Category Archives: Flex

Come to 360Flex and Win a Free MAX Pass

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360 Flex QR Code

360Flex in DC is coming up very, very soon. It’s arguably one of the best Flex events out there. MAX is also coming up shortly thereafter, which is where you’ll be hearing about all kinds of cool Adobe goodness. What’s better than each one of those? Coming to both. So I’m running a contest. If you’re at 360Flex you’ll have a chance to win a free pass to MAX along with Creative Suite 5. Here’s the deal:

At 360Flex I’m going to be hiding a bunch of QR codes around the venue (and in some of the presenter’s slides). Each one of those QR codes will point to a random URL, which will let you put in your email address. The person who collects the most QR codes during the conference (or the first one who collects them all) will win a free pass to MAX and Master Collection CS5. The runner up still gets a free copy of Master Collection CS5.

All you need to play is some kind of barcode application for your phone. They have free apps for both iPhone and Android (and I’m guessing Blackberry) so everyone with a smartphone should be covered.

So if you haven’t registered for 360Flex yet, get on it. Where else do you get to hang out with the coolest community on earth?

Slides and Demos from FITC San Francisco

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FITC was an absolutely awesome event. Props to Shawn, Rick and team for another great event. I’m looking forward to them coming back to San Francisco next year. Thanks to everyone who attended my talk. I got some great questions and as I said in the sessions, if you have anything cool you’re doing with mapping and Flash, drop me an email.

Below are the slides I used and I’ve also posted all of the code for the demos I did. I haven’t really cleaned them up at all, but if you have any questions, let me know.

Mapping and Geolocation on the Flash Platform
View more presentations from Ryan Stewart.

Charting with Flex and PHP

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One of the things that I’ve found to be a bit of a pain is structuring data correctly so it’s easy to chart. Luckily there are some things you can do within the charting framework in Flex to make that a bit easier as well as some things you can do with the Zend Framework to send data in a way that’s easier to chart. I cover the basics in a new post on the Adobe Developer Center.

Picnik now Working with Picasa Web Albums

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This hits two of my favorite things; Flex applications and in-browser RIAs. Picnik, the Seattle-based startup that was purchased by Google a little while ago built one of the coolest photo editing applications on the web and were very early users of Flex. I always loved the customization work they did to Flex and stopped by their offices a few times to talk with the founders and meet the team. I was really happy when they were bought by Google (they also moved closer to the Adobe offices in Seattle).

So it’s really cool to see the announcement today that they’re integrating with Picasa to allow Picasa users to edit their photos using Picnik. Combine that with the blog post by YouTube about how they’re using Flash and I think there is a lot of momentum for Flash at the worlds biggest web company.

And hopefully that means a lot more great browser-based RIAs. Google loves the browser and is pushing it further with things like ChromeOS. I still think the browser is the best way to deliver applications and content. Picnik is a great example that you can take Flash and build something very powerful with a great user experience but with all of the freedom and flexibility of the browser. That’s clearly the model Google likes and they’re moving forward on that front with whatever technology works best for the problem.

It’s going to be a good future.

And for those who like history, John Cook pulled up the original email that started Picnik where they discuss Flash and compare it to other technologies. It’s a cool trip down memory lane.

Now Available: Effortless Flex 4 Development – Great for Flex and PHP Developers

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The official Flex team blog reminded me that Effortless Flex 4 Development is now available. It’s the perfect book for Flex and PHP developers and I got an inside look at it as I did the tech-reviewing for it. Larry is an awesome author who usually does a lot with PHP but recently started getting into Flex and in talking to him it sounds like he really enjoys it. So definitely go out and grab a copy. I think we’re going to try and buy some to give away as I go out and talk to PHP and Flex developers alike.

Charting data with Flex and PHP

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This is a fairly straightforward topic but I did a quick DZone article on charting with Flex and PHP using the data-centric design wizards in Flash Builder. The wizards make it very easy to at least get the basics down and start using data in charts, and I covered some basic ways to add animations and interactivity.

I’m working on a more in-depth article with Zend that will cover grouping/sorting/etc on both the client and server side. It will provide some info on how to structure your data and make it more flexible for manipulating when it’s in the chart.

Using Flash Player 10.1 and AIR 2 in Flash Builder

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I didn’t realize until Renaun blogged it that the Flex 4.1 SDK includes Flash Player 10.1 and AIR 2. One of the biggest pains for me during the beta period was copying over files and folders to merge the 4.0 SDK with AIR and Flash Player so I could do development in Flash Builder. I didn’t know they were doing a 4.1 that included both of the new runtimes.

That means you can grab the Flex 4.1 SDK, and using Flash Builder 4 you can add it to your list of SDKs and start taking advantage of the new APIs including multi-touch, geolocation, and socket server. As Renaun mentioned, make sure you target Flash Player 10.1 or above in your project when you’re selecting the new SDK or you won’t be able to use the new APIs.

Flash on!

Slides and Demos from my Flex-PHP Talk at the Front Range PHP User Group

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Last week I presented at the Front Range PHP User Group on getting started with Flex and PHP. It was a really awesome group and I had a great time presenting. Thanks guys for having me and for sticking around for drinks afterwards. If you were at the meeting (or just want to take a look) I just posted my slides as well as my demos from the event. The slides are embedded below and you can grab the demos from my DropBox account. There isn’t much documentation on the demos, but hopefully they’re semi-helpful.

Getting Started with Flex and PHP
View more presentations; from Ryan Stewart.

Using Flash Builder 4 with your Flex 3 Projects

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Flash Builder 4 has been out in public beta for a while and it’s been fun to see it progress. One of the things I noticed about the early betas was how some of the basic features like refactoring and event handler generation made a huge difference in my productivity regardless of whether I was using Flex 3 or Flex 4.

Now that Flash Builder 4 is out, it’s even more polished and you still get some of those benefits in your Flex 3 projects. If you’re currently in the middle of a Flex 3 application or you’re planning on targeting Flex 3 for a while, you can still get a lot out of Flash Builder 4. Andrew Shorten has a good rundown of how you can use Flash Builder 4 with Flex 3 projects. It’ll save you a lot of time and make your Flex experience that much better.

Couple of Flash Player 10.1 Nexus One Videos

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Last week I did a very quick, Flip Cam-quality video of Flash Player 10.1 running the March Madness on Demand site on a Nexus One. There is some stuttering when I switch from portrait to landscape, but other than that, it plays pretty well. It’s hard to capture with the Flip, but I was pleasantly surprised at how well it worked.

Also, Harish, one of the Adobe Evangelists in India, ported an AIR application he built to a browser app with Flex 4 and shows it running on the Nexus One. It’s pretty slick to see how well a Flex 4 app works on that little device.