Due to time constraints, instead of trying to revert back the changes from the repository/merge with the other work already in progress to fix the problems, I decided to roll back EF to the previous version. So, I started to mess out with the nuget package manager console.

First I needed to get a list of projects that have a reference to the nuget package:

$projects = Get-Project -All | Select @{ Name="ProjectName";Expression={$_.ProjectName}}, @{Name="Has";Expression={Get-Package EntityFramework -Project $_.Name}}

Then, I uninstalled the package:

projects | select { Uninstall-Package EntityFramework -ProjectName $_.ProjectName -Force }

It's worth noting the use of the Force switch here. That can be quite dangerous as it can break other packages (see NuGet Docs)

Finally, installed the new one:

$projects | select { Install-Package EntityFramework -Version 5.0.0 -ProjectName $_.ProjectName }

And that's it. That solved my problem and now I can continue working where I left...

View complete article here: Creating a Culturally Customized Website

View complete article here: Website Internationalization and Accessibility

View complete article here: Website Localization with Ektron – Part 1

Website translation is also known as "Website Globalization". In order to "translate" a website into other languages you may need both Internationalization (I18N) and Localization (L10N) services.

View complete article here: Website Translation, Website Localization and Website Internationalization

Website translation is also known as "website globalization". In order to truly "translate" a website into other languages you may need both internationalization (I18N) and localization (L10N) services.

View complete article: 12 Steps to Website Globalization

So, for example:

if (arg == null) throw new ArgumentError("arg can not be null");
if (!(arg is IInterface)) throw new ArgumentError("arg must be of type IInterface");
....
if (ret == null) throw new Error("Something went wrong!");
return ret;

That’s good practice, but when you have to validate several conditions the code starts to look messy. For that reason, I created a couple of helper classes that takes cares of the job, providing a nice fluent typing.

Pre-conditional checking examples:

requiresNumber(pIndex, "pIndex").isLessThan(_size);
requires(pCollection, "pCollection").isNotNull();
requiresString(pKey, "key").isNotNullOrEmpty();
requires(pValue, "value").isNotNull();
requires(pNode._parent, "node").isNotSameAs(this, "You cannot attach a node to itself").isTypeOf(TreeNode);

Post-conditional checking examples:

ensuresBool(ExternalInterface.available, "ExternalInterface is not available.").isTrue();
ensures(_entries[pOldKey]).isNotNull("Key ["+pOldKey+"] does not exists.");
ensuresNumber(days).isLessOrEqualThan(10675199, "Invalid number of days: "+days);

Usage

You have 6 specific conditional checks (Array, Boolean, Date, Number, String) and one general. You access the conditionals by using either the requires[Type] functions or ensures[Type] functions.

The “requires” functions requires at least one parameter: the value you want to check. You can also pass a second parameter that represents the “name” of that value (you usually use “requires” to validate method arguments).

The conditions may have different number of parameters (depending on what are you checking). The last one is an additional string you may want to attach to the error description.

The “ensures” functions are similar to “requires”. Ensures needs at least one parameter (the value). The second argument is an additional message you may want to attach to the complete validation process, and the third one is the “name” of the variable you are checking.

This library is part of my flash framework. You can download it from Google Code

Note: There is a bug on the FlexSDK4 that does not let me compile the full library as a .swc, nor create the documentation (If you are interested: bug). You have to download the library from the SVN repository. I will post a new ZIP file when the bug gets fixed.

For example, on c# you may have the same function that does different things depending on the argument count/arguments types. The only limitation is that you can not have a method with the same signature (and different return type, for example).

So, this are perfectly valid method declarations:

class Datetools {
	public function minus (date:Date):Timespan { ... }
	public function minus (span:Timespan):Date { ... }
}

And the compiler then chooses the right one based on usage.

Now, how to do this in actionscript? The most used method is to add a switch/if statement inside the function and try to match the parameters. It is not only cumbersome but also hard to maintain.

So, using a little of black magic here and there, I present here my method overloader class.

package extremefx.tools {
	/**
	 * @author Marcelo Volmaro
	 */
	 public final class Overloader {
	 	private var _methods:Object;
	 	
	 	public function Overloader(pTarget:Object, pFnc:String) {
	 		_methods = {};
	 		pTarget[pFnc] = _exec;
	 	}
	 	
	 	public function overload(pFunction:Function, ...args):void {
	 		_methods[args.join(")] = new Fnc(pFunction, args);
		}
		
		public function unoverload(...args):Boolean {
			return delete _methods[args.join(")];
		}
		
		private function _exec(...args):* {		
			var l:int = args.length, h:String = ", theF:Fnc;
			
			for(var i:int = 0; i < l;i++){
				if (args[i] == null) continue;
				h += args[i].constructor;
			}
			
			//an exact match was found, use this.
			if ((theF = _methods[h])) return theF.f.apply(null, args);
			
			var bestMatch:int = -1,
			fnc:Function = null;
			
			for each(theF in _methods){
				if (theF.l != l) continue;//match number of arguments
				var m:int = 0;
				for (var j:uint = 0; j < l; j++){
					if (args[j] is theF.a[j]) m++;//find out which method has the best match
				}
				
				if (m > bestMatch){
					bestMatch = m;
					fnc = theF.f;
				}
			}
			
			return (fnc == null) ? null : fnc.apply(null, args);
		}
	}
}

final class Fnc {
	public var f:Function;
	public var a:Array;
	public var l:uint;
	public function Fnc(pF:Function, args:Array){
		f = pF;
		a = args;
		l = args.length;
	}
}

How to use?

Simple. You need to instantiate a new Overloader class, passing as arguments the target object and the name of the function you want to overload. The overloaded function must be defined as a variable of type “Function”. The Overloader class will assign then the method that will check for arguments and calls the appropiate function.

public function main():void {
	var o:Overloader = new Overloader(this, "testFnc");
	o.overload(_testO1, String);
	o.overload(_testO2, String, Boolean);
	o.overload(_testO3, Number);
	o.overload(_testO4, Function, Number);
	o.overload(_testO5, DummyTest, Number);
	
	trace(testFnc("A String"));//A String
	trace(testFnc("A String", true));//A String:true
	trace(testFnc("A String", false));//A String:false
	trace(testFnc(123.456));//123.456
	trace(testFnc(_testO1, 123.456));//Function plus:123.456
	trace(testFnc(this, 123.456));//Class [object DummyTest] plus:123.456
}

private function _testO1(pString:String):String {
	return pString;
}

private function _testO2(pString:String, pBool:Boolean):String {
	return pString + ":"+ pBool;
}

private function _testO3(pNumber:Number):Number {
	return pNumber;
}

private function _testO4(pFunction:Function, pNumber:Number):String {
	return "Function plus:"+pNumber;
}

private function _testO5(pClass:DummyTest, pNumber:Number):String {
	return "Class "+pClass+" plus:"+pNumber;
}

public var testFnc:Function;

I’d tried to make it bulletproof. If the specified parameter combination does not exist on the registered function list, the overloader will try to find out the best match from all the available functions, or at least one of the available functions. Please note that since flash player does runtime checking on the argument types, an exception may be thrown if the player can not do a type convert on the arguments (int, uint and numbers are convertibles, for example).

Hope you like it and as always, comments are welcomed!.

Details

Most of the code is well documented. I choose to follow the .net c# conventions for formatting as is the one I use the most.

There is also a resource management class that will let you manage language-specific resources, like strings and bitmaps. The resource manager uses the standard XLIFF format and it supports trans-unit nodes as well as bin-unit nodes.

Bin-unit nodes can have external or internal content. External content can be anything that flash supports natively like text files, xml, sound, video and images. External content will be loaded at runtime after the XLIFF file is parsed.

Internal content can only be images.

The library also supports text pluralization. For the library to know a string is a pluralized string, the string “[I18N]” must precede the list of pluralization’s.

ex: [I18N]|{0} file deleted.|{0} files deleted.

The number of plurals will depend on the language. Most languages uses two forms, singular used for one only, but other languages have more that one plural form (and others, like some of the Asian family, have no distinction between the singular and plural form).

For example, Polish uses e.g. plik (file) this way:

• 0 plików
• 1 plik
• 2-4 pliki
• 5-21 plików
• 22-24 pliki
• 25-31 plików
• etc.

And so on. Plural forms must be sorted like in real life. So, the singular first (if exists) and then the plurals.

The source code has a demo application that uses all the features the framework has. Please check that demo and the documentation for more information.

TODO / Missing

• Calendars: Gregorian calendar and all its derivated works (Japanese, Julian, Korean, Taiwan, ThaiBuddhist). All the Lunar Calendars are not implemented. Also, the UmAlQuraCalendar it's not implemented at all.
• HijriCalendar: Again, I implemented the algorithm, but I’m not sure if it works correctly. Need to check how the addHijriDate parameter works, if this parameter is the same as hijriAdjustment in .net, and if the calendar works at all.
• Native digits on the NumberFormatInfo is implemented but currently the system does not replace digits on the output string. Need to check with someone that knows Arabic on how this works.
• Collation tables (tables used for correct string sorting based on the language sorting rules) are not implemented. Not sure if I will be able to implement this feature, as they are pretty big. The collation table for the Japanese language only is a 9mb binary file.
• Bi-Di algorithm (have a rought version working, need to test against all the test cases).
• Inline node parsing on XLIFF files (to correctly handle inline tags, like bold, italic, links, etc).

Source code and downloads at: GoogleCode

Flashxed is a puzzle game in which your goal is to move similar blocks together, which causes them to disappear. Once all the blocks are gone, you’ve solved the level and you’re presented with a new level to solve. You move blocks by pressing the mouse on them and dragging to either the right or left. If an empty space is encountered, “gravity” takes over and the blocks fall towards the bottom.

You have to exit from every room by hiding all the platforms. Only when you have hidden all the platforms you can advance to the next level. To make things more difficult, you must complete a level before a timer ends.

Pazzo can jump in eight directions (up, down, left, right and up-left, up-right, down-left & down-right) and his jump can be short or long. Use them wisely to advance from level to level.

Cursor keys: standard jump.
Shift+cursor: long jump.

Clear the screen by clicking two or more adjacent blocks of the same color.

I will show you a simple test:

<form>
	<object id="flashElement1" width="256" height="64" data="files/bug4.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash">
		<param name="movie" value="files/bug4.swf" />
		<param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" />
	</object>
	<p><a onclick="document.getElementById('flashElement1').testFunction(); return false;" href="#">Click to test</a></p>
</form>

First of all, you will get a javascript error saying that the element “flashElement1” is undefined. And while in the flash window you will see the “CallBack added Ok”, if you click on the “Click to test” link you will get another error saying that the Object doesn´t support that property or method.

Why?: Easy. The way the javascript bridge with flash was coded is really awful. In IE, every time you add an “ID” attribute to an "HTML" element, that element is added to the “window” element so you can access it directly using window.elementID… but if you place the element inside an "HTML" form, the element is added to the form element (document.forms[0].elementID if you have only one form) and not window element. I suppose the person who did the bridge knowns nothing about this… I will not get into the details here, but you can believe me: The bridge it´s screaming for a rewriting.

How?: Well, this will depend on how are you embedding the object on the "HTML" page.

If you use SwfObject you should add the following line after the line 105 (the line that reads n.innerHTML = this.getSWFHTML();):

if(!(navigator.plugins && navigator.mimeTypes.length)) 
	window[this.getAttribute('id')] = document.getElementById(this.getAttribute('id'));

That applies to the current version of SwfObject (1.4.4).

If you use UFO you should add the following line after the line 230 (the line that reads _e.innerHTML = '<object classid="...):

if (_fo["id"]) window[_fo["id"]] = document.getElementById(_fo["id"]);

That applies to "UFO" 3.20.

And if you use Adobe´s Active Content you should add the following line after the line 24 (the line that reads document.write(str);):

if (objAttrs["id"]) window[objAttrs["id"]] = document.getElementById(objAttrs["id"]);

This version should be considered BETA. It is stable enough for me, but it will surely break existing applications that depends on it.

Don´t install this version on a production server and read the documentation!. I warned you…

Changes:

• Completely rewritten the javascript interface. The way the editor is placed was changed from the custom attribute to a class name.
• The editor is now localizable.
• Added Redo / Undo.
• Added Copy as HTML. (Right click over the text – may not work on some browsers).
• Added a function to determine which textareas were changed.
• Added the ability to create/delete folders in the file browser.
• Added a lot of information in the file browser.

Download the latest version FlashTA.zip - Read the documentation

Also, i added the ability to delete a file. To delete a file, you must first select it, and then click on the “delete” icon at the left. A confirmation dialog will popup and if you click on Ok, the file will be deleted on the server.

Download the latest version FlashTA.zip

The objective is to get as close to 21 as possible without going over. The dealer has to take a card if he has 17 or more.

An ace counts as 1 or 11. face cards are worth 10. You can double down on your hand if you have the cash.

You will be dealt one card and if you win you will double your payout… of course your bet is doubled too.

You can take insurance if the dealer is showing an ace and you have enought cash. the insurance bet is 1/2 your original bet.

It has some elements from the first skin, but the overall look’n‘feel is completely new.

Download (45.83 kb)

Download (36.97 kb)

Bugfixes:

• If you placed an image at the very beggining of the text, sometimes the editor freezes.
• Problems with screen resize and text not showing, reverted back to use a scrollbar in the textarea.
• Fixed a lot of problems if the image file was invalid/corrupted/not available.
• A lot more that i don't remember right now :).

Download the latest version FlashTA.zip

FlashTA is a WYSIWYG replacement text area for html forms. While there are various implementations done in javascript, most of them don´t work in this/that browser/OS combo, and every time a browser vendor makes a change, they need to update the editor so it doesn´t break on every possible combination of browsers.

FlashTA tries to overcome that problem by using flash. It also tries to adhere stricty to the xhtml specification. No presentation code is generated (so say bye bye to your idea of selecting text color, font face, etc).

FlashTA features an easy integration and multiple browser support (Mozilla, MSIE, FireFox, Opera & Safari).

Download

Download the latest version FlashTA.zip (176.70 kb)

How to use

FlashTA comes with 4 files:

• FlashTA.swf (the editor itself)
• FlashFB.swf (the external file browser)
• fTAR.js (the javascript used to replace text areas with the flash editor)
• fileManager.php (example script used for image & link management)

Copy that files where your html files resides (or any other folder, it doesn´t matter). You must call the fTAR.js script on any page that will be replacing text areas. The following line in the <head> should do the trick:

<script type="text/javascript" src="fTAR.js"></script>

To tell the script what textareas you want to be replaced, add to them the class “efx_flashtextarea”:

<textarea name="nameOfThisField" class="efx_flashtextarea"></textarea>

Configuration

The editor configuration is handled on the javascript file. For this, you should modify the lines that read:

fTAR.FlashTextArea.setFilemanager('fileManager.php');
fTAR.FlashTextArea.setServerURL('http://localhost');
fTAR.FlashTextArea.useFileBrowser(true);
fTAR.FlashTextArea.setBasePath('');
fTAR.FlashTextArea.setLngFile('lang/en.xml');
fTAR.FlashTextArea.setup('FlashTA.swf', 'FlashFB.swf');

Explanation:

fTAR.setup(editor, filebrowser);

• editor: path/name of the editor flash file. If you stored the editor on a folder called “flashEditor”, and the page that will use it is on the same level as the folder, the first parameter should be changed like: “flashEditor/FlashTA.swf”
• filebrowser: path/name of the filebrowser flash file. If you stored the browser on a folder called “flashEditor”, and the page that will use it is on the same level as the folder, the first parameter should be changed like: “flashEditor/FlashFB.swf”.

It lets you configure an input field to browse the server for a file. It´s like the normal browse button, but for server side files.

You should add the class “efx_browser” to the input field to enable it to browse all files, or with the class “efx_browser_images” to enable the field to browse for images only. Of course, for this you need a working fileManager.php already configured.

fTAR.FlashTextArea.setFilemanager(path to the fileManager.php file);
This file is used by the file browser and the image browser. Please note that this file is used for file browsing and file uploading.

fTAR.FlashTextArea.setServerURL(serverURL);
Url of the server used to retrieve the images. Directories are allowed here.

fTAR.FlashTextArea.setBasePath(relativePath);
Used to prefix links & images. The final URL of an image/link will be “relativePath/User selected Path/User selected file”.

“serverURL/relativePath/imagename” should point to a valid image. The editor will use that information to retrieve the image from the server.

You will also need to setup the fileManager.php script as following:

• diskPath: Folder on the server that holds the images/files accessible by the editor.
• thumbPath: Folder on the server, with write permissions, in where the script will store thumbnails of the user selected images, if the size of the image exceeds 210 × 210 px. This is to speed up the preview on the filebrowser and is not a must. If you don´t want thumbs to be created, simply put an empty string (’‘).
• ftpPath, ftpServer, ftpUser, ftpPass: If PHP is running in safe mode, a directory created through mkdir() will not be assigned to you, but to the user that your host’s server or php process is running under, usually ‘nobody’, ‘apache’ or ‘httpd’. In practice, this means that you can create directories, even add files to them, but you can’t delete the directory or its contents nor change permissions. This information is used in that case, so the created directory can be accessed freely like any other. ftpPath needs to has the address to the starting folder in where the files/images will be stored. ftpServer, ftpUser, ftpPass need to be completed with the server, username and password used to access the website via FTP.

fTAR.FlashTextArea.useFileBrowser(true | false);
If you don´t want the filebrowser to be accesible from withing the editor, simply pass false to this function.

fTAR.FlashTextArea.setLngFile(path to language file);
Both the fileBrowser and the editor are localizables through an XML file. If you want to use the editor/browser in your language, take a look at the files in the “lang” folder.

The buttons in the editor can be configured as following:

• fTAR.FlashTextAreaButtons.bold(true | false);
• fTAR.FlashTextAreaButtons.italic(true | false);
• fTAR.FlashTextAreaButtons.underline(true | false);
• fTAR.FlashTextAreaButtons.leftAlign(true | false);
• fTAR.FlashTextAreaButtons.centerAlign(true | false);
• fTAR.FlashTextAreaButtons.rightAlign(true | false);
• fTAR.FlashTextAreaButtons.justifyAlign(true | false);
• fTAR.FlashTextAreaButtons.header1(true | false);
• fTAR.FlashTextAreaButtons.header2(true | false);
• fTAR.FlashTextAreaButtons.header3(true | false);
• fTAR.FlashTextAreaButtons.header4(true | false);
• fTAR.FlashTextAreaButtons.header5(true | false);
• fTAR.FlashTextAreaButtons.header6(true | false);
• fTAR.FlashTextAreaButtons.bullets(true | false);
• fTAR.FlashTextAreaButtons.quote(true | false);
• fTAR.FlashTextAreaButtons.links(true | false);
• fTAR.FlashTextAreaButtons.images(true | false);
• fTAR.FlashTextAreaButtons.undo(true | false);
• fTAR.FlashTextAreaButtons.redo(true | false);

Also, there are some methods that can be usefull:

fTAR.FlashTextArea.updateContent();
Forces an update of all text areas. Usually, the content of the “browser” textareas is not updated until the user press the submit button.

If you placed the FlashTextArea inside a tabbed UI, you must call this method prior to change the text area visibility. Browsers remove the flash object from the DOM when changing visibility and you will lost all the changes made.

fTAR.FlashTextArea.getChangedAreas();
Returns “false” if no textareas were changed, or an array of the changed textareas.

fTAR.FlashTextArea.hasChanged(areaName);
Returns true if the area named “areaName” was changed, false if not.

There are also a bunch of CSS styles that you can play with. Take a look at the source code.

Known bugs and limitations:

• Sometimes in the editor, after you insert an image, the cursor changes to a small caret, and all text inserted at that place will look like a bunch of dots. This is a known issue of the player (at least it´s known by my… bug already reported to Macromedia). The text is in there and if you submit the data, the text will be in their place.

History (* fixed/changed, + added, – removed)

• + The editor is now localizable.
• + Redo / Undo.
• + Copy as HTML. (Right click over the text).
• + Added a way to determine what textareas were changed.
• - Flash automatic update if flash version < 8.
• * Finally!, discovered a way to fix Flash´s ExternalInterface on IE under forms. This simplified a lot the code.

• * Changed how the editor gets the text. Now it can be placed on “tabs” systems without loosing the content. You need to call fTAR.FlashTextArea.updateContent() before doing anything with the editor visibility.
• * Fixed a lot of image duplication bugs caused by the Flash Player.
• + Added the ability to delete files on the file browser.

• * Ported to use Macromedia Components
• + Added backgroundColor
• * Fixed image dissapearing bug.
• + Re-added the scrollbar.
• * A lot of bugfixes that i don´t remember now.

• + Added a “delete” button in the insert image window.
• * Buttons config now works as expected.
• * Fixed some problems with unicode chars under Opera 8.5+
• - Removed the scrollbar – Now the editor resizes itself as needed.

• + First launch

See the complete project at OSFlash/FlashTextArea