Mojo Flex

AS file to parse the Picasa Album atom feed

noreply@blogger.com (Jatin Desai) — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 21:51:00 +0000

I've been asked so many times for the script to parse the atom feed provided by the picasa api for the album. The script I am posting here is simple and can be used to parse the feed for the album. Please feel free to change to your need.


/*
*     PicasaAlbumParser.as
*    File to parse Picasa album xml retrieved from http://picasaweb.google.com/data/feed/api/user/{username}
*  
*    Jatin Desai
*    desaijatin at gmail.com
*
*    File converts xml to array and each element contains album object.
*    This class extracts the information needed for this project but feel free to change. This class was
*    initially derived from Mike Chambers' website (parsing atom feeds)
*    http://www.mikechambers.com/blog/2004/02/05/atom-feed-actionscript-2-class-alpha/
*
*/

package
{
   import flash.xml.XMLDocument;
   import flash.xml.XMLNode;
 
   public class PicasaAlbumParser
   {
       public function PicasaAlbumParser()
       {
       }
     
       public function ParseAlbumList( xml:XML ):Array
       {
           trace("*********************************************");
           trace("PARSING ATOM FEED");
           trace("*********************************************");
           var result:XMLDocument     = new XMLDocument();
           var arAlbum:Array         = new Array();
         
           result.parseXML( xml.toXMLString() );

           /* get the array of nodes withing response xml */
           var nodes:Array = result.firstChild.childNodes;

           for each( var node:XMLNode in nodes ) {
               switch( node.nodeName )
                 {
                   /* we are only interested in entry node */
                   case "entry":
                       arAlbum.push( ParseAlbumEntries(node) );
                       break;
               }
           }
         
           /* Return album */
           return arAlbum;
       }
     
       /* Parse album entries node */
       private function ParseAlbumEntries(entry:XMLNode):Object
       {
           var album:Object     = new Object();
           var nodes:Array     = entry.childNodes;
         
           for each( var node:XMLNode in nodes )
           {
               switch( node.nodeName )
               {
                   case "id":
                       album.id         = node.firstChild.nodeValue;
                       break;
                   case "title":
                       album.title     = node.firstChild.nodeValue;
                       break;
                   case "gphoto:id":
                       album.albumid     = node.firstChild.nodeValue;
                       break;
                   case "gphoto:name":
                       album.albumname = node.firstChild.nodeValue;
                       break;
                   case "gphoto:numphotos":
                       album.numphotos = node.firstChild.nodeValue;
                       break;
                   case "media:group":
                       album.media     = ParseAlbumMediaGroup(node);
                       break;
               }
           }

           /* return the album object */
           return album;
       }

       private function ParseAlbumMediaGroup(entry:XMLNode):Object
       {
           var media:Object = new Object();
           var nodes:Array = entry.childNodes;

           for each( var node:XMLNode in nodes )
           {
               switch( node.nodeName )
               {
                   case "media:description":
                       media.description = "";
                       if(node.firstChild != null)
                           media.description = node.firstChild.nodeValue;
                       break;
                   case "media:thumbnail":
                       media.thumbnail = node.attributes.url;
                       break;
                   case "media:content":
                       media.bigimage = node.attributes.url;
                       break;
               }
           }
         
           /* Return media object */
           return media;
       }
   }
}

Thanks,

Jatin

IE & cfdump

noreply@blogger.com (Jatin Desai) — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 14:59:00 +0000

Internet Explorer crashes badly if you have to many "cfdump"

<cfloop index="i" from="1" to="500">

<cfdump var="#i#">

</cfloop>

Use this test script and see the result.For the first time all worked well but then after reaching at some point my page was keep on doing the page refresh.

Internet explorer behaves randomly with too many dump scripts added by coldfusion in the source. So try avoiding the "cfdump" tag - rather than adding it once and reusing it.

Enjoy.

Uploading File over HTTPS with FileReference

noreply@blogger.com (Jatin Desai) — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 12:41:00 +0000

On friday I introduced myself with a very interesting problem. In one of my project at Learning assistant we wanted to use Flex application to uplaod file using secure url. It was going well untill I tested my application in Firefox. For some reason I was getting Error #2038: File I/O Error. After sometime searching for the solution on google I realised that not only me but so many people had the same issue. Some of them have suggested different solutions check this:

http://thanksmister.com/?p=59
http://www.mail-archive.com/flexcoders@yahoogroups.com/msg58372.html
http://www.onflex.org/ted/2005/11/using-flash-player-under-https-with.php

I tried all of them but still the problem was the same. I tried sending back the jsessionid, cfid, cftoken with url request etc, but was getting the same file io error. I checked the IIS access log to see what's really happening. Whenever I was trying upload file using Fire fox, it was making two request to the file upload url, the response for the first request was fine but the immediate second request was served with http header 403... I still don't know why second request was not served? or why two requests were made?

Anyways, we discussed not to use https for the file upload still we wanted to serve the flash object through https. So we changed the upload url to send request to http rahter than https and problem was solved. But if anyone had such problem and if you got some better solution please let me know.

Jatin

Picasa Web album Widget

noreply@blogger.com (Jatin Desai) — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 13:56:00 +0000

Hi,

Yesterday one of my friend asked me find a small widget to display photos from his picasa album to his blog. I searched for a while but didn't like any of them and thought of creating one by myself. I quickly logged on to picasa to find the "developer api" and started working on it. After few hours of work I came up with something like this.

Features:
1) Next/Previous photos
2) Full-Screen
3) Play/pause
4) small/medium/large thumbnail view

Its in a very primary state, please try it in your own blog or website and let me know what do you think about it. If you find any errors please post it here as a comment and I will try to work on it. At the moment code is very messy, I will tidy it up and post it here. Please post a comment if you are using it in your website. Its only for my reference. You can find it here

http://desaijatin.googlepages.com/home

Enjoy,

Jatin

Update (26 June 2008)

Thanks for the comments. This little widget uses the qs library (visit: http://www.quietlyscheming.com/blog/ for more info.)

I have used DisplayShelf component for the Album listing and the Landscape zoomer (light table) for the photo listing.

Hope this library will help you to build something like this.

J.

3D Wall

noreply@blogger.com (Jatin Desai) — Mon, 05 May 2008 23:41:00 +0000

Hi all,

Today I came accross a very effective way of displaying images in flash player. You have to check this out, this is some serious stuff.

This is very cool. They have posted 6 different examples. It reminds me of PicLense very much.

PicLense is a very good plugin for your browser, saves you clicking through "next", specially when you are browsing images on flickr, google, or facebook.

Hope you enjoy it and get more inspiration to create something cool like this. ;)

cheers,

Jatin

Flex and Coldfusion Job at Emojo

noreply@blogger.com (Gyuszi) — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 13:12:00 +0000

Emojo, a dynamic and innovative software development firm, seeks talented, self motivated, creative and disciplined Coldfusion and Flex Web Developer to help us respond to our continued growth.

Job Description:

Looking for a Flex Component Developer with demonstrated and proven skills in design, development, testing, and implementation of high quality applications using Coldfusion and MS SQL 2000. Continuous learning of new concepts, technologies and functionality is a strong point.
The development environment is Flex 2.0, and back end would be Coldfusion and SQL Server 2000. Some training will be provided.

This is full-time, permanent position.

Required Skills:

Candidate must have minimum 2+ years of experience in developing Rich Internet Applications using Adobe Flex 1.5/2.0/3.0
Minimum 2+ years experience in Object Oriented Programming
Minimum 2+ years experience in Coldfusion MX7
ActionScript development skills, including retrieving and parsing XML data from an application server
Strong knowledge of MS SQL 2000 and you must be experience in writing optimised queries.
Extensive experience with one or more modern IDE’s (ie. Dreamweaver, Flex Builder)
Degree in Computer Science or Mathematics
Strong Ability to grasp functional requirements
Experience in using Source Control Software
Experience in working with team
Knowledge of working with Content Management System

Duties and Responsibilities

You will be part of a small close-knit team that is passionate about Affino, our core product. The successful candidate will create rich user interfaces for complex applications and integrating them with Affino, extending and improving the existing functionalities, bug fixing, managing client based projects and internal projects. Other will include project documentation and specification and Cold Fusion database design/development. From time to time you will be called on to perform other duties.

Remuneration

From £25,000 to £35,000 per annum, contingent on experience.

Contact

Please send your CV and covering letter to ziggy@emojo.com.
Or
alternatively post it to:

Ziggy Latif
Emojo Ltd
211 Regent Street, London, UK, W1B 4NF

Closing date:
Please send us your application before 2nd October 2007.

Applicants are welcome from the European Economic Area (EEA).

Adobe® Integrated Runtime (AIR)

noreply@blogger.com (Jatin Desai) — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 08:21:00 +0000

Download free copy of Adobe® Integrated Runtime (AIR) for JavaScript Developers (Pocket Reference) - By Mike Chambers, Daniel Dura, and Kevin Hoyt

Adobe® Integrated Runtime (AIR) for JavaScript Developers

Content:

Chapter 1: Introduction to the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR)
Chapter 2: Getting Started with AIR Development
Chapter 3: Working with JavaScript and HTML Within AIR
Chapter 4: AIR Mini-Cookbook

Flex Image Processing

noreply@blogger.com (Jatin Desai) — Mon, 07 May 2007 21:54:00 +0000

Hi All,

Check this amazing Image Processing Library available for Flex / Action Script. The Imageprocessing Library is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Useful features:

1) BrightnessCorrection
2) ContrastCorrection
3) Grayscale
4) Emboss
5) Export as JPEG
6) Export as PNG
7) Normalize
8) Ripple
9) RedEyeRemoval
10) Tile
… And many more

I have assembled one example just to get the idea of how it’s all working. I will post the Source code very soon. Meanwhile play with it and explore the component yourself.
http://www.geocities.com/j_c_desai/ImageEditing/ImageEditing.html

More details at http://blog.je2050.de/

You can download Latest version here.
And Documentation is at http://je2050.de/imageprocessing/

All the best

Jatin

Adobe Unveils Next Generation Internet Video Solution

noreply@blogger.com (Jatin Desai) — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 18:48:00 +0000

[Large picture]

Adobe® Media Player™ is a desktop media player that offers useful features for viewers to manage and interact with their favorite content, and features for content publishers to define branding and advertising in and around their content. The Adobe Media Player will be one of the first Apollo applications from Adobe.

Adobe Media Player will be available as free beta download from the Adobe website in mid-2007 with availability expected later this year from Adobe and a wide range of media and technology partners.

Read more...

Press Release

Great looking Flex Image Editor

noreply@blogger.com (Markus Karlsson) — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 10:34:00 +0000

When looking around for a Flex based image editor we came across Fauxto which shows just what's possible with Flex when it comes to image generation and manipulation.

Just go to Fauxto.com to check it out.

MojoFlex YouTube Desktop Player

noreply@blogger.com (Jatin Desai) — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 19:24:00 +0000

Here is the another application created in Apollo.

YouTube Desktop Player, is the desktop application to play videos from YouTube. This is just the sample application, not for the commercial use. After installing the player you can search and play videos.

Once again code is not properly commented, please excuse me for that. Download the MojoFlexYouTubeVideoPlayer.zip (.zip 398KB), which contains MojoFlexYouTubeVideoPlayer.air file, install it and run the application.

(you will need to download and install the Run time: http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/apolloruntime.html)

Enter the search phrase and hit the "Go" button, you will see the search result in the Playlist window.

Double click on the item you want to watch. You can click donwload button to get the selected file.

Here is the source (1,163 KB) file.

Leave your comments and let me know what you think.

All the best.

My first Apollo Application

noreply@blogger.com (Jatin Desai) — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 19:15:00 +0000

Its been long time, since I stopped programming in Java, I wanted to create some desktop application. I was eagerly waiting for Adobe to release Apollo, so that I can do something. This weekend I decided to create a simple application in Apollo. Long ago I wrote one Flex application to play .flv files, so I though of using the same code and create on Flash video player. I spend about three hours and was able to create something very simple.

I was so excited to post my first Apollo Application. Please find the “.air” file at the end of this post. There is a zip folder with source files, please excuse me because source files are not tidy.

I personally believe Adobe has done excellent job, and made it so simple to create desktop application.

You will need to download and install Apollo Run time.

Download “FlashVideoPlayer.zip” (.zip 371KB)

Screen 1:

After installing the “FlashVideoPlayer.air” – FlashVideoPlayer.exe and it will open up the Video player. I tried to create player same as Windows Media Player 11.

Screen 2:

Click on Playlist icon and it will open up the Video browser window. Please select the flv file and click play icon. Video Browser window is filtering files and looking for only .flv files.

Download Source files:
MyFirstApplication.zip

All the best.

Apollo Alpha released today...!

noreply@blogger.com (Jatin Desai) — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 15:10:00 +0000

Hey guys,

Good and Big News: Apollo Alpha is released today...

Get your copy today.
http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Apollo

Download includes:

Apollo SDK
Apollo Runtime
Documentations and Samples
Apollo Extension for Adobe Flex Builder 2.0.1

All the best

Adobe Apollo Beta version

noreply@blogger.com (Jatin Desai) — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 19:10:00 +0000

Hey guys keep an eye on Adobe labs’ Apollo section to be notified about the beta version of the Apollo.

Here is the link to signup for the notification.
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=apollo_beta

If you haven't heard about Apollo, visit Developer's faq at Adobe Labs.
Developer FAQ

Don't miss out.....

if you fancy reading and preparing your self about it here is the book:
http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Apollo:Books:Apollo_for_Adobe_Flex_Developers_Pocket_Guide

Apollo for Adobe Flex Developers Pocket Guide Mike Chambers, Rob Dixon, Jeff Scwartz

Get the Book

Download PDF of Book
Purchase from Amazon

All the best

Flex Documentation

noreply@blogger.com (Jatin Desai) — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 10:20:00 +0000

Usually I look at other people’s code and general guidelines to learn new programming language. But its very important to know the programming language and its syntax. Adobe has published good range of documentation on its website.

Link: http://www.adobe.com/support/documentation/en/flex/

Following is the list of available documents / references.

Installing Flex 2.0.1
(HTML)

Flex 2 Developer's Guide
PDF (PDF, 10.5MB) Zip (.zip, 5.5MB) HTML (LiveDocs format)

Creating and Extending Flex 2 Components
PDF (PDF, 1.3MB) Zip (.zip, 0.9MB) HTML (LiveDocs format)

Building and Deploying Flex 2 Applications
PDF (PDF, 2.7MB) ZIP (.zip, 1.7MB) HTML (LiveDocs format)

Programming ActionScript 3.0
PDF (PDF, 3.8MB) ZIP (.zip, 2.3MB) HTML (LiveDocs format)

ActionScript 3.0 examples
ZIP (.zip, 0.5MB)
Many topics in Programming ActionScript 3.0 include descriptions of example applications; the source code used to build these examples is available for download

Migrating Applications to Flex 2
PDF (PDF, 900KB) ZIP (.zip, 600KB)

Documentation ZIP file
ZIP (.zip, 45.5MB)
The Flex documentation ZIP file contains the Flex 2 usage documentation in PDF format and the Flex 2 Language Reference and Flex Data Services 2 Javadocs files in HTML format.

If you really want to get into the roots of Flex, download the Documentation zip files, it includes everything you need to know.

All the best

domain name for blog

noreply@blogger.com (stephan j james) — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 16:47:00 +0000

this blog will stay under the umbrella of www.blogger.com and www.mojoflex.com for the time being, despite my efforts to set it up on it's own domain.

Today I made the mistake of choosing a Domain Registration company (that also host the domain and other websites for me) that does not offer a control panel to change the nameserver so that a cname can be entered. That means I cannot automatically point my blog at this domain unless I use the ISP's blogging software, which I do not want to do. My blog needs to use google blogger so that it integrates and uses the same widgets and links as my collegues.

What will happen, is that I will register a new domain using godaddy.com which will allow me to do what I need to do with the cname. I can then open up a hosting account with godaddy.com and start hosting my sites with them too because they are such good value. Since my experiences over the last few days with a UK hosting and domain registration outfit, I am appreciating the features that godaddy offer:- month by month comittment it does not need to be 12 month minimum contract, domain and hosting in one package with discount if both at same time, integrated software forum for downloading/trying/sharing software, mysql built into even the basic hosting platform and much much more. If I did not know better, I would say that Markus has shares in godaddy, because he is their best salesman!

Installing Flex on Coldfusion

noreply@blogger.com (Jatin Desai) — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 01:33:00 +0000

In this post we will discuss how to install flex on Coldfusion server. I have installed flex on Windows XP and with the built in server for Coldfusion MX7 (Developer edition). For more information and installing flex samples, please read article on Adobe’s website http://www.adobe.com/support/documentation/en/flex/1_5/flexforcf.html).

Download the latest version of Flex installer from http://www.adobe.com/products/flex/

Now run the installer to extract/copy Flex files to flex install directory.

Copy flex.war from flex install directory, create temp folder (for example c:/tempflexwar), and extract the content using Winzip or other similar extractor.

Now stop Coldfusion server and carefully follow all the steps.
Copy content from the WEB-INF folder of the c:/tempflexwar/flex to the {Coldfusion root directory}/ WEB-INF
Make sure that you copy content from c:/tempflexwar/flex/WEB-INF/lib to {Coldfusion root directory}/ WEB-INF/ lib, c:/tempflexwar/flex/WEB-INF/classes to {Coldfusion root directory}/ WEB-INF/classes and c:/tempflexwar/flex/WEB-INF/flex to {Coldfusion root directory}/ WEB-INF/flex (if you don’t have folder called flex just create one or copy content.

Now you need to merge Flex web.xml file to Coldfusion web.xml file.

[Note: Its always a good idea to make a copy of original file.]

Open Coldfusion web.xml in text editor or in Dreamweaver. You can find web.xml file in {Coldfusion root directory}/ WEB-INF/ folder.
Replace the “Doctype” definition with the following DOCTYPE definition:

<!DOCTYPE web-app PUBLIC "-//Sun Microsystems, Inc.// DTD Web Application 2.3// EN" "http://java.sun.com/dtd/web-app_2_3.dtd">

DTD specifies the following order that the tags must have in order for the document to be considered a valid XML document:

Copy the context parameters, filters, filter mappings, listeners, and servlet definitions from the Flex web.xml file to the appropriate sections in the ColdFusion MX web.xml file. Copy each of these elements to the end of the matching section in the ColdFusion MX configuration file. For example, when copying the Flex filter mappings, add them after the ColdFusion MX filters mappings but before the next set of elements. Be sure to maintain the order of the XML blocks in the way that they appear in the Flex web.xml file.

Save the web.xml and restart coldfusion server.

If all the steps are followed properly you should be able to compile mxml file in your coldfusion instance.

If for any reason it doen't work, stop your coldfusion server and check the web.xml file.

All the best.

Welcome to Mojo Flex

noreply@blogger.com (Markus Karlsson) — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 14:14:00 +0000

Mojo Flex is brought to you by the eBusiness experts at Emojo. We aim to make this a great resource for the Flex community and for those interested in what Flex is all about. Along the way we'll be highlighting our Flex projects and releasing any Widgets or cool components we develop.

Adobe Flex is an amazing development that most people haven't yet caught up with. People are hung up on what Ajax can do for forms and content when Flex handles all forms of media in the same way with less code, greater reach and cross platform capability.

Enjoy the ride.