My Clippings on NewsGator Online

Flex Gumbo Sample - Pretty Button with FXG

James Ward — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 20:47:50 GMT

Development of the next version of Flex, codenamed Gumbo, is well underway. I’d really encourage everyone to go grab a build and give it a whirl. I did because I wanted to see how I could take a sample I built with Flex 3, Degrafa, and AnimateColor and build the same thing with Flex Gumbo. Here’s that version:

And here is the new version built with Gumbo and FXG (requires Flash Player 10):

The code for this new version is pretty elegant. The interesting part is the custom skin:

I had to write the FXG by hand which really wasn’t very hard but ideally in the future a designer can just give me the FXG code, exported from their design tools.

This was a fun experiment. Let me know what you think of Flex Gumbo code for this new version.

Video tutorial: Use Flex for your ActionScript coding for Flash CS4

Serge Jespers — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 10:42:24 GMT

There are a couple of ways you can use Flex and Flash together. I’ve already showed you a couple of those in previous tutorials. In this video, I’ll show you how to use the SWC files created by a Flex library project in Flash CS4. That way, you can have an ActionScript developer work in Flex who can then hand off compiled SWC files to a Flash designer.

How to compile a Flex project with RSL using Ant

yannick — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 21:33:38 GMT

Recently, we had to write an Ant script to build our application and put it under continuous integration. At the beginning, we passed the minimum arguments to the compiler to build the SWF file and it compiled the project, including the framework classes, in the application SWF file.

So, how to use RSL winthin an ant script to reduce the size of the swf result file ?

Firs of all, you have to use a configuration file witch specifies a lots of information to the compiler about your application like the name, the player version, etc. So, you can create your own configuration file and specify all the informations needed. A sample of the file is in the flex sdk named “flex-config.xml”. Inside this file, you can write a tag runtime-shared-library-path witch specify the SWC file you want to use as an RSL.

An example of the config file may be:

<flex-config>

    <compiler> 

    … 

    </compiler>

   
<runtime-shared-library-path>


       
<path-element>libs/framework.swc</path-element>

      
 <rsl-url>framework_3.2.0.3958.swz</rsl-url>


       
<policy-file-url></policy-file-url>

      
 <rsl-url>framework_3.2.0.3958.swf</rsl-url>

       
<policy-file-url></policy-file-url>

   
</runtime-shared-library-path>

    …


</flex-config>

The <path-element> tag is the relative path to the library file, the <rsl-url> is the relative url of the RSL relatively to the root server path and the <policy-file-url> is the relative URL for the crossdomain.xml file. If not specify, flash will try to find it at the root of the server.

Now we can use this file in our ant task as a config file for the compiler. Therefore, the compiler will create correct links to the RSL in the project SWF file.

This is a sample how to use the config file:

<mxmlc file="..." >

        …

       
<load-config filename=”${basedir}/flex-config.xml”/>

        …

</mxmlc>

After the build, the SWF file of the project is smaller than before and you have just to put the framework.swz and framework.swf file at the correct location on the server to use them as Runtime Shared Libraries !

Census Mashup Redux

Andrew Trice — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 16:03:01 GMT

Back in 2007, I created a mashup combining US Census information with Flex charting capabilities and map visualization. I've gotten a ton of positive feedback on it, and am grateful that it was such a success. I've been contacted that it has been used by school teachers in their classes, real estate agents, researchers, insurance analysts, and many others.

Recently, the web services that provide the census information changed, and my mashup was broken for at least a month. Now, I'm happy to say that it has been reborn!

You can check it out here: http://www.cynergysystems.com/blogs/blogs/andrew.trice/census/#

The mashup combines multiple data sources to provide a geographic and demographic data dashboard based on US Census information. It uses services powered by OpenKapow to consume data from usps.com for finding all zipcodes within a city/state. It then uses the zipcodes to lookup census information and present it to the user dashboard. All map visualization is powered by Google Maps, all weather information is powered by Yahoo!, and all demographic data provided by StrikeIron Lite Web Services.

The new changes include:

1. Updated UI look and feel, and better usage of screen real-estate.

2. I've updated it to consume the new Lite web services from StrikeIron. FYI: There is a limit of 100 requests per day, per IP address on the free services.

3. Updated to include weather information from Yahoo!.

Go ahead and take it for a test drive, and enjoy!
http://www.cynergysystems.com/blogs/blogs/andrew.trice/census/#

How to work with Adobe

D Nickull (Duane.Nickull@gmail.com) — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 23:21:00 GMT

Thanks for reaching out to the Adobe Flash Platform team.

As an evangelist, I spend a lot of time trying to connect people outside the company to the right program inside of Adobe. This is often a win-win scenario. As outsiders, however, it can be daunting to find the right program. This blog post is an attempt to aggregate some of the more important resources for external people to work with at Adobe. I will add more as they become available or people can ping me to add them (just use the comment form to add more).

We want to ensure you have what you need to get started with Adobe! Good luck!

This document outlines the key programs and activities you can leverage from Adobe to be successful with our platform.

Click here to learn more about the Adobe Flash Platform: http://www.adobe.com/flashplatform

PROMOTE YOUR OFFERINGS TO THE COMMUNITY

Customer Success Program: http://www.adobe.com/go/csp
The Adobe Customer Success Program (CSP) works with innovators and business leaders to highlight how organizations use and benefit from Adobe solutions.

Adobe Site of the Day: http://www.adobe.com/go/showcase
Developers can submit applications to be included in the Adobe Site of the Day. This submission allows us to use it in other marketing areas, like the Edge newsletter.

Flex.org: http://flex.org/post_items
Flex.org aggregates Flex news from a number of sources, and allows community members to contribute their own content as well. Learn more: http://flex.org/post_items

The Solution Partner Program: http://www.adobe.com/go/gntray_comm_partners
The Adobe Partner Program is designed for companies that provide solution-based sales, system integration, services, or extended products based on Adobe technology.

Adobe Marketplace: http://www.adobe.com/go/marketplace
Adobe Marketplace is a place where developers can publish their AIR applications for users to download. Learn more: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/air/articles/air_marketplace_faq.html

Community blogs: http://feeds.adobe.com
Add your feed to the Adobe blog aggregator to make sure the community at-large is receiving the latest news on your offerings. Additionally find active community members including Adobe evangelists who may be interested in learning more. Learn more: http://feeds.adobe.com/FAQ.cfm

ACCESS SOFTWARE FOR EVALUATION

Adobe Labs: http://labs.adobe.com/
Labs provides developers with the opportunity to experience and evaluate new and emerging innovations, technologies, and products from Adobe. Learn more: http://labs.adobe.com/about/

Adobe Pre-release Program: http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=prerelease_interest and currently open prerelease opportunities are listed here - http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Prerelease

The goal of a Pre-release Program at Adobe is to solicit early feedback on new features and bugs in order to produce a unique and a bug free product that can deliver maximum results.

Also: The Solution Partner Program (http://www.adobe.com/go/gntray_comm_partners)

SUPPORT AND TRAINING

The Adobe Developer Connection: http://www.adobe.com/go/join_adc
The ADC serves as the central resource for information on Adobe developer technologies, providing tutorials, samples, and documentation to guide and instruct developers. Learn more: https://www.adobe.com/devnet/

Adobe Enterprise Developer Program: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/aedp/index.html
Provides developers, architects & forms designers with support, software and tools to build and deploy enterprise solutions built on a SOA, leveraging Adobe technologies.

Adobe Support Programs: http://www.adobe.com/support/programs/
Flex, Flash and AIR support programs for developers and enterprises include technical help and information on planning, workflow and deployment. Learn more: http://www.adobe.com/support/programs/connect_preso/

Adobe Forums: http://www.adobe.com/support/forums/
Adobe Online Forums are for the Adobe community's peer-to-peer discussions of both Adobe and formerly Macromedia products.

Adobe User Groups: http://groups.adobe.com
Adobe Developer User Groups provide a forum of support and technology to web professionals at all levels. Whether you're a designer, a seasoned developer, or are just starting out, Adobe User Groups strengthen community, increase networking, unveil the latest technology innovations, and reveal the techniques that turn novices into experts and experts into gurus.

Adobe Training and Certification: http://www.adobe.com/training/
Whether you want to improve your skills, projects or resume, Adobe training and certification programs and resources can help you achieve your goals.

Flex in a Week Video Training Series: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/videotraining/
A week-long, video based online training program for developers. This self-paced program is free and is intended to help developers accelerate their Flex learning.

Also: Solution Partner Program (http://www.adobe.com/go/gntray_comm_partners), Community Blogs (http://feeds.adobe.com)

PARTNERS

Partner Finder: http://partners.adobe.com/public/asn/partnerfinder/solutionpartner/
Use the Partner Finder to locate an Adobe Solution Partner to help extend the value of your Adobe technology investment and drive your business with tailored solutions.

The Solution Partner Program: http://www.adobe.com/go/gntray_comm_partners
The Adobe Partner Program is designed for companies that provide solution-based sales, system integration, services, or extended products based on Adobe technology.

No crisis on the web? How are you doing?

Serge Jespers — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 10:28:28 GMT

According to the Union of Belgian Advertisers and researchers Profact [as published on Digimedia (dutch)], there is no crisis on the Internet. According to this report, 90% of all advertisers said the crisis does impact the way they work and over 80% reduced their budgets by 10 to 20%.

Where it gets interesting, is where they are spending their money. 55% of all advertisers said they will spend less money on tv, newspaper, magazine, movie theater, radio and street ads. However, 37% of them said they are investing more in Internet advertising.

On top of that, I also see a lot of interactive agencies looking to hire extra Flash designers and developers. This week alone, I saw at least 6 job openings across Europe on Twitter. I also received a couple of emails from agencies looking for people.

While talking to agencies at both FITC and FlashCamp UK last week, I found that this seems to be a common trend. Most of the people I talked to still had plenty of work but are expecting a cutback in marketing projects. Most of the people I talked to are planing on filling any gaps with research (looking into mobile development came up frequently) and diversifying their skill set.

Now, I may be completely wrong, but to me it sounds as if “the Internet” is doing ok at the moment. I’m sure there have been some cutbacks here and there already but the bigger agencies seem to be doing alright.

I’d love to hear your stories! How have you been doing? Has your company been hit by the crisis? If so, in what way?

MAX 2009 Call For Sessions Is Open

ben@forta.com — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 03:34:00 GMT

Title says it all. Go to the MAX 2009 Call for Sessions and Labs page to propose content for MAX 2009 in Los Angeles, CA.

Weborb.NET platform for Flex client

Luca Florido — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 10:02:26 GMT

Weborb for .NET is one of the best platform to connect Flex, Flash, AJAX and Silverlight clients with .NET objects, XML Web Services, native operating system resources and rich media streams (audio and video). In this post I will show you how to install and start up this platform on XP Professional with IIS 6.0. First of all you have to install .NET 2.0 Framework on yours machines, following the steps below : - open a Dos Shell -go to the directory that contains .NET 2.0 installation files ( usually is C:\WINDOWS \Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727). - Execute the command: aspnett_regiis -i After this operation you can proceed with the weborb installation. In order to download WEBORB platform from MIDNIGHT CODERS web site, you have to register yourself (it is FREE!) and after this you will be able to save WeborbSetup3.6.0.3.zip file on your computer. Now you have to unzip that file and run setup; after few seconds you are ready to test your WEBORB Installation. Now open your browser and go to http:\\localhost\weborb30. At this address you can find the start page of WEBORB .NET platform. First of all you can see a lot of example of what you can do with this platform in the section “Example” of the main Menu, but one of the most interest function is the Deployment. In this section you can create your server-side application in two different ways: The first way is to automatically deploy weborb library in an IIS Virtual directory. It is very simple, in fact is enough to drag and drop the virtual directory from the list on the left to the list on the right, and, after a few seconds, you will have all the configurations files ready in the destination directory. The second way is to deploy manually the weborb library following the steps below: -Copy the following files/folders from the default Weborb installation directory to the corresponding folders in the target virtual directory: /Licenses/weborblicense.key.config /bin/weborb.dll (main WebORB assembly) /bin/Npgsql.dll (a database driver used by WebORB Data Management) /bin/MySql.Data.dll (a database driver used by WebORB Data Management) /bin/Mono.Security.dll (a database driver used by WebORB Data Management) /weborb.config (product configuration file) /weborbee.exe (WebORB Enterprise Edition standalone server) /weborbee.exe.config (WebORB Enterprise Edition executable config) /Applications (WebORB messaging applications home) /Global.asax (includes WebORB messaging server startup and shutdown code. Merge the contents if the file already exists) /diagnostics.aspx (product diagnostics utility) /WEB-INF (Flex configuration files home) /weborbassets (Code generator stylesheets home) /services (WebORB web services, contains backend support for WDMF plugin for Flex Builder) /weborb.js (required only for the AJAX clients) - Add the following XML configuration to web.config in the target virtual directory: <configuration> <system.web> <httpHandlers> <add verb="*" path="weborb.aspx" type="Weborb.ORBHttpHandler"/> <add verb="*" path="codegen.aspx" type= "Weborb.Management.CodeGen.CodegeneratorHttpHandler"/> </httpHandlers> </system.web> </configuration> - Grant Write permission to the user account ASP.NET uses for the following files and directories: /weborb.config (required only if making configuration changes from the console) /logs (required only if logging is enabled) /weborbassets/codegen (required only if codegen is used in the console) /weborbassets/uploads /weborbassets/wdm /weborbassets/wdm/output /*.mdb (required only if writing data back on the server in some examples) Another very important function in the main menu is Management where you can test our remote components without any dedicated client application! Next time I will show you a small example with a Flex client.

Flex 3.3 Released!

Ted Patrick (noreply@blogger.com) — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 22:02:00 GMT

Time to update your Flex SDK's!

3.3 Flex SDK Download
3.3 Release Notes

Cheers,

Ted :)

The DeskTube

freshairapps@gmail.com — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 17:52:35 GMT

The DeskTube is an Adobe AIR application for YouTube that has lots of extensions integrated into it including Twitter and Ribbit.

bq.DeskTube is THE desktop YouTube application. Featuring the ability to search videos, view profiles, post comments, upload videos, and much much more! DeskTube features the ability to post updates to Twitter, and even text message and make phone calls right from your desktop.

The standard array of features are here like viewing and searching for videos, related videos and commenting. You can’t download the YouTube videos using this AIR app as that violates the YouTube terms of service.

This is a work in progress however there are a few close icons that don’t work, notably the Twitter and Ribbit. Also I’m not certain that those features have been fully implemented yet. The widget option on the main menu also fails to produce anything within the UI.

I think the developer also needs to work on memory optimisation. On my 2009 Macbook pro with 4GB RAM after being open for a few minutes it was using 140% of my system resources and kicked off the fans.

Design eye

The design can be a bit intimidating at first and I’m not a big fan of the excessive knockout style drop shadows used everywhere.

The dynamic tooltips that appear over the menu options are useful as you can’t always tell what the menu icons mean.

On the settings modal window I would have expected to setup all of my account login information for all of the services that DeskTube uses – no need to have different locations for all of this.

Technical eye

Built using Adobe Flash and the Adobe AIR.

In Summary

Worth a look if your into your YouTube however the performance is a concern if you plan on running the app for a long period of time. You can checkout other YouTube AIR applications from RefreshingApps.com.

Tagged with: youtube, video, fun

Advertise here on the RefreshingApps feed and get noticed. Find out more.

RIA Weekly #45 - RIA’s and PaaS’s, The Intuit Partner Platform

cote — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 18:17:54 GMT

You can download this episode directly directly and it’ll also show up in the RIA Weekly feed for iTunes and other podcatchers. Or, just use the controls below to listen to it right here:

This week, Ryan and I are joined by Intuit’s Alex Barnett. We spend most of the time talking about Intuit related topics in the RIA space, but get to the week’s general RIA news as well.

We discuss:

Alex Barnett and the Intuit Partner Platform
Intuit moving to “Connected Services” to evolve into the future where being only the desktop isn’t such a good idea. Moving into the cloud, that is.
AIR and Flex layering on-top the Intuit Partner Platform - accessing QuickBooks data and process. Examples: Universal Mind mapping application to see where your customers are. They’ve got 12 applications in IPP so far: people waiting for full transactional data in QuickBooks.
Marketplace Intuit takes 20% revenue-share, collects the money, and pays the develop.
Are internal Intuit folks using IPP? Or, at least RIAs? Indeed, quit a bit, Alex says. For example an Intuit project called “view my pay check,” on workplace.intuit.com… 400 small businesses using it for over 4,000 employees.
What would people charge for these “mini-applications”? How does this change the procurement cycle. Monthly cycles, 10’s of dollars a month.
What types of things do people use AIR, or “occasionally connected” applications for? One of their theories is that AIR is a good transition app for moving people comfortably from the desktop to a purer SaaS.
How does RIA UX play into the appeal here? “Simple” things like drag-and-dropping are astonishingly handy for users.
QuickBase’s offer to take on Coghead users.
Appcelerator Titanium PR2 - we’re getting an Appcelerator guest on next week for more details.
Bespin - pure open web based IDE that’s, as Alex puts it “astonishing.”
Brandon Wiley’s p2p data-sharing thing, service, Ringlight

Sponsorship

This Episode is Sponsored by Adobe:

Use the Adobe Flex framework and Adobe AIR to create rich Internet applications. RIAs that combine the wide reach of the browser and the flexibility of applications that can also be delivered outside the browser. Adobe Flex combined with Adobe AIR provides an agile and powerful solution to develop and make quick iterations on applications that reach across platforms and deliver a consistent user experience.

Download the free Flex Builder trial and the Adobe AIR SDK and start building the next- generation of RIAs.

Disclosure: Adobe is a client - as is Appcelerator - and sponsored this podcast.

A DVD full of Flex goodness for developers exploring Flex

gregorywilson — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 22:43:31 GMT

I have a huge stack of DVDs containing the following:

Tour de Flex - click here to learn about Tour de Flex
Flex Builder Pro Trial (Windows and Mac, Standalone and Eclipse Plugin)
Flex SDK
Flex Documentation including ASDocs (similar to Javadocs)
Spring / Flex Test Drive
BlazeDS Turnkey and Binary Distribution
BlazeDS Developer’s Guide
LiveCycle Data Services Developer
ColdFusion 8.01 Developer Edition (Windows)

As you can see, we’ve put together a good collection of stuff to get anyone started with Flex, especially if you are a Java developer. If you want one of these DVDs, please contact me by emailing gwilson at adobe (com). Use the subject “Flex DVD” so I can find it in the daily flood of email. You can also message me on twitter at http://twitter.com/gregorywilson.

If you are planning to attend a Java user group or any other audience of potential Flex developers, let me know how many you need. This will deputize you as an Adobe Evangelist!

Also, if you are a college student, faculty of staff, your trial license of Flex Builder Pro can be turned into a full license FREE. Read this for more info.

Lastly, if you have been recently unemployed, I can potentially hook you up with a full Flex Builder Pro license too.

Posted in Adobe AIR, Adobe Flex, Adobe LiveCycle Data Services, Tour de Flex

When the economy is down, do you still believe?

Dave McAllister — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 17:32:33 GMT

Jason Calacanis has a great blog up:
What to do if your startup is about fail (or “Don’t Stop Believing”)

And as I read all the way to the end of it (been there done that), I agreed with almost everything he said.

Especially longevity.

However, it's worth noting at no point does he challenge your business model. And rightly so. Your business model better be ingrained into your DNA. And transferred by oath of fealty to every employee. Start there. Can your employees discuss your business model with you or their co-workers?

Bottom line, it's all about the business. And there is no one business model that's right for every opportunity.

Including in Open Source.

I've gone on rants before at smart people when they talk about "The Open Source Business Model". There isn't any such thing. There are lots of business models that are supported, accelerated, supportive of open source technologies. But no holy grail. No perfect plan.

So recognize that open soucre is a tactic (marketing, licensing, development, community, etc).

And make sure you know your strategy.

My foray into tweetcoding

Doug — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 02:08:28 GMT

I finally broke my Twitter silence and tweeted so I could participate in the tweetcoding competition that Grant Skinner launched. Here’s the code of my amazing entry:

if(!i++) { o=new Loader(); o.load(new URLRequest(["http:",,"is.gd","kUV9"].join(”/”))); } if(o && o.width) { stage.addChild(o); }

And here’s the link to the auto-generated SWF produced by that code.

So for those of you who have been following me on Twitter waiting for me to say something, I hope a dorky joke made of code is everything you expected and more. My entry is kind of cheating I suppose, but it’s all for a good laugh

The tweetcoding competition is really cool, and people who are taking it seriously (obviously myself not included) are making some really impressive stuff in 140 characters. If you haven’t perused the entries, go to this page and explore. Anything tagged with #tweetcoding is shown in that list, and all the entries submitted are automatically compiled.

And as a tip to others, if you’re going to do an entry, make sure to write it and test it in Flash. I first tried just doing an AS3 project in Flex Builder, but running code in an AS3-only Sprite-based project is quite a bit different than running code on the timeline. It wasn’t until I installed Flash CS4 and tested on the timeline that I got an entry that the tweetcoding compiler would compile correctly (I submitted 3 entries that didn’t compile).

Flash Player Games - Is It All About the Polygons?

Brooks — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 21:04:44 GMT

Ralph Koster see the Flash Platform as the potential future of gaming:

John Grden and some of the other 3d elites in the Flash world don’t feel Flash 3d is good enough.

Is either party correct? Is the answer, almost? Or, does it lie to some other web rendering engine to wrest yet another Silmaril from the clutches of old media? It’s enough to make me wonder if the Mozilla cats won’t get jealous and make 3d gaming the part of the html 5.1 spec( three cheers for FOSS and yet another browser land grab in the Flash world). ;-)

Video: Smarter Effects in Gumbo

Chet Haase (graphicsgeek1@gmail.com) — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 20:22:00 GMT

Here's another video from Adobe TV. In this one, I'm showing a couple of applications that demonstrate some of the intelligence that we're building into the new effects in Gumbo (the codename for the next release of Flex). Specifically, these demos show some of the new automatic behavior of the Fade effect and the new "autoReverse" capability of transitions.

As with any Gumbo demos, you should not get too locked into the specific APIs, since we're still very much mid-development. For example, all of the effects currently have an "Fx" prefix in the classnames which should be going away soon. But the point of the applications is to show the functionality and behavior of the effects, which is here to stay.

I should/will post the code and applications soon, but my workspace is a bit torn up at the moment, since I'm in the middle of more cool-o effects features. As soon as that's cleared up, I'll update this post to have the code available. Meanwhile, grab the popcorn, sit back, and enjoy all 6 minutes and 8 seconds of:

The Flex Show Episode 68: Tour De Flex with Greg Wilson

info@theflexshow.com (Jeffry Houser and John Wilker) — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 15:50:00 GMT

In this episode we talk to Greg Wilson of Adobe, talking about the Tour De Flex project.

Notes

Presenting To The Tampa User Groups

ben@forta.com — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 14:40:00 GMT

I'll be in Tampa next week, and will use the opportunity to speak to the Tampa ColdFusion User Group and the Tampa Flash, Flex and AIR Developers Group. Fellow Platform Evangelists Greg Wilson and Kevin Hoyt will be there too, and will also be presenting. The event is scheduled for Wednesday, March 4th, 2009 at 6pm in the Atrium of the Art Institutes of Tampa.

The Oscars and Adobe Flash

eduvos — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 10:58:50 GMT

One of my favorite hobbies on a Sunday afternoon used to be heading down to the movie theater close to my place and watch some independent movie. I do like Hollywood hits, but there is something special about those productions outside L.A that really catch my attention.

Not sure how many of you follow the Oscars, but one of the nominees for Best Foreign Film in the 2009 Academy Awards, was Waltz with Bashir, an animated film distributed entirely using Adobe Flash. The plot is great, and the animations, graphics and quality outstanding, so I recommend watching it.

Recently, I installed a full HD projection system at my place, and those trips to the cinema have been decreasing (hey, my sofa and home made pizza are really an incentive to not leave my premises : ). Between my Marantz amplifier, B&W speakers, AppleTV, HD sat receiver and the HD IPTV box, I can pretty much watch anything I want in 1080 quality.

Since Flash can deliver HD content this means that I can enjoy films like Waltz from the confort of my home. Travelling? Not a problem, can also watch that content in my Nokia e71 with Adobe FlashLite 3.1 or my MacBook with Adobe Media Player.

It just great to see the worlds of movie production and home entertainment meet thanks to a technology like Flash.

Enjoy!!!

E-

Flash Lite 3 development: Handling Screen Orientation Change

Tony Macdonell — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 15:40:06 GMT

Over the last year, we have been doing a lot of work with Flash Lite 3. In the past we have shown off some of the applications we have built including Finetune Mobile, and Mightyverse, but this time, I am going to spend a bit of time talking about development challenges. I am going to try and spread this out over a few posts, one topic at a time.

Handling Screen Orientation Change:

The one great thing about the Flash Player is that over the years, it has provided a programmable environment that allows you to develop applications, agnostic of the platform, browser, or device it is running on. Consistent user interface and display list programming in Flash has most definitely made the player attractive to those looking to avoid migraines.

When it comes to Flash Lite 3 development, we are now developing content that is targeting many many many more types of devices than we ever have before. All of these devices have varying screen sizes and resolutions, as well as varying screen orientations that can be invoked by accelerometers and other contraptions on the device.

On the surface, it can seem that the Flash Lite 3 player is beautifully equipped to handle this. Vector graphics make dealing with screen size and resolution differences easy. The Flash Lite player automatically rotates itself with the screen orientation of the device as well, so in theory, all we have to do is develop our application UIs to stretch and expand to fit stage width and height and we are good to go. This does the job at the most basic level, but when things get advanced, it’s not enough.

In the office, we have an N95 that we use for a lot of our Flash Lite 3 for mobile testing. The layout of the device is shown here:

The N95 has a portrait and landscape orientation, the landscape orientation is invoked by sliding the screen over the top of the key pad.

The applications that we developed contained visualizers for the state and actions of the device’s soft keys. In portrait mode on the N95, these keys are below the screen. In landscape mode, the keys move to the right side. Because of this, there ends up being an awkward dismembering of the visualization and the device layout in landscape mode, unless we were able to actually detect and adapt to the orientation change:

Luckily, Flash Lite 3 provides a set of fscommand2 calls that allow you to interface with the special features of a device. There is a command we can actually use to detect orientation using the position of the soft keys. Do note that this only works if the device supports soft keys:

//returns a number representative of soft keys position relative to the orientation of the screen

var keylocation:Number = fscommand2("GetSoftKeyLocation");

I define a set of constants in a file named SoftKeyPositions to make the return values meaningful:

static public var TOP:Number=0;

static public var LEFT:Number=1;

static public var BOTTOM:Number=2;

static public var RIGHT:Number=3;

In my Flash Lite 3 application, I can make this check every time the stage resizes, and I will be able to determine if the screen has rotated, and to what angle it did so. It allowed us to easily size and position all the items in the application, as well as move our soft key visualizers to the right location to reflect the actual state of the hardware.

That being said, there are still annoyances regarding this. For some devices, it may be a necessity to know which orientation the application started up in. To determine the actual angle of orientation, you would need to know what the default location of the soft keys is for the device. Unfortunately, this information must be supplied as a value by the developer, it is not provided in the device fscommand2 API. Supplying meaningful device values that are not given to you by Flash Lite 3 is an issue I will cover in another post in detail.

Testing and the Ineffectiveness of Device Central

Flash Lite 3 testing is potentially the biggest challenge of all. Device Central appears to be a great tool for testing and debugging your apps, but time after time, I come across issues that render it useless.

Device Central allows you to emulate your application as if it were running on any one of hundreds of devices. For each device, it will actually simulate orientation change, and this can be done manually or using a testing script. The unfortunate testing show stopper is that the following call:

//returns a number representing the position of the soft keys relative to the orientation of the screen

var keylocation:Number = fscommand2("GetSoftKeyLocation");

is supported by Device Central, but does not return accurate values. It always returns 2. This is a glitch that makes all of the rest of it’s features regarding: snapshots, video making, and previewing to the client impossible for our apps, rendering it useless. I really don’t think it would be a lot to ask, for this issue to be addressed in a Device Central patch.

The Ineffectiveness of Device Central Test Scripts

Before I even realized the issue with the soft key location command implementation in Device Central, I failed to be able to build a test script that I wanted to use for our apps. There are some critical limitations, and strange implementations in the scripting environment for Device Central that did nothing but frustrate me.

I wanted to write a test script that would take a snapshot of the application UI in Device Central, for every orientation that the current emulated device supported. This would allow me to ensure that the UI would adapt properly to all screen sizes and orientations that I am targeting.

The first thing I wanted to find, was an object that contained all of the appropriate information on the device being emulated. I wanted to get a list of all the screen orientations supported. I was able to find it in XML form here:

emulator.device.profileXML

Awesome!, this profile contains every piece of info I will ever need about the device. Now, where’s that XML class that I need to parse that XML?……….hmmmm. Still haven’t found it. If anyone knows something I do not, let me know.

So that is not going to work at all, so instead it might make sense to create a script that takes a snapshot of every possible orientation for every single device. I mean, how many can there be? 0,90,180,-90 sounds about right…..

Well it turns out that in order to set the orientation you have to set the appropriate mode,orientation and angle, or nothing happens:

emulator.setScreenMode(mode,orientation,angle);

I looked up all the possible values for these I could find and came up with:

modes=["","open","closed","mode1","mode2","mode3"];

orientations=["", "portrait", "landscape", "square"];

angles=[0, 90, -90, 180];

That adds up to a monstrous 96 possible configurations!, and to my shagrin, many of the devices actually do use a spread out variety of these settings….. The array of snapshots I would have to take, and the time it would take to preform this operation would be so large that again it renders the results pretty much useless. One couldn’t take in anything meaningful for that many snapshots per device.

Above and beyond that, I cannot set a label for the snapshot. This means that there is no visual meta data associated with the snapshot that gives it any meaningful context.

At first I was excited about the additions to the latest version of Device Central, but I constantly keep coming accross problems that makes it more of an impediment to the development process than an effective tool.