Tag: flex 4

Adobe CookBooks Reader for Android

Hi everyone,

I’ve just released on Android market the CookBooks Reader application where you can read all new recipes about Flash Platform technologies.
It’s FREE and it’s based on Flex 4 and Adobe AIR so remember to download it before download CookBooks Reader.

If you try it, feel free to leave here comments with new features or suggestions…  I’m looking for you! Let’s go Flash Platform geeks! 😛

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mPresenter: new tool for speakers

I become speaker 4/5 years ago, after 30/40 talks in Italy and around the globe and tons of lessons like instructor, after study how to prepare slides for presentations, after a couple of courses about public speaking and so on, finally this January I started to think about how can I help speakers during own presentation?

When I answered to this question I started to think about mPresenter.

mPresenter is composed by 2 different applications: a mobile application and a desktop one.
Obviously everything is build with Flash Platform: AIR 2, Flex 4 and AIR for Android.
The mobile one allow you to manage your presentation, pointing or drawing on slide, changing them.
Also, it allows you to read notes added in each slide during preso composition.

AIR application allows speakers to make own presentation: moving slides in right position, adding notes to a slides and zooming on it.
You can easily drag and drop images from your OS to mPresenter and create the perfect presentation.
We are working to add new features on this software but for now you can see a preview video on youtube.
I really love if you can give us your feedbacks and suggestions to improve this software and become a really useful utility for all speakers.
We believe in you!

A real workflow with Flash Catalyst and Flash Builder

Yesterday I take part of a pre-event labs at MAX called: Creating Application for the Flash Platform where Matt Boles show how to create a real workflow with Catalyst and Flash Builder.

I was interesting in this pre-event because I had some questions in my mind that I answered during this session.

First of all, I’d like to spend a couple of words about Matt Boles; guys Matt rocks! I love so much his training skills, how he explains during the session and also how he moves around the room, bring my attention for the whole duration of the session.
I think one of the best teacher that I ever seen, thank you so much Matt!

So come back on Catalyst and Flex 4; session was interesting and there are some things that I’d like to share with you:

  1. until now and probably also in the final release, if you create your project in Catalyst, then bring it to Flash Builder and start to modify it, you CAN’T go back to Catalyst…
    This is a problem because I’m sure that during a real project there will be some changes to do, so you must do that via Flash Builder Design mode or via code.
  2. Catalyst doesn’t export Flex Modules but only custom components, I talk about that with Matt and he is agree with me, after your work in Catalyst you must create in Flash Builder a Module Container and create modules for each custom components.
    So you’ll study to organize very well your assets during design process.
  3. I think that could be miss a part of a process that is a study of GUI usability, I mean, when you create a RIA or a desktop application you must study how users interact with it so if a designer starts to work on GUI but he doesn’t know how Flex works could be a big problem and you must refactoring the code to add a new functionalities or to group some components.
    Maybe could be useful start project with a meeting where designer and developer (and project manager or producer too) define informations (GUI, functionalities and so on) to create the final application and with a software like Balsamiq, define how to manage all components and custom components.
  4. I was surprise about Flash Builder design view, totally different of Flex Builder 3 one; could be useful when you want to make some little graphic changes at your project.
  5. Very cool news is data wizard of Flash Builder where in few steps you can retrieve remote data and then create VO for your application.
    Associate data to a component is really easy, just a drag ‘n’ drop in design view to a component.

This is a little resume of a day with Flash Builder and Catalyst, in a couple of hours starts the first official day at MAX with a Keynote that I think will be very interesting and with tons of news, so start to take a look at labs. I’m sure that Flash Player 10.1 become your best friend!!!

Obviously, feel free to add comment to this post and we could start an interesting conversation on how is the best way to realize a RIA or desktop app with Flash Platform.
I’m so interesting to know what do you think about that!

See ya 😉

Flash Builder Beta is out… my first tests

Finally is OUT! New Flash Builder version is out in labs.adobe.com

I spent all the evening to try new features, so I think that could be useful talking about that in my blog.
The new features that I like so much are:

  • States / Library / Modules: States are totally changed in a new version that make easier write in MXML, I love so much includeIn and excludeFrom attribute to decide in which state you can put or remove a particular component.
    If you want you can work also with group and add in the same group N states.
    Library is a new object that works like Flash library, so you can create a Definition (like a Symbol) and reuse it during your application, make attention because you are working with Element and not Child!
    States and Library increase a lots application KB so I prefer work with Modules that load in runtime mode. They have a new particular argument when you try to load it that is ByteArray (more information on Migration Guide on labs).
  • Automatic getter / setter / event handler: YESSS! I switch to FDT in last month because I increase my productivity to write AS3 code, now with Flash Builder you’ve a couple of actions to create getter, setter and event handler, that’s so cool!
  • New Drawing API: we have a lots of new interesting MXML tag to define a shape like a square or a rectangle, but the most interesting is Paths that allow you to create particular lines and shape with bezier curve via code
  • Advanced CSS selectors: another interesting feature is the new way to refer a component via CSS, in fact you can interact with MXML structure (all buttons in an hbox must be red and all buttons in a vbox must be black).
    Very easy and cool!
  • Flex Theme: that’s one of my favorite features, in fact with Flash Builder you can create custom Flex Theme and skin your application in a second! You can find more information about Theme in Ted Patrick blog.
  • DateGroup: Instead of using Repeater to repeat a particular object, now we have DataGroup that defines a dataprovider and how to render it via an ItemRender or an ItemRenderFunction.
  • Switch a Flex project to AIR: finally if your client doesn’t know what he wants, you can swtich a Flex app into an AIR desktop application directly from context menu of Package Explorer (new name of  Flex Navigator panel).

Remember to read Migration guide, it’s so interesting! Stay tuned for next Flash Builder and Catalyst tests!
Another great resource that is now live to see Flex 4 features is Tour de Flex that you can view directly from Adobe web site.

Bye bye

Flash on the Beach is started

Yesterday starts Flash on the Beach, the 4th edition, it’s more big, more interesting, more…

There are many guys from USA and other part of world and is fantastic because you can share and talk with all of them, I love it.

First amanzing news is that FOTB next year become also FOTBM… Flash on the Beach MIAMI in April, and this a big success for FOTB organizations, 4 years of great work and now they start to export own format, congratulations guys.

I followed great sessions yesterday, the most amazing were Tink one, that talking about Flex Effects, he are making a great job; Thermo and Flex 4 was very interesting, in particular when speaker talked about FXG format, I think a lots of thing about this interesting new way to define a FLEX UI.
In the evening there were 2 inspire sessions that were amazing, 2 great Actionscript artist showed us how to use Flash in different way to create great artwork.

So now I’m in a new FOTB day, at Aral Balkan session… he is a showman!

During this weekend, I’ll put some photos about FOTB in my Flickr account, don’t miss them!

Flex 4 (Gumbo) and states

Surfing on web I read Ted’s blog that talk about new feature of Flex 4 (codename Gumbo) about states!
So I take a look at opensource.adobe.com page that talks about this new feature… very cool!

Adobe creates a very simple way to add, remove, show and hide components in a Flex application with a new attributes: includeIn and excludeFrom.

In few code rows you can include or remove Flex components:

<!-- Given the states A,B,C -->
<m:states>
    <m:State name="A"/>
    <m:State name="B"/>
    <m:State name="C"/>
</m:states>

<!-- This button will appear in only states A and B -->
<Button label="Click Me" includeIn="A, B"/>

<!-- This button will appear in states A and B --> 
<Button label="Button C" excludeFrom="C"/>

If you have a couple of minutes, please read about Flex 4 states, it’s so interesting!

 

Very cool way to do this! I think that Flex 4 will become the BEST solution to make RIA and desktop application (with AIR obviusly) in IT market!

Flex Builder compile Flash Lite projects, is it a dream?

Today was last day at 360Flex Europe, I spent great time there!

Talking with 2 Flex team guys, they said to us that if you’d like some new features in Flex 4, only make a feature request to Adobe jira system.
So I said: “One of the most cool feature that you could implement in next version of Flex Builder, it could be to compile Flash Lite projects and maybe Flex Builder could interact with Device Central.” They said me: “It’s first time that ask me this implementation“.

So I make a feature request for next version of Flex Builder, I think it could be so interesting working with Flex IDE and when I compile a Flash Lite project open directly into Device Central.
What do you think about it? If you’d like this feature too, vote please!

Make comments and we could create a great discussion about it.