Flex, Tutorials

Diving into Gumbo

You know what? I found the jump very easy and those guys at Adobe’s hq did a wonderful job on driving people into this new release of the Flex framework.
I’m not posting some code this time, just a link to a project which can be sooooooo helpful to take your dive: “Flex in a Week”.
Nothing hard, just take your time, your headphones and a good internet connection, drive your browser to http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/videotraining/flex4beta/index.html and start from the beginning…
If you’re not new to flex programming it will take you half a day to get into this new baby.

bye for now 🙂

Flex, Javascript, Tools

Auto generate getters setters and custom code in Flex builder

Recently I’ve been searching for a plugin for eclipse, a tool, *something*, able to generate code snippets on the fly. This lack of eclipse IDE is filled by a project called Eclipse Monkey, a dead (yes…dead..-.-‘) component of  Project Dash which enables Eclipse to execute javascript functions on demand.

Eclipse Monkey will put a “scripts” menu on your Eclipse menu bar which is populated by the list of scripts (.js) inside the specified folder.

Here’s my Scripts>Actionscript dropdown menu

Installation:

1) Add project dash site ( http://download.eclipse.org/technology/dash/update )  to your eclipse’s update sites,
2) Restart eclipse,
3) Run create test project by selecting scripts menu,
4) Download actionscript snippets lib from here

…great deal 🙂

Here’s a video showing Eclipse Monkey at work

[flash http://www.youtube.com/v/z9aL_OZzRJk&hl=en&fs=1 w=400 h=310 mode=1]

UPDATE:

take a look to “Pimp my Eclipse” post from Lee Brimelow (part 1 and 2) for further customizing your eclipse installation 🙂

ActionScript 3, Flex, Open Source, Tools

FPSMonitor for AS3 and Flex projects

UPDATE: http://www.flashfuck.it/fps-monitor/

Here’s some (usefull i hope 🙂 ) source..

fpsmonitor.png

I’ve made a little fps monitor for my projects (for both as3 and flex)… so, here’s some souce and some howtos about…

There are 2 classes, FPSMonitor is made for as3 (or flash) projects, the other one, FlexFPSMonitor is made expecially for use in Flex.

Usage AS3:

import it.flashfuck.debugger.FPSMonitor;
//[...]
addChild(new FPSMonitor());

Usage Flex:

// new xmlns in application tag
xmlns:debugger="it.flashfuck.debugger.*"
//then add the tag, remember to add it at the end of your app so it's appearing in front of everything

quite simple hm? 😀
The main difference between these classes’ results is dragging. Flex one is draggable over the application stage, the other one is not draggable (just edit the code if you want to bring it away among the screen 🙂 )….

Features
FPSMonitor (as the flex one) is monitoring
– OS, Player type, version, and “is debugger”
– FPS
– Memory usage (note: this parameter tells you the memory usage by ALL flash player instances you’re running, so if you’re running more than 1 player at once this value is altered!…even in 2 firefox tabs or a standalone and a browser player)

Graph:
FPSMonitor is displaying in a graph 2 values: FPS (white) and memory usage (black) (same note for this value :))
Everything is blended with BlendMode.INVERT so you can see the monitor in quite every condition.

I hope you enjoy.
Download here both classes FPSMonitor.as and FlexFPSMonitor.as

….just a note: feel free to use this code anywhere, if you’re improving functionalities, adding more features or anything else please just send me a smoke signal or a pidgeon with a message so i can update the source 🙂

Flash, Flex, News

Flash player 10 available on Adobe Labs

It’s time to upgrade! 🙂
Astro is here!

flashplayer10_demo_nofl_557√ó475.jpg

Let’s take a look to what chefs cooked up for our taste pleasure:

  1. 3D support: finally adobe put some z in flash!:D on astro release notes Adobe’s claiming that they’re enabling everyone to create complex 3D effects using simple code… mmm… i’m curious about that! i’m a papervisioned guy! 😀
  2. hardware acceleration: flash player 9.0.115 introduced hardware acceleration… astro is becoming even friendlier with your gpu. Now flash player supports GPU compositing and blitting, both parameters must be enabled by html.
  3. Adobe Pixel Bender: formerly Hydra (which was a cooler name 🙂 ), this system let us create our own custom filters and apply them runtime..
  4. New text engine! Multiple columns text, support for chinese (GB18030 )
  5. Speex! a free codec used to encode speech….Ribbit thanx while pacifica voip project is waiting…
  6. Dynamic sound generation!…Andr√© Michelle’s “Adobe make some noise” petition really made some noise! 😀
  7. File reference runtime access! Finally we don’t have to upload our files to manipulate them inside our RIAs! Files are handled as ByteArrays so we can do quite everything 🙂
  8. Many others…

Another impressive innovation is Astro is available for Ubuntu Linux users too…so even penguins can try new features shown in the demo on labs site.

Finally the coolest news: WE ALREADY CAN COMPILE CONTENT TARGETING ASTRO!

I’m so excited i don’t need mana to stay awake tonight!:D

Flex, Speaking

360 Flex Seattle session: “Custom Flex components development”

Doug McCune è uno dei flex developers che sto seguendo più da vicino,

recentemente ha pubblicato il video integrale della sua sessione al 360 Flex di Seattle.

Se masticate un po’ di “American English” (quello con la patata in bocca per intenderci :D) e avete un’oretta da spendere ad imparare inclinate lo schienale della poltrona, piazzatevi comodi comodi e date un’occhiata a questo video in fullscreen (la qualità è abbastanza alta da leggere il codice)

[flash http://www.vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=659581&server=www.vimeo.com&fullscreen=1&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0& w=400 h=302]
Doug McCune @ 360Flex Seattle

Flex, News, Speaking

Speaking at 360 Flex Europe – Milano 7-9 Aprile

La 360 Flex conference √® un evento flex “senza fissa dimora” che vede in aprile l’approdo a Milano agli inizi di Aprile.
L’evento si sviluppa in 3 giornate (da luned√¨ a mercoled√¨) e vede la partecipazione di ben 32 testoline da speaker provenienti da tutta europa pronte per parlare di millanta argomenti flex oriented.

Forte √® la presenza dei “code invaders” (no, non c’√® nulla da ridere -.-‘) ossia il gruppo di speaker di Actionscript.it.

Pochi giorni fa √® stata stesa la prima schedule della conferenza, potete scaricarla direttamente dal sito ufficiale del 360 Flex Europe al link http://www.360flex.com/360Flex_Europe dal quale potrete anche iscrivervi all’evento.

Dopo il Flex Magic ormai sono una figura di speakko, e speakko anche li 😛

Flex, News, Speaking

Speaking at Flex Magic

Ghiotta √® l’occasione e dentro mi ci butto 😀

Sarò uno degli speaker al Flex Magic, manifestazione organizzata da Actionscript.it a Bologna, il 26 Febbraio prossimo.

[flash http://www.flashfuck.it/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/flexmagicnormal_steam.swf w=200 h=230]

A questo meeting toccheremo diversi argomenti tra le novit√† di flex 3, l’integrazione con .Net, lo scambio dati con ColdFusion e AMF, e Papervision 3D.

Ghiotta l’occasione anche per i partecipanti al meeting, infatti saranno estratte tra il pubblico una licenza dell’Adobe Creative Suite CS3 e una licenza di Flex Builder 3.

Questo il form di registrazione e maggiori dettagli sull’evento e sui programmi:

http://www.actionscript.it/showEvent.cfm?id=92

Ci vediamo a bologna! 😀