Iconara

Debug both Flex and AIR apps from the same FlexBuilder project

Theo — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 08:12:02 +0000

For some reason FlexBuilder forces you to choose between creating Flex projects and AIR projects, and it doesn’t let you change a projects nature after it’s been created. This means that if you create a Flex project you will not be able to compile, debug or profile any AIR applications that you happen to build [...]

Architectural Atrocities, part 11: Not yet another namespace construct

Theo — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 07:48:49 +0000

Gumbo introduces many new classes, some of which are re-implementations of existing Halo classes (and thus have the same name). In order to disambiguate between Halo and Gumbo, Gumbo classes are prefixed to avoid collisions. Gumbo components that have Halo equivalents, like Button, List and CheckBox, are now prefixed with the letters “Fx”. This means [...]

How to work around the lack of ExternalInterface.objectID in ActionScript 2

Theo — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 12:00:16 +0000

I would guess that not very many of those who read this blog have used ActionScript 2 lately. I have had the unfortunate luck of having to write some of it during the past few weeks and I don’t recommend it. However, I ran into a problem that I’d like to share the solution to, [...]

A very localized bug indeed

Theo — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 11:31:04 +0000

I found the nastiest bug the other day. I’m working on a small piece of code that will live inside ads made with Flash and reports some stats like the size and position on the page. I discovered that under some very localized conditions my code would make Safari crash. Hard. I managed to track down [...]

Ichabod explained

Theo — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 11:34:04 +0000

The Adobe MAX sessions are online, and among them is a presentation by Jim Corbett about how Adobe and Google’s new Flash indexer works. I think it’s great to get such a thorough explanation from Adobe, but it’s a shame that they didn’t do this at the same time their PR people were busy hyping [...]

Architectural Atrocities, part 10: Cairngorm’s Service Locator

Theo — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 15:46:31 +0000

In this installment of the Architectural Atrocities series I’ll continue on the Cairngorm theme. This time it’s something that is truly an architectural atrocity if there ever was one, and one of the ugliest things I’ve seen in such a high profile piece of software that Cairngorm is (a fact that still baffles me): Cairngorm’s [...]

Creating a document-based application with Mate

Theo — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 07:49:59 +0000

Over the last few weeks I’ve put together an example application that shows how to build document-based applications with Mate. I’ve also started a Google Code project for Mate examples and extensions, and if you’re interested to contribute please contact me.

Talking Flex SEO on The Flex Show

Theo — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 13:47:57 +0000

Jeff and John were kind enough to have me on the Flex Show to talk about Flex and SEO. If you follow this blog you’ve read it all already, but it never hurts to hear it again.

Think inside the box

Theo — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 08:27:44 +0000

The last few weeks I’ve been busy working on an app for creative writing, called Copybox. On monday it was finally launched publicly at the TechCrunch50 conference. Below is a video of the presentation, which explains the motivations of the application, and how it works. The splash screen of the video is a bit odd, [...]

Writing testable code is writing high quality code

Theo — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 10:24:25 +0000

Writing testable code isn’t just about writing code that is easy to test, writing testable code is also a way to write higher quality code. If you can test it it is likely to be reusable, loosely coupled and easier to maintain. The Google Testing Blog, mostly written by Miško Hevery, is amongst the most brilliant [...]