Category Archives: Flex

Flex/Flash Builder will soon be the easiest way to develop mobile apps

OpenPlug just released the latest beta version of their ELIPS Studio, which adds Android support. Currently ELIPS Studio is Windows only but in a month they will add OS X support, yay!
The latest version of ELIPS Studio has just been released. It brings the ability for developers to create native mobile apps in ActionScript and [...]

Also posted in AIR, ActionScript, Android, iPhone | Leave a comment

Automate font compiling for Flex with Ruby

I came up with this solution when I had to compile over 100 fonts into SWF files for a recent project. Doing this by hand would have been madness so I wrote a ruby script and a shell script to automate the process.
Step 1: Setup
The directory structure I used was as follows.
convert.rb (the ruby script)
compile.sh [...]

Also posted in ActionScript, Ruby | 1 Comment

Skinning a Flex button with one MXML file (and Degrafa)

Skinning a flex button can often take multiple graphics and/or MXML files for each state. Here’s how to skin a button using MXML and Degrafa to handle three button states with just one file (plus a bonus ‘glow’ filter as an alternate way to get a drop shadow).
The secret is to override the updateDisplayList method [...]

Also posted in ActionScript | 1 Comment

Display Rails associations in a Flex DataGridColumn

Frameworks like Ruby on Rails and CakePHP make it easy to set up model associations with belongs_to, has_many, and the ever popular has_and_belongs_to_many. However, getting those associations to show up in a Flex DataGridColumn’s dataField isn’t immediately obvious, you’d assume you could just do parent.child or child.parent but that just gives a blank column. After [...]

Also posted in ActionScript, Ruby, Ruby on Rails | Leave a comment

New job! I’m now an ActionScript Developer at OpenSoft

After three years of consulting I’m heading back to a ‘real’ job as a Flash/Flex (mostly the latter) developer at OpenSoft (aka Farheap Solutions). It was a tough call but doing full time Flex work a mere 15 minute commute away was too good to pass up.
The blog, which was about 50/50 Ruby/Flex, will probably [...]

Also posted in ActionScript, OpenSoft, Shameless Self Promotion | 3 Comments

List of Flex resources and tutorials

Paranoid Ferret Productions, who themselves are a great Flex resource, have a list of the ‘Best Adobe Flex Resources and Tutorial Sites‘.

Also posted in ActionScript, Flash | Leave a comment

ActionScript MVC minimalist example for PureMVC 2.0.3

I’ve updated Chandima Cumaranatunge’s excellent PureMVC walk-through to work with the latest version of PureMVC (2.0.3). Although PureMVC has extensive documentation nothing beats a simple demo for wrapping your brain around the framework. The most helpful part of Chandima’s tutorial is when he steps through the sequence of actions which includes initialization and then following [...]

Also posted in ActionScript, Flash | 5 Comments

PureMVC for Ruby

The PureMVC framework is considered one of the best for Flash/Flex development (definitely the best documented), I hadn’t checked out the site in a while (which has undergone an overhaul and is much improved!) and since my last visit PureMVC is now available for not only AS2 and AS3 but C#, ColdFusion, Java, Perl, PHP, [...]

Also posted in ActionScript, Flash, Ruby | Leave a comment

Deep linking in Flex and Flash with Django

Aral Balkan shows you how.

Also posted in Django, Flash | Leave a comment

Adobe holding a series of online seminars this week

Info here.
Some of the more interesting sessions:
Extending Web to the Desktop with AIR
Monday, March 24, 2008
9:00 AM – 10:00 AM US/Pacific
Getting Started with Flash Lite 3 and CS3
Monday, March 24, 2008
11:00 AM – 12:00 PM US/Pacific
Building Rich Internet Applications with Flex 3
Monday, March 24, 2008
4:00 PM – 5:00 PM US/Pacific
Introduction to Adobe Blaze DS
Tuesday, March [...]

Also posted in AIR, ActionScript, Flash, RIA | Leave a comment