Scott Sheridan's Flex Development Perspective

Gearin' up for 360

2008-08-04T23:14:00.003-05:00

360|Flex San Jose is just around the corner, and I've been totally dedicated to delivering a quality talk. It's my hope that attendees will take away a better understanding of the experiences of someone trying to learn Flex. Our talk could prove to be useful to experienced developers if they feel they may need to mentor other people into the world of Flex sometime soon. I've also arranged for some exotic dancers to join me on stage, so if the talk sucks, at least you won't be too bored.

LFFS - 13: Flex Builder Part 3 - Introduction To Debugging

2008-07-29T11:15:00.002-05:00

The Learning Flex From Scratch series has a new installment on InsideRIA. This time we're talking about introductory debugging techniques using Flex Builder. Head on over, check out the source code and give debugging a shot!

Merapi Has Gone Live!

2008-07-15T10:35:00.004-05:00

My friend and mentor, Adam Flater, has announced that the Merapi framework, which allows for a bridge between Java and Adobe AIR, has gone live as of Monday, July 14. This project has been a long time in the making for Adam and his collaborator, David Meeker of Roundarch in Chicago.

More and more as I continue to study Flex, I see experts in the field tout the importance of learning the framework. This may or may not seem obvious, but the fact remains that a beginning coder, (or a more experienced one at that) can end up coding themselves into a corner, so to speak, if they don't have a thorough understanding of the framework they're working with, be it Flex, Merapi, Cairngorm, or anything else.

For a nice presentation on the importance of understanding frameworks, check out David and Rhazes Spell's talk at the Chicago Flex and Adobe AIR User's Group in early June.

I'm going to be at 360|Flex San Jose 2008, In August. You should be too!

2008-07-14T10:01:00.002-05:00

I'll be speaking at 360|Flex! You should be attending so we can hang out! Tom and John are cool too! Register now!

Adam Flater and I will be speaking about our experiences with the Learning Flex From Scratch series on InsideRIA. We're going to be focusing on the various aspects of mentorship, giving you each of our perspectives as mentor and mentoree, respectively.

I'm really looking forward to attending several of the sessions, meeting lots of people, and discovering what lies ahead after getting all this new knowlege! Hope to see you there.

Some Interesting Blog Material From John...

2008-07-13T22:11:00.001-05:00

360Flex on the Switchboard, we'll connect you!

If you haven't heard about Switchboard, you should take a look. It's a cool little utility that let's your AIR apps become first class citizens to CS3 apps. Do you feel there is a piece of the Designer and/or Developer workflow that has been missing? Well, now you can build it. Tom and I are really happy to have Bernd Paradies with us in San Jose to talk about the cool stuff you can do with Patch Panel and Switchboard.

There's a forum for asking questions and posting your cool switchboards.

(This is from our eProgram Guide)
PatchPanel is a Flex library called cs3.swc, which allows Flex developers to access the ExtendScript DOM of the host application through ActionScript objects. SwitchBoard makes it possible for AIR stand-alone applications to work with Creative Suite applications. The SwitchBoard installer will install two services onto your machine: SwitchBoard Service forwards messages between AIR and CS applications; and the SwitchBoardLauncher launches target applications when necessary. AIR developers only need to include a Flex library called SwitchBoard.swc to their projects in order to send and receive scripts to/from other CS applications. SwitchBoard is available on labs now and PatchPanel will be posted on Adobe Labs this year.

Want to learn to make the most of Switchboard? Have you always to make that killer feature for a CS3 app? You won't want to miss out on what Bernd has to say. Register now!

LFFS - 12: Flex Builder Part 2 - Getting Acquainted With The Workbench

2008-06-25T12:54:00.005-05:00

The Learning Flex From Scratch series on InsideRIA has a new installment. We've been dedicating some posts to using the Flex Builder IDE. Previously, we covered the installation of Flex Builder, both as a standalone IDE, and as a plugin with Eclipse. We're taking it to the next step this time by exploring the workbench layout as we import the calculator application we've covered before.

Flex Calculator Beta

2008-06-04T23:46:00.023-05:00

The last two installments in the Learning Flex From Scratch series on InsideRIA have focused on the programming of a calculator built in Flex. Adam created a non-functioning calculator, and as an assignment, I was to code the logic into it so it would work.

I got it to work, sort of, but there are a few bugs. Here is the version I came up with:

View Source - Download Source

And here is the version that Adam came up with after doing a code review and applying the principles of best practices:

View Source - Download Source

We'll post an updated version when we get the bugs fixed, so please be patient!

Cheers!

LFFS - 9: MXML Continued... And A Sample Application For You To Work With!

2008-05-06T17:02:00.004-05:00

The latest installment of the Learning Flex From Scratch series on InsideRIA continues our discussion on MXML. This time, I go a little deeper into the language, and cover rules of syntax as well as the relationship between it and ActionScript. Unique to this one though, is that we included a sample application for people to experiment with. It's a non-working calculator which, in order to get working, requires a little Flex know-how. Adam was kind enough to produce this application as an "assignment" for me, and I thought it might be a good idea to include it in our series. I really feel like I learned a lot from getting it to work, and I hope for the same for others who try. Our next entry will be a discussion of my process of getting the calculator programmed, and will hopefully shed some light for those who may be struggling. See you soon!

An Addition To "Helpful Resources"

2008-04-23T09:47:00.002-05:00

I'm compelled to write about a very helpful resource that I've been all over lately. Safari books online has a HUGE collection of material available as a subscription. I tried the free trial and forgot to cancel. This was a very happy accident, since I've recently found tons of helpful information on stuff I'm trying to get a handle on. For example, Alaric Cole's excellent book, Learning Flex 3, has been a great help. I really think the monthly cost of $42.99 for unlimited access to their library is worth it. I know there's plenty of people like me who are jumping head first into a commitment of learning Flex, Flash, or whatever, and having a huge library of material to page through is really a big help. That's all for now...off to study!

Resources for Learning Flex

2008-04-11T11:23:00.000-05:00

We've got another installment on InsideRIA, this time it diverges from the usual content and is simply a list of helpful resources that I've run across on my journey into Flex. There's tons of info out there, but it's often difficult keep the helpful stuff organized. I recommend a maintaining a clear starting point from which you can navigate to whatever content you need at the time. As I continue to learn more about being a Flex developer, I'll surely run across more great resources and my list will need to be updated. To keep a handle on this, I've created a del.icio.us account for Learning Flex From Scratch. This way, everyone can compare the resources I've found to their own and possibly come across something useful.

Arrays in Flex

2008-04-11T11:02:00.000-05:00

Not long ago, the sixth installment of the Learning Flex From Scratch series on InsideRIA went up, and its subject was arrays. I would have to say that this was the most challenging one so far, but it seems to have been a hit with our fans in Indonesia, Spain, and the Netherlands, as Google Analytics would have us believe. We've dedicated a good amount time to ActionScript 3.0 in the series, covering such areas as Loops, Conditionals, and general object-oriented programming concepts. Soon, we'll have a post on MXML up to round out our coverage of the languages used in Flex, and then we'll move on to discussions of the tools used in creating rich internet applications in Flex.

ActionScript - Conditionals and Loops

2008-03-21T11:03:00.000-05:00

Our latest installment of Learning Flex From Scratch on InsideRIA tries to explain the nature of conditional statements and looping blocks of code in ActionScript 3.0. Once again, I turned to my trusty companions for information: Colin Moock's Essential ActionScript 3.0, the Adobe live docs, Wikipedia, and of course, Google Talk incessantly pinging my mentor-Adam Flater.

Given that I am learning Flex as I go, and that we are determined to put up a new post each week, it's really important that i have lots of quality information at my disposal at all times. Thankfully, I do. Adam's help is absolutely indispensable, and his patience with my newbie questions deserves special mention.

As far as those resources I've come across on my own, I would say Essential ActionScript 3.0 and the Adobe live docs have been most helpful, at least for these last few posts. One thing I recently found helpful is the ActionScript 3.0 language reference. This is handy for any developer I'm sure, but for someone trying to get a handle on the language it really makes sense of the many sometimes confusing language components. Also, Colin Moock's website has got some really great resources. He's got a lecture series about ActionScript, and his notes are available to check out. It's just an outline with no detail on the included topics, (for details, read Essential ActionScript 3.0) but it really can help to see what the important areas are when you're first learning the language.

That's all for now, I've got to go study up on collections and arrays!

public function learnActionScript (currentKnowledge : String)= "notMuch"

2008-03-13T11:24:00.000-05:00

Our latest post on LFFS is called: LFFS-4-ActionScript 3.0, and it's all about writing a class in ActionScript 3.0. It's a little bit longer than the others, and it took a bit more time to complete, but I'm not sure if we could have made it any shorter. The class itself has a bunch of the stuff anyone learning the language needs to know. My hope is that my attempt at explaining the various parts of our example class comes through clearly. A challenge like learning an object-oriented language without any programming experience whatsoever lends itself to explanations of code that may not be the norm. I tried to reiterate points that I thought were important to my learning process, so hopefully those who are in the same situation as I am will be able to learn from our installment!

Cheeri-o

more flex on inside ria

2008-02-29T12:07:00.000-06:00

Adam and I have updated the posts on insideRIA a couple of times so far. We've got one up that describes various parts of the Flex framework and covers some important definitions. We've also posted about object-oriented programming just recently. This one covers some general programming concepts as they relate to object orientation. Followers of the series may want to check out our new RIA-flexglossary.net. A beginning programmer will likely find this site useful as it is continually updated with terms as we roll along with the series. See you soon!

I'm blogging on InsideRIA!

2008-02-12T22:37:00.001-06:00

So thanks to the blessings of Adam Flater and Rich Tretola, I am now officially a member of the InsideRIA blogging community! Our mission is to write about my experiences learning how to become a Flex developer. What's unique about our writings is that they will be told from the perspective of a complete novice, i.e. me. My hope is that in telling my story, I will provide certain insights that may otherwise be overlooked by an author who is an experienced programmer.

Our first post is basically an introduction to Adam and myself, and a road map for what's to come in the series. Next, we're going to get into some definitions that are important to grasp for anyone who wants to understand Flex.

I'm very excited about this opportunity, and I really can't adequately express my gratitude for Adam's help, and for Rich's support on this project. Stay tuned for more Flexy-times!

Off and Running

2008-01-28T22:05:00.000-06:00

So this marks the beginning (official) of my journey into Adobe's Flex. I'm lucky enough to be mentored by the great Adam Flater, and as such feel confident that my progress will be swift. Be aware that I'm a total noob, if not a boob, and there's plenty of really basic stuff I've got to learn. So I'm off, and will post again when there's something to say. Lates.