I just finished skimming through this book and have decided that every Flex developer should own a copy. I have been developing Flex applications for over a year now and I still managed to learn a ton of new things from this book. The authors have done an excellent job of formatting the book into problem and solution scenarios. Quick and easy answers. The book starts off with issues a Flex noob might encounter and then proceeds all the way up to issues a Flex pro might encounter. Each solution includes code and a discussion/explination. This book is not really a cover to cover read, but more of a quick reference that you want to have within an arms reach while coding. I still recommend skimming through it when you first get it, because I’m sure you’ll learn a bunch of new tidbits right off the bat.
You can get more info and purchase this book here.
I just stumbled across a great article by Josh Tynjala on the Yahoo! Flash Developer Center. Josh writes about the new features of ActionScript 3.0, focusing on working with the Display List, changes to root and parent, and encapsulation. I’m sure this article has been around for some time, but if you are just getting into AS3 and have not yet seen this article, then I highly recommend you read it.
http://developer.yahoo.com/flash/articles/display-list.html
The Yahoo! Flash Developer Center also has some great open-source components available for download. I am playing around with the Charts and I am very impressed. These seem like a great and free alternative to FusionCharts, which at this time are not available for ActionScript 3.0.
Here are some examples of the Yahoo! ASTRA Charts:
http://developer.yahoo.com/flash/astra-flash/charts/examples.html
I just finished an AIR (Apollo) application that loads and saves data from an external XML file. I figured I would share the code to accomplish this task as there is not a lot of Apollo info around at this time.
First off lets start with loading an XML file and reading its contents. I realize that there are much easier ways to load XML into Flash than this, but the advantage here is that I can use File.applicationResourceDirectory which allows me to target the installation directory for the XML file that was included with the AIR package. In this snippet I am using the synchronous open method. This essentially pauses everything else in the Flash movie until it has completed its task (opening the file).
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Earlier today I received a news letter from ActionScript.org. This threw me off for a second because the only emails I get from them are job postings. The email template was well done and mimics their new site redesign, which is quite nice compared to their old outdated design. If you have already forgotten what it looked like, you can kind of make it out here using the Wayback Machine.
I am currently in the process of reading the excerpt from Tom Muck’s Flash Remoting: The Definitive Guide. This excerpt is part of a new partnership between ActionScript.org and O’Reilly. It seems like a good deal for both sides. I am sure this will drive a lot more traffic to ActionScript.org and inevitably lead to more book sales for O’Reilly. So far the first few pages of the excerpt have been very well written and quite informative.
While reading the article I have realized that I will have to change my job title. Now that Flex has been released I am no longer a Flash Developer, but instead, a Client-Side ActionScript Programmer. I think that this is a much more dynamic sounding title, but it will take some getting used to after referring to myself as a Flash Developer for so long.
I am quite excited about the freshened up ActionScript.org site and enjoy having the ability to preview books before investing in them. Of course O’Reilly is one of my favorite publishers, so this is good news to me.
A few posts ago, I showed you how to build a basic menu using an Array of button names. Now, I will demonstrate how to build the same menu, but this time use the new XML class which is based on E4X. There are many benefits of using XML in your applications. The main reason being that it allows you to update your application instantly without having to open up Flash to republish it. XML also allows your application to be easily updated from a server side page that generates XML output. This opens up the possibility of using a CMS to modify your application, thus enabling your clients to make updates on their own. Almost every project I develop uses XML.
And now for the code:
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