FlexCRUD

Check out FlexCRUD by Mike Crowe. I just started reading the documentation and I am very excited about what it can do. Let the coding begin.

-Mike: Can it also gather requirements :)

Amfphp 1.9 Tutorial. Good, Bad or Don't Care

I recently had my tutorial published on http://www.HowToForge.com . I have not been getting very much feedback on it. I don't know if that's a good thing or not. I expected to have a lot of errors being it was my very first tutorial. It took me a little over two weeks to write because of my day job but I truly enjoyed writting it. My plans are to write a similar tutorial for Fluorine and FDS Express but I thought I let the community decide. What should my next Flex tutorial be?

My Amfphp 1.9 Tutorial Posted on HowToForge

My Amfphp 1.9 Tutorial has been posted on HowToForge. Check it out :)

Flex DataGrid Paging Example with Source

Many of you have requested the source to my Flex DataGrid paging example. Here it is http://develop.gurufaction.com/src/App.mxml and the example application can be viewed here http://develop.gurufaction.com/App.swf

Using Amfphp 1.9 with the Flex 2.01 SDK

I have submitted my Amfphp tutorial to HowToForge.com. I hope it gets published. Meanwhile I will post my tutorial online at http://develop.gurufaction.com/AmfTutorial/docs/app/FlexHowTo.html . I would like some feedback from the community. I have tested it but let me know if it doesn't work :) You can also preview the working example at http://develop.gurufaction.com/AmfTutorial/Main.swf

DAO Best Practices

I am currently working on a Flex 2 tutorial using AmfPhp 1.9 that I should have done by the end of the week :) While I was writing the DAO classes in PHP I stumbled upon a design issue. What should my CRUD methods return. They could return a boolean value that indicated that the methods completed successfully or I could return the new/updated value object. My example application uses a datagrid bound to an ArrayCollection of my VO's. Now upon successful completion of my CRUD method do I refresh the whole grid or just the VO that was changed? I am strongly leaning towards returning the VO. Any thoughts.

Smith 1.25 released.

Smith is a freeware, cross-platform ColdFusion engine, written entirely in Java. Running on the top of Java Runtime Environment and Java Servlet Container, it can be virtually deployed on any operating system and work with any web server. Smith represents lightweight, yet reliable alternative to the existing ColdFusion servers.

Can you find the BUG!

This problem was post on the Flex 2 Forum. This problem only happens with the Flex 2.01 release. Can you find the bug? The answer is posted here


BUG DESCRIPTION: errorString property is causing a buggy behavior, if i set an empty String to this property in order to clean a validation error for a TextInput control then its layout changes, it gets a weird black color on its border.

EXAMPLE:

&#60; mx:application><mx:textinput id="buggy"></mx:textinput><mx:button label="Show Bug" click="buggy.errorString = ''"></mx:button></mx:application>


mx_internal var origBorderColor:Number;

/** A bunch of Code Here**/

/**
* @private
* Set the appropriate borderColor based on errorString.
* If we have an errorString, use errorColor. If we don't
* have an errorString, restore the original borderColor.
*/
private function setBorderColorForErrorString():void
{
if (!_errorString _errorString.length == 0)
{
setStyle("borderColor", origBorderColor);
saveBorderColor = true;
}
else
{
// Remember the original border color
if (saveBorderColor)
{
saveBorderColor = false;
origBorderColor = getStyle("borderColor");
}
setStyle("borderColor", getStyle("errorColor"));
}
styleChanged("themeColor");
var focusManager:IFocusManager = focusManager;
var focusObj:DisplayObject = focusManager ?
DisplayObject(focusManager.getFocus()) :
null;
if (focusManager && focusManager.showFocusIndicator &&
focusObj == this)
{
drawFocus(true);
}
}

ASDT . . are you alive?

I currently using Flash Develop as my primary Flex 2/AS3 editor and I am very happy with it but I wanted to research some alternatives. I came across the ActionScript Development Tool(ASDT) for Eclipse. Does anybody know if this project is still active? I posted a message on their mailing list but got no response. I would really like to contribute to this project. ASDT . . .are you alive?

Flex Run-Time Error with itemRenderers

Learning to use Flex 2 has been very rewarding. I have had a problem using the DataGrid control with ItemRenderers that I have not been able to resolve. I was able to reproduce the error in a small example. When adding and removing itemRenderers to a datagrid column at run-time I get a RTE. This alone does not seem to cause the RTE but I also set the datagrids dataProvider again which causes the error. You will need the Flash Player Debug version to actually see the error.You can view the example application at http://develop.gurufaction.com/flexbug/App.swf . The actual source can by found at App.mxml and LinkRenderer.mxml .

I thought I had a valid workaround when I stopped adding and removing the itemRenderer at Run-Time and just applied it to every column but I am still getting the error sometimes. My small example show the exact error I am getting so if anybody has any ideas please leave me a comment. The problem with learning new technologies is that you can never be sure if it is the technology or the programmer causing the problem. :)

SwfPlayer DNN Module

SwfPlayer is a DNN module used to embed a Flash movie into your DNN portal. I created it using SwfObject by Geoff Stearns . I modified Geoff javascript code to use the playerProductInstall.swf provided by Adobe using the "Flash Installer" setting under module settings.

Flex Paging with Page Sets

I am back. I was going to close my blog because I was not able to update it as often as I would have liked but now I have something worth posting. I noticed a blog article on Bruce Phillps' Blog that I found very interesting so I decided to expand on his Flex Paging with an example that included pages and page sets. You can preview it here.

Blogging Ends

I have decided to stop updating my blog. I apologize if anybody out there actually reads it but since I do not have the time to keep it current I will close it.

Thanks
Michael

Db4o with Flex Data Services

I have just recently begun experimenting with Flex Data Services and db4o. db4o is an embedded object database for Java and .NET. I think using Flex with db4o would be very cool. It basically comes down to configuring the destination correctly.If anybody has sucessfully integreated these two technologies please post a comment about your experience.

FDS Project Template Update

I have update the FDS Project Template . I commented out the Tomcat specific library includes so that the build will work for those not using Tomcat. I have also changed the CATALINA.HOME property in the build.properties file to WEB.ROOT.

Java Application Server PE

If you are trying to use the Flex Data Services Project Template with the Java Application Server PE you might get the following error.

Error: java.security.AccessControlException: access denied (java.lang.RuntimePermission createClassLoader)
Cause: the default settings of the SUN server policy settings does not allow classloaders within webapplications.

Solution: Simply replace the policy file with one that contains the following grant entry:

edit: C:\Sun\AppServer\domains\domain1\config\server.policy

add: This towards the bottom of the policy file.

grant {
// Allow everything for now
permission java.security.AllPermission;
};

Flex Data Services Project Template

I just recently starting using Flash Develop 2.0. I was motivated by Keith Peter's ANT based project template that I created one for Flex Data Services. This tutorial is still in its early stages but I would like to get some feedback from other developer. This tutorial requires that you have Ant, Tomcat 5.5 and Flex Data Services installed. Flex Data Services Project Template Tutorial.

First Post

This is my very first blog post. More to come :)