, tip and tricks that would accumulate years after.
However, now it is something that Adobe would resolve very easily with the help of two different tools “Muse” and “Edge”. Makes you wonder why not have Flash CSx/Flex just export to HTML5/JS/CSS3? Could we be surprised?
Unlike the Dreamweaver, Muse is a tool which designers do not have to worry about a single line of code, and it comes out to be compatible with all the popular browsers, while taking advantage of CSS3 and HTML5 where possible. Currently, Muse is already in a Free beta version which can be downloaded from Adobe Labs, so you can test drive for free right up to the crisp version is released in early 2012 as predicted by Adobe.
It’s been a while I haven’t posted, but our company has been trying to figure out how to build a new mobile app that would encompass the most number of mobiles. If we would do it Natively or WebBased, HTML5 would cover almost all browsers, including natively with the help of many third party wrappers. Another option was doing Flex Mobile Apps, so it would encompass all iOS, Android and Blackberry that’s about 92% of mobiles today.
So we decided to do a test:
On a Nexus One, Flash 10.1 consumes Half the battery of what HTML5 can do. Not to mention, the experience of animations in HTML5 is jittery, very obvious to a sharp Flash developer.
Funny enough, Chris Black has done a similar test with very similar results.
Flash on TV. TV on AIR.
Google TV adopted the Flash Player and Adobe AIR, seamlessly into many TV sets, namely Sony, Samsung and many other devices. Makes sense when they coined the term, the ‘Open Screen Project‘. One of the most important new technologies presented at AdobeMAX 2010 is in my opinion “AIR for TV”. Flash Player is now present on multiple screens ranging from desktop to mobile passing by tablet and set-top-boxes.
The TV screen is always been one of the most desired and the availability of Flash on TVs and STBs is a strategic move. We already knew that Flash will be supported by Google TV.
The world of applications for the living room is one of the most promising and “rich”. The income generated by the traditional TV world is still huge and the kind of interactity that a connected tv can assure can only enhance the business giving tailored advertising at a generally untargeted media.
In this scenario Flash is the perfect mate for the big companies who want to create new business model in this market (Sony, Google, Samsung in primis) but has to fight at the same time the power of Apple and his vision. In this context Flash is a tool that assure the availability of millions of developers ready to develop very good applications for new app markets. The most important features of AIR for TV is the StageVideo.
Flash Development for native iOS iPhone
This came a quite a shock to me, since it seems so impervious to the wailing of developers and consumers alike, but Apple announced today via an official press release that it would be relaxing some of its iOS development restrictions. In a move toward greater transparency, it’ll also publish its App Store Review Guidelines for the first time.
To quote Apple:
We are continually trying to make the App Store even better. We have listened to our developers and taken much of their feedback to heart. Based on their input, today we are making some important changes to our iOS Developer Program license in sections 3.3.1, 3.3.2 and 3.3.9 to relax some restrictions we put in place earlier this year.
Sections 3.3.1, 3.3.2 and 3.3.9 of the iOS Developer Program license focused on using third-party tools to develop iPhone applications. One very noteworthy example of such a tool was Adobe’s Flash to iPhone packager, which it created to allow Flash developers access to the lucrative iOS market.
Adding / Removing: days, month or Years to Date
private function addToDate(date:Date):Date { switch (period_cb.selectedLabel) { case "Day": var temp:Date = new Date(date.getFullYear(),date.getMonth(),date.getDate() + Number(valueDate_ti.text)); break; case "Week": var temp:Date = new Date(date.getFullYear(),date.getMonth(),date.getDate() + Number(valueDate_ti.text) * 7); break; case "Month": var temp:Date = new Date(date.getFullYear(),date.getMonth() + Number(valueDate_ti.text),date.getDate()); break; case "Year": var temp:Date = new Date(date.getFullYear() + Number(valueDate_ti.text),date.getMonth(),date.getDate()); break; } return temp; }
valueDate_ti is a text input that accept numbers to add to the date,
period_cb is a ComboBox, which selects the cycle time: Day, Week, Month, Year;
Google Chrome embraces Adobe Flash
<mx:Everything /> has the story:
What a great day. While many of the Apple kool aid drinkers are eagerly awaiting the arrival of their so called Flash death machine known as the iPad, Adobe and Google have announced Flash Embrace. Flash Embrace is a commitment by Google to include the Flash Player in the distribution of its Chrome Browser. So, the lines are further drawn in the sand. Google vs Apple enter into another round and as someone who makes his living on the Adobe Flash Player, I am glad to have Google on the side of the Flash Player.
The question is, how long will it be before I can put my Google gPad on my desk next to my Android based Nexus One.
Handling Yes | No Confirmation Alert messages
A clean way to create a Yes | No confirmation popup with handling the user’s choice would be coded as follows:
Alert.show("Are you sure you wish to Deactivate this Spot?","Confirm Deactivate", Alert.YES | Alert.NO, this, deactivateRow, null, Alert.NO); private function deactivateRow(e:CloseEvent):void { if ((e.detail == Alert.YES) // They clicked on Yes }
Actionscript Snippets Crowd sourcing Application
//aSnippet enables you to keep all of your frequently used code snippets (As3, As2, Js, PHP, HTML, MXML…) in one place that’s accessible from any computer.
You can share your code with other visitors and use what they post, too.
Directly from inside Adobe Flash or the Desktop AIR Application.
To get the AIR application, http://asnippet.com/blog/ or simply Try it online: http://asnippet.com/blog/?page_id=21
The have a community of developers and you can also add your own snippet. This is a great help in a thriving community of Actionscript developers.
Session Management in Flex – SharedObject
We’re trying to implement a simple Session Management for our end-users to be able to reload the page after signing in to stay signed in.
I did this by utilizing the SharedObject, which can store information on the users computer, regardless if they close the browser or went to a different site.
To create a SharedObject (cannot use the new keyword), and hence is instantiated like so:
private var _so:SharedObject = SharedObject.getLocal("member"); // member here is the name of the cookie stored on the clients computer
To add some parameters to the object stored, you simply:
_so.data.userFirstName = obj.response.firstName; // obj.response.firstname comes from the server after a user signed in
To read from the shared Object located on the users computer:
trace(_so.data.userFirstName) // as you can tell it’s the same way to read, as it is to write.
