San Diego Flash Users Group: Flex Best Practices Presentation

To start 2009 off I gave my first presentation to an awesome group of Flash and Flex developers in San Diego. The presentation was created from the two articles I wrote in 2008 for the Adobe Developer Connection on Best Practices for Flex development. I’ve kept the Powerpoint presentation offline until now. Some of the content is a little dated but it’s probably still worth checking out. I may update this presentation with everything I’ve learned over the last year and for the upcoming changes coming in Flex 4, if time permits.

Download the Flex Best Practices Powerpoint Presentation here.

Java Programming II at UCSD

After wanting to learn more about Java for many years I decided to go back to school and take a structured class. This was the first time I’d set foot in a classroom since about 1998. It was through the UCSD Extension program but classes were held on the UCSD campus. It was pretty cool to walk around the campus and see the “college” life again after so long. In addition this was the first time I’d ever taken a class at a University, my previous college experience was at a community college. The instructor Kent Yang was really awesome and the class was killer! I learned a lot more about Java, OOP, Unit Testing and Design Patterns. This knowledge was all transferable into AS3/Flex so the experience was well worth the time and investment.

Check out the class details here.

The Flex Show Episode 71: OOP w/ Sean Moore

The Flex Show is awesome, simply stated. Jeffry Houser has done an excellent job with the podcast and I’ve been a fan for a few years now. One of my goals was to be a guest on The Flex Show and in 2009 in became a reality. I was able to put together a talk about OOP in regards to Flex and ActionScript development. The Java class helped solidify my knowledge of OOP so hopefully the talk will help others grasp some of the fundamental OO concepts. It was an honor to be on the show and I really appreciate the opportunity. Hopefully I can do another show sometime in the future. Maybe on the Mindset BCI work I’ve been doing lately.

You can listen to my talk on The Flex Show here.

Orange County Flex Users Group: Flex Best Practices Presentation

Laura Arguello was kind enough to invite me to give my Flex Best Practices preso at the OCFlex Users Group in March. This gave me a chance to visit the ASFusion office before the preso and hang out with Jeremy Saenz (aka The Flex Gangster) a bit as well. The crowd at OCFlex was really great and very patient as I got set up and had some trouble finding a room at the venue big enough for everyone. Thanks again to ASFusion and the OCFlex Users Group for inviting me to present. It was a great experience!

Technical Authoring for O’Reilly InsideRIA

2008 was a big year for me and authoring. I wrote articles for Adobe, Flash Magazine and O’Reilly’s InsideRIA. I continued the trend in 2009 by writing three featured articles for InsideRIA. Rich Tretola is one of the coolest guys I know and such a pleasure to work with. He helped me a ton with the articles I wrote this year through the good and the bad. Another person I really have to thank is Matt Chotin. His feedback on my Flex 4 article was a huge help and I really appreciate his time and input! You can check out the articles I wrote for InsideRIA below:

Round up of ActionScript 3.0 and Flex optimization techniques and practices

Overview of Flex 4 (Gumbo)

Decorator Design Pattern

Technical Reviews for Manning Publications

Reviewing books is great for a lot of reasons, it helps your writing skills, you get a preview of the books before they’re published and you get to contribute to the quality of the books being published. I do the reviews on a volunteer basis and really enjoy and appreciate the opportunity to do so. In 2009 I had the privilege of reviewing three books for Manning. They are all great titles and I encourage you to check them out.

Hello! Flex 4

Flex On Java

Flex 4 In Action

Present.ly AIR Client Development

This is one of the larger apps that I worked on completely by myself. Dave at Intridea got in touch with a request to help them refactor an existing AIR application to best practices. This project was one of the best projects I’ve ever had the pleasure of working on. The app was cool, the concept was cool and the client was cool. The Present.ly service is a private Twitter like service for businesses, if you haven’t already taken a minute to check it out I encourage you to do so. Another really awesome aspect of this project is that the codebase for the AIR app is totally open source and available for download on GIT Hub. I was able to use Cairngorm and Flex Unit on this project which I feel really helped the codebase and application’s stability and scalability. You can check out the codebase and the finished app by following the links below:

Present.ly AIR source code at GIT Hub

Present.ly AIR Client

Game Consulting and Development

A game development company contacted me for some assistence with consulting and development for a Flex and Flash based game. This was my first experience doing any game dev and it was really great. This was another awesome client. They are not public yet so there aren’t any links to share. I did want to note that game development is something that I’d like to do more of and hopefully 2010 will present more opportunities to do so.

Parsley

Learning Parsley was been on my radar for quite some time. I’ve been able to work with the framework quite a bit over the last few months and really like it so far. It’s quite a bit different than Cairngorm development but it offers more flexibility and is the preferred direction by many developers. IoC frameworks are all the rage and I am glad to be learning how to use them.

Presentation Model

This design pattern is great. It enables better unit testing for your applications and helps to decouple logic from views. Using the Presentation Model wasn’t totally clear at first but after working with it for a while I’m really beginning to like it. Having a bunch of code in MXML files wasn’t really ever all that appealing to me and using the Presentation Model really helps to separate this code out into pure AS3 classes.

ThinkGear Brain Computer Interface API

In an effort to end 2009 with a bang I released my ThinkGear API. This API enables the Neurosky Mindset Brain Computer Interface to communicate with AS3 based applications. So far I’ve been able to build a rough dashboard that uses my brainwaves as its data source. In addition I was able to tie my brainwaves into some AS3 based particle visualizations. You can see my demo video and learn more here. Control ActionScript with your mind!!!

Well here’s looking to 2010. I can’t believe it’s already been a decade since Y2K. It’s been a great decade for the Flash Platform we’ve all come a long way.

Sean wearing the Mindset

Read and process data from your brain in ActionScript 3.0 with this open source API that I’ve created. You’ll need the Mindset hardware to utilize the full power of the API but you can run the ThinkGear Connector in “demo” mode and it will send simulated brain data to your app.

I’ve been interested in Brain Computer Interfaces for a few years now and was pleasantly surprised to find that Neurosky is now selling an affordable headset that reads brainwave data. The development tools are available for download from the Neurosky website for free. They provide a small piece of AS3 that shows how to read data from the ThinkGear Connector through a socket using ActionScript 3.0. I’ve abstracted the raw socket code into an easy to use API with documentation. Events are generated as the connector captures brainwave data from the BCI headset. You can register to listen for these events and get notifications as the brainwave data is read in one second intervals.

I’m currently working on a dashboard that displays the data my brain is generating using this API. It’s still a little rough but you can see the beginning in the video below. I’m also working on another project that feeds the brainwave data to some particle based visualizations in Flex. I think combining the brainwave data with Flash/Flex based visualizations could produce some very interesting results!

I’m planning on making this API open source and encourage developers to get involved. I can’t think of anything more exciting than reading your brain with ActionScript 3.0, Flex, AIR, etc. I truly think BCIs are the future of computing and we’ve hardly even seen the full potential yet. I currently need more examples to add to the project so if you’re interested in contributing those or anything else to the project please get in touch.

The game market is a great area where a BCI can be utilized. There is currently a demo game included with the Mindset when you purchase one. It’s pretty cool and if you are as interested in BCIs I encourage  you to take a look.

You can use the links below to find additional information about Neurosky and the Mindset BCI. You can also download the ThinkGearAPI SWC, browse the API documentation and download the source for the API and the Flex example using Subversion.

ThinkGearAPI SWC

http://kannopy.com/thinkgear/ThinkGearAPI.swc

ThinkGearAPI ASDoc Documentation

http://kannopy.com/thinkgear/thinkgear-api-asdocs/

ThinkGearAPI Flex Example (Flex Archive)

http://kannopy.com/thinkgear/ThinkGearAPIFlexExample.zip

Neurosky MindSet BCI API (Subversion):

http://kannopy.com/thinkgearapi/

Neurosky MindSet BCI API Flex Example (Subversion):

http://kannopy.com/thinkgearflex

Neurosky MindSet Development Tools

http://store.neurosky.com/products/mindset-development-tools

Neurosky Homepage

http://www.neurosky.com/

Neurosky Brainwave Visualizer

http://www.neurosky.com/mindset/visualizer.html

ArcGIS API for Flex
The ArcGIS API for Flex allows the creation of Rich Internet applications on top of ArcGIS Server. It is based on the free Adobe Flex framework. The Flex framework is a client-side technology that is rendered by Flash Player 9 and above, or by Adobe AIR. All Flex 3.x SDK versions are now supported.
http://resources.esri.com/arcgisserver/apis/flex/

asaudio
ASaudio is a small AS3 library dedicated to simple and efficient sound handling.
http://code.google.com/p/asaudio/

as3ansi
Library for parsing and viewing extended ASCII (IBM code page 437) into AS3 for use in Flash and Flex applications.
http://code.google.com/p/as3ansi/

ActionScript 3.0 Client Library for Facebook Platform API
The new ActionScript 3.0 Client Library for Facebook Platform API, fully supported by Facebook and Adobe, makes it easy to build applications that combine the strengths of the Flash Platform and Facebook Platform.
http://code.google.com/p/facebook-actionscript-api/

ascolourlovers
ColourLovers API for ActionScript 3. This library provides all the tools needed to bring palettes, colors, patterns and more from the ColourLovers API in your AS3 projects.
http://code.google.com/p/ascolourlovers/

AS3DAC
AS3DAC parses an AS3.0 class or instance file and adds asdoc documentation stubs. Follows the Flex SDK Coding Conventions where applicable.
http://code.google.com/p/as3dac/

as3flexdb
AS3FlexDB project is a open source lib that allows Adobe Flex applications to connect to a MySQL server.
http://code.google.com/p/as3flexdb/

as3growl
An ActionScript 3 API for working with the Growl notification service.
http://code.google.com/p/as3growl/

AS3 Http Client Library
An http library written on top of flash.net.Socket (and as3crypto) to be used with AIR or flash runtimes.
http://github.com/gabriel/as3httpclient

as3midilib
MIDI for ActionScript 3.0
http://code.google.com/p/as3midilib/

as3openxmlformats
ActionScript 3 lib for MS Office Open XML Formats
http://code.google.com/p/as3openxmlformats/

as3-scaffold
as3-scaffold is a lightweight as3 framework with an accompanying set of scaffolding scripts to automate the tedium of setting up new as3 projects, with support for PureMVC.
http://code.google.com/p/as3-scaffold/

as3scriptinglib
This library aims to provide an API for compiling and executing runtime ActionScript/JavaScript within the Flash client (no server required) via Adobe’s ECMAScript 4 compiler (from the Tamarin project).
http://code.google.com/p/as3scriptinglib/

as3zlib
as3 port of zlib
This is a port of JZlib to as3. Was created because as3 in Flash9 does not support deflate in ByteArray. AIR does support deflate and doesn’t need this code.
http://code.google.com/p/as3zlib/

bitly as3 api
Simple as3 implementation for bit.ly API.
http://code.google.com/p/bitly-as3-api/

Diggbe
Diggbe is a general purpose DI engine. It is first conceived for unit testing purposes (to avoid xxxSet/GetForTest). But it can also be use for runtime code to allow service dependencies to be injected.
http://code.google.com/p/diggbe/

echo-nest-flash-api
An ActionScript 3 interface for the the Echo Nest API.
http://github.com/also/echo-nest-flash-api

Etsy API Wrapper for Actionscript 3
An Actionscript 3 class that wraps the Etsy.com API.
http://thunderfarm.com/etsy/

feedmeas3
FeedMe is a low level class for sharing data between objects.
http://code.google.com/p/feedmeas3/

fuelas3svn
This is the SVN protocol implemented in AS3. This library gives you the ability to write your own SVN client completely in Flash.
http://code.google.com/p/fuelas3svn/

Gigya AS3 API
http://wiki.gigya.com/030_Gigya_Socialize_API_2.0/030_API_reference/010_Client_API_%28JavaScript%29

googleas3api
AS3 library on Googles API’s, integrate the power of Google in your Flash/Flex/AIR application (searches, translation, suggest, weather, feeds).
http://code.google.com/p/googleas3api/

Kongregate’s AS3 API
The Kongregate AS3 API allows you to extend your game to communicate with the Kongregate back-end.
http://www.kongregate.com/developer_center/docs/as3-api

KoolMoves AS3 API
http://koolexchange.com/docs/km/

lastfm as3
Actionscript 3.0 API to access the Last.fm web services.
http://code.google.com/p/lastfm-as3/

Mappy AS3 API
Thanks to Mappy AS3 API, show your users advanced visual effects (zooming with transition effects, video integrations, animations, etc.)and render maps quickly on browsers with a Flash plug-in instaled (the vast majority of Internet users).
http://api.mappy.com/en/as3

MP3tunes Music AS3/Flex/AIR API
API to implements the MP3tunes Music API. The api consists of REST interface which gives you access to all data for a user within the MP3tunes Locker service. It gives you the foundation for using the service in a AS3/Flex/AIR project.
http://code.google.com/p/mp3tunes-as3-api/

nd3d
ND3D is a simple to use AS3 3D Engine. Aimed for speed and simplicity. Target use are small 3D effects and rapid 3D testing / prototyping. The compiled size of the engine is about 10k.
http://code.google.com/p/nd3d/

netflex-as3-api
An Actionscript 3 utility library to simplify the Netflix API for Actionscript 3 based applications.
http://code.google.com/p/netflex-as3-api/

Sekati API
Sekati API is a Pure Actionscript 3.0 framework designed to bootstrap the development of flash/flex projects & applications with an emphasis on high-level functionality encapsulation. The framework provides a flexible, feature-rich xml configurable application architecture through the implementation of it’s collection of behavior-specific core display objects, controllers, managers & utilities.
http://code.google.com/p/sekati/

Soundcloud AS3 API
Universal Soundcloud API wrapper for Flash, Flex and AIR projects, written in ActionScript 3.0.
http://github.com/dasflash/Soundcloud-AS3-API/blame/1aa2d25c072309a1e931b08e88f6c7218a135be0/README

tweensy
Tweensy is an extremely efficient Actionscript 3 property tweener. Contained within Tweensy is an expansion package called Tweensy FX which allows for motion effects to be applied onto DisplayObjects.
http://code.google.com/p/tweensy/

vyana
Light-weight Cairngorm-PureMVC like framework with care about modular applications
http://code.google.com/p/vyana/

wiiflash
Communication between the Wiimote and Flash
http://code.google.com/p/wiiflash/

Cairngorm
Cairngorm is the lightweight micro-architecture for Rich Internet Applications built in Flex or AIR. A collaboration of recognized design patterns, Cairngorm exemplifies and encourages best-practices for RIA development advocated by Adobe Consulting, encourages best-practice leverage of the underlying Flex framework, while making it easier for medium to large teams of software engineers deliver medium to large scale, mission-critical Rich Internet Applications.

http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/cairngorm/Cairngorm

Download: http://download.macromedia.com/pub/opensource/cairngorm/cairngorm2_2_1-bin.zip

Flex Unit
FlexUnit is a unit testing framework for Flex and ActionScript 3.0 applications and libraries. It mimics the functionality of JUnit, a Java unit testing framework, and comes with a graphical test runner.

http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexunit/FlexUnit

Download: http://download.macromedia.com/pub/opensource/flexunit/flexunit0_9.zip

Subclipse
Subclipse is an Eclipse Team Provider plug-in providing support for Subversion within the Eclipse IDE. The software is released under the Eclipse Public License (EPL) 1.0 open source license.

http://subclipse.tigris.org/

Eclipse update site URL: http://subclipse.tigris.org/update_1.6.x

Eclipse
Eclipse is a multi-language software development platform comprising an IDE and a plug-in system to extend it. It is written primarily in Java and is used to develop applications in this language and, by means of the various plug-ins, in other languages as well – C, C++, COBOL, Python, Perl, PHP and more.

http://www.eclipse.org

Download: http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/

ASDoc
ASDoc is a command-line tool that you can use to create API language reference documentation as HTML pages from the classes in your Adobe® Flex® application. The Adobe Flex team uses the ASDoc tool to generate the Adobe Flex Language Reference.

http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/3/html/help.html?content=asdoc_1.html

Flex Ant Tasks
The Adobe® Flex® Ant tasks provide a convenient way to build your Flex projects using an industry-standard build management tool. If you are already using Ant projects to build Flex applications, you can use the Flex Ant tasks to replace your exec or java commands that invoke the mxmlc and compc compilers. If you are not yet using Ant to build your Flex applications, you can take advantage of these custom tasks to quickly and easily set up complex build processes for your Flex applications.

http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/3/html/help.html?content=anttasks_1.html

Installation: http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/3/html/help.html?content=anttasks_2.html#224215

Degrafa
Degrafa is a declarative graphics framework open source licensed under MIT.

http://www.degrafa.org

Download: http://www.degrafa.org/code/

as3corelib
The corelib project is an ActionScript 3 Library that contains a number of classes and utilities for working with ActionScript 3. These include classes for MD5 and SHA 1 hashing, Image encoders, and JSON serialization as well as general String, Number and Date APIs.

http://code.google.com/p/as3corelib/

Download: http://as3corelib.googlecode.com/files/as3corelib-.92.1.zip

Flex SDK coding conventions and best practices
Coding standards for writing open-source Flex framework components in ActionScript 3. Adhering to these standards makes the source code look consistent, well-organized, and professional.

http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Coding+Conventions

Flex Language Reference
The Flex 3.3 Language Reference provides syntax and usage information for every element in the ActionScript™ language. It documents all elements in Adobe® Flash® Player and Adobe® AIR™ that are officially supported by Adobe.

http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/3/langref/

List of 31 Flex APIs, Libraries, Components and Tools
http://seantheflashguy.com/blog/2007/08/21/list-of-31-flex-apis-libraries-components-and-tools/

List of 22 ActionScript 3.0 API’s
http://seantheflashguy.com/blog/2007/08/13/list-of-22-actionscript-30-apis/

ActionScript 3.0 APIs from Eric Feminella
ActionScript 3.0 APIs developed specifically for Adobe Flex and AIR.
http://www.ericfeminella.com/blog/actionscript-3-apis/

ASMailer
The ASMailer class sends emails using an SMTP server. ASMailer sends mail without the need of a server side language like PHP or JSP.
http://asmailer.riaforge.org/

Away3d 2.1
Away3D is a realtime 3d engine for flash in ActionScript 3.0
http://away3d.com/away3d-21-demos-docs

Bullet Graph
A good way to show actual time spent vs. the estimated time for a project
http://agileui.blogspot.com/2008/05/bullet-graph-free-flex-component.html

Degrafa
Degrafa : Declarative Graphics Framework
http://www.degrafa.com/

Desuade Partigen
Desuade Partigen is an extension for Adobe Flash which lets you create realistic vector and raster particle effects (such as fire, smoke, sparkles), without requiring you to do any complex coding.
http://desuade.com/products/partigen/

EasyMVC
EasyMVC is an event driven MVC framework which focuses on flexibility while not getting in the developers way.
http://projects.simb.net/easyMVC/

Five3D
vector-based 3d rendering framework by Mathieu Badimon – has just received a significant update, bringing it to version 2.1. New features this version brings: Back Face Culling, Flat Shading, Z-sorting, Space Drawing functions, Bitmap3D class, Video3D class, Sprite2D Class, Letter Spacing, Text Width
http://five3d.mathieu-badimon.com/

Flash Player 10 API Documentation!
http://download.macromedia.com/pub/labs/flashplayer10/flashplayer10_as3langref_052008.zip

Flex 3 Performance and Memory Profiling
“Memory profiling lets you look at objects being created, take snapshots and compare them. Performance profiling allows snapshots for looking at cumulative and internal time.”
http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Flex_3:Feature_Introductions:_Performance_and_Memory_Profiling

Flex 3 RSLs
Use Flex 3 runtime-shared-libraries (RSLs) to reduce the size of your applications and thereby reduce the time required to download the application. RSLs are just SWF files whose code is used as a shared library between different application SWF files.
http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Flex_3:Feature_Introductions:Flex_3_RSLs

Flex 4 States syntax changes
Flex 4 will target all of the legacy usage scenarios of classic Flex states functionality (stateful components, states as application “views” or “pages”, effects and transitions between view states, etc.). This document outlines what is primarily a syntax change for the existing functionality.
http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Enhanced+States+Syntax

Flex and Flex Developers Magazine
http://www.ffdmag.com/

Flex “Designer Scroll Bars”
“designer scroll bars” – skinny little tone on tone scroll bars that have no scroll arrows
http://www.gskinner.com/blog/archives/2008/05/designer_scroll.html

FlexMDI
flexmdi is a robust, extensible Multiple Document Interface framework for Adobe Flex.
http://code.google.com/p/flexmdi/

Flex Resource Bundles
What’s a resource bundle? It’s a set of values that you externalize from your source code in a properties file. And it can be swapped out at compile time or, with Flex 3, at runtime. Think of it like a style sheet for values.
http://blog.extends.eventdispatcher.org/roger/introduction-to-flex-resource-bundles/

FOAM
FOAM is a two-dimensional rigid body physics engine written in ActionScript 3.0.
http://code.google.com/p/foam-as3/

Go3D
Cool Tweening Engine, the Go3D which give you more control over moving objects in 3d space.
http://code.google.com/p/goplayground/source/checkout

GoogleMap Flex Component
A new component for Flex Developers who want to add more control or be very well organized.
http://www.igorcosta.org/?p=140

Guttershark
Guttershark is an Actionscript 3 library that pushes some simple conventions on you, only to make you faster as a developer. It’s a pattern for Flash development that cuts out a huge amount of time, especially when you’re in the first stages of development.
http://www.guttershark.net/

ILOG Elixir
A suite of professional user interface controls that gives developers a rich collection of innovative and interactive data display components. It includes ready-to-use schedule displays, map displays, dials, gauges, 3D and radar charts, a treemap chart and organization charts.
http://www.ilog.com/products/ilogelixir/

LoadingImage
Takes a regular Flex Image component, and adds a self contained ProgressBar to it to show its own loading progress.
http://www.munkiihouse.com/?p=135

Logger Library and RIALogger
The Logger component provides classes to that abstract the Flex 2 Log and logging Target classes. It provides a simple approach to logging messages with category information and provide hooks into multiple targets. It supports the following logging targets by default: RIALoggerTarget, TraceTarget (trace()), XPanelTarget, and FlexTracePanelTarget. The LogController also provides functionality to allow you to setup your own custom logging Target.
http://renaun.com/blog/flex-components/rialogger/

Mate
Mate is a tag-based, event-driven Flex framework.
http://mate.asfusion.com/index.cfm

Merapi
Merapi is a new project that is a framework for connecting AIR to java at the desktop.
http://adamflater.blogspot.com/search/?q=merapi

MinimalComps: Minimal AS3 UI Component Set
CheckBox, PushButton, HSlider, VSlider, InputText, ProgressBar, RadioButton, ColorChooser (text input only) and Panel.
http://www.bit-101.com/minimalcomps/

OpenFlux
OpenFlux is an open-source Flex component framework which allows developers to create radically new and custom Flex components.
http://code.google.com/p/openflux/

PeekPanel
Cool way to hide options or preferences in an application. It borrows the look and feel from the FlexBook/PageFlip components already out there, but instead of simulating a book, this is more of a way to use the “flip” to hide other components.
http://www.billdwhite.com/wordpress/?p=29

PlexiGlass
http://www.bobjim.com/category/plexiglass/

Share (Document Services API)
Online service provided by Adobe that allows you to share, publish, and organize documents online.
http://code.google.com/p/as3sharelib/downloads/list

Slide
Slide is an application framework for projects built in Flex 2 or 3. Using familiar design patterns, Slide provides a robust MVC structure, view state management decoupled from view implementation and a flexible approach to model and controller access, eliminating need for singleton classes.
http://code.google.com/p/flex-slide/

Sandy 3.0.2
Sandy is an intuitive and user-friendly 3D open-source library.
http://www.flashsandy.org/versions/3.0

Sprouts
Sprouts is an open-source, cross-platform project generation and configuration tool for ActionScript 2, ActionScript 3, Adobe AIR and Flex projects.
http://www.projectsprouts.org/

Universal Mind Extensions for Adobe Cairngorm
Universal Mind has extended the “classic” Adobe 2.2.x Cairngorm version to provide many productivity and maintenance enhancements.
http://code.google.com/p/flexcairngorm/

Video Tutorial on Compiling for Flash Player 10
http://theflashblog.com/?p=383

Virtual Space (AS 3.0) V. 1.0
The Virtual Space is an AS3 component that can be used to create virtual-tour type visualizations very easily. Simply specify 6 images to be used for top, bottom, left, right, front, and back. Then, position the camera, set the initial view, and specify interaction parameters.
http://www.afcomponents.com/components/virtual_space_as3/

Flex 3 Cheatsheet, page 1 DRAFT:
http://actionscriptcheatsheet.com/pdf/Flex3ControlsCheatsheet_p1.pdf

There are three classes available to monitor network connectivity for Adobe AIR applciations. These classes are:

ServiceMonitor
SocketMonitor
URLMonitor

This article uses a very simple code example to demonstrate the usage of the URLMonitor class.

To get started you will need to import the URLMonitor class. The URLMonitor class is located in the air.net package.

The next step is to create an initialization method. In this method an instance of the URLMonitor class is created and assigned to the local variable “urlMonitor”.

The URLMonitor constructor accepts an instance of the URLRequest class as an argument. A URLRequest instance named “urlRequest” is created and assigned a value of “http://seantheflexguy.com”. The URLRequest instance is passed into the URLMonitor constructor.

An event listener also needs to be created and registered with the URLMonitor instance. The “onStatusEvent” method is registered to listen for the StatusEvent.STATUS event of our URLMonitor instance.

Finally the “start” method MUST be called to activate the URLMonitor instance.

The “onStatusEvent” method will receive a StatusEvent event object as a parameter. This parameter will contain useful data related to the status of the targeted URLRequest. In particular the “code” property can be used to determine the network status. I was able to get the “Service.available” and the “Service.unavailable” values by disconnecting the RJ45 cable from my laptop with the AIR application running in debug mode in the Flex Builder 3.0 IDE. You can see the trace statements as they were displayed while I ran the app in the screen capture included with this article.

The URLMonitor class enables you to determine if the availability of a network resource is changing. Monitoring one single resource is not a reliable way of determining if application is truly “offline”. One idea toward creating a more reliable online detection script might be to check a collection of five highly visited websites. Then depending on the overall availability of those websites a solid online/offline assessment could be made. If you are looking to monitor a single network resource, such as your server, then the URLMonitor class can be used as-is.

I hope you have enjoyed this article. The next article in this series will explore the notification features of Adobe AIR.

Code Example:

<mx:WindowedApplication xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml"
  layout="absolute"
  creationComplete="init();">
  <mx:Script>
    <![CDATA[
      import air.net.ServiceMonitor;
      import air.net.URLMonitor;

      private function init() : void
      {
        var urlMonitor : URLMonitor;
        var urlRequest : URLRequest = new URLRequest( "http://seantheflexguy.com" );
        urlMonitor = new URLMonitor( urlRequest );
        urlMonitor.addEventListener( StatusEvent.STATUS, onStatusEvent );
        urlMonitor.start();
      }
      private function onStatusEvent( event : StatusEvent ) : void
      {
        var evt : StatusEvent = event;
        trace( ">>onStatusEvent::evt.code=" + evt.code );
      }
    ]]>
  </mx:Script>
</mx:WindowedApplication>

• File System Access
• Network Detection
• Notifications
• Application Update
• Drag and Drop
• Local Database

The first code example is for File System Access. The next code example will be Network Detection.

Here is the source code that is used to open and read a .txt file with Adobe AIR. Note: this is a simple example created using the “Developing AIR Applications with Adobe Flex 3″ online manual. This manual is a GREAT resource and I highly recommend using it.

Adobe AIR: File System Access
Example Code:

<mx:WindowedApplication xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml"
  layout="absolute"
  creationComplete="init();">
  <mx:Script>
    <![CDATA[

      private var file : File;
      private var fileStream : FileStream;
      private var fileContents : String;
      private const ISO_CS : String = "iso-8859-1";

      private function init() : void
      {
        file = new File();
        file = File.applicationDirectory.resolvePath("file.txt");
        fileStream = new FileStream();
        fileStream.addEventListener( Event.COMPLETE, fileComplete );
        fileStream.openAsync( file, FileMode.READ );
      }
      private function fileComplete( event : Event ):void
      {
        fileContents = fileStream.readMultiByte( fileStream.bytesAvailable, ISO_CS );
        trace( "fileContents="+fileContents );
      }
    ]]>
  </mx:Script>
</mx:WindowedApplication>

2007 was an AWESOME year for Flex and AIR. 2008 should continue this trend. Here are several different technologies and other items I plan on monitoring going into 2008. Some of these are bleeding edge, others are fundamentals which we’ve been studying for years.

“I’m sure that Flex skills will be one of the hottest skills to have in 2008.” – Yakov Fain

ActionScript 3.0
Essential ActionScript 3.0
Personally I plan on digging into the nitty-gritty details of the language. This includes refining knowledge of Errors, Events, Exceptions, Interfaces, Bitmap API, Display API and Namespaces to name a few. I’ll be reading Essential ActionScript 3.0 to do so.

Adobe AIR
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/air/
The first full release of AIR should be coming in 2008. With the rapid growth and massive interest already I cannot even speculate what 08 will bring for this exciting, young technology.

Adobe Astro
http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Astro
“The next major release of Flash Player, codename “Astro,” was first previewed at Adobe MAX 2007. The preview highlighted a few of the new capabilities the Flash Player team is working on for Astro: advanced text layout, simple 3D effects, and custom filters, blend modes and effects.”

Adobe BlazeDS
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/blazeds/
http://livedocs.adobe.com/labs/blazeds/html/index.html
“BlazeDS is the server-based Java remoting and web messaging technology that enables developers to easily connect to back-end distributed data and push data in real-time to Adobe® Flexâ„¢ and Adobe AIRâ„¢ applications for more responsive rich Internet application (RIA) experiences.”

API’s
http://programmableweb.com/apis/directory/1?sort=date
I always keep an eye on this area of Programmable Web for new ideas for applications and mashups.

ASDoc
Using ASDoc
“ASDoc is a command-line tool that you can use to create API language reference documentation as HTML pages from the classes in your Flex application. The Adobe Flex team uses the ASDoc tool to generate the Adobe Flex 2 Language Reference.”

Brain-computer interface
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain-computer_interfaces
http://www.techrivet.com/2007/07/23/NeuroSkyMovingBeyondConceptBCI.aspx
“brain-computer interface (BCI), sometimes called a direct neural interface or a brain-machine interface, is a direct communication pathway between a human or animal brain (or brain cell culture) and an external device.” The WII in Flash was cool, let’s see one of these plugged into the Flash Platform!!!

Cairngorm
http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Cairngorm
http://www.cairngormdocs.org/
“The Cairngorm Microarchitecture is a lightweight yet prescriptive framework for rich Internet application (RIA) development.”

Cloud Computing
http://tnerd.com/2007/10/14/cloud-computing-the-next-big-thing-is-cloud/
Cloud_computing_wp_final_8Oct.pdf
“is a computing paradigm shift where computing is moved away from personal computers or an individual server to a “cloud” of computers. Users of the cloud only need to be concerned with the computing service being asked for, as the underlying details of how it’s achieved are hidden”

Design Patterns
http://www.javacamp.org/designPattern/
http://www.exciton.cs.rice.edu/JAvaResources/DesignPatterns/default.htm
ActionScript 3.0 Design Patterns: Object Oriented Programming Techniques
“In software engineering, a design pattern is a general repeatable solution to a commonly occurring problem in software design. A design pattern is not a finished design that can be transformed directly into code. It is a description or template for how to solve a problem that can be used in many different situations”

E4X
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/training_e4x.html
http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-357.htm
E4X: A new approach to XML processing
http://www.w3schools.com/e4x/default.asp
“E4X offers a natural, fluent set of language constructs for manipulating XML. In contrast to traditional XML-parsing APIs, XML with E4X performs like a native data type of the language. E4X streamlines the development of applications that manipulate XML by drastically reducing the amount of code needed.”

EcmaScript 4.0
http://www.ecmascript.org/
http://www.ecmascript.org/es4/spec/evolutionary-programming-tutorial.pdf
Microsoft trying to derail ECMAScript 4?
“ECMA-262 Edition 4 is the next-generation version of ECMAScript being developed currently by the ECMA TG1 working group.” This space is heating up, keep a watch on this one I have a feeling this is going to shape the future of the web in major ways.

Flash Media Server
http://www.adobe.com/products/flashmediaserver
“an enterprise-grade data and media server from Adobe Systems Inc. This server works together with the Flash Player runtime to create media driven, multiuser RIA’s.”

Flex 3 & Flex 4
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flex/
Keep an eye on Adobe Labs. Flex 3 will be coming out in 2008 and who knows we may even see at least some more talk about or get to provide additional input on the future of Flex.

Flex Custom Components
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/creating_components.html
Flex Component Kit Alpha for Flex 2.0.1
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/articles/creating_as3_components.html
I think creating custom components for Flex is going to increase in demand in 2008.

Flex Performance and Memory Profiling
Performance and Memory Profiling
“Memory profiling lets you look at objects being created, take snapshots and compare them. Performance profiling allows snapshots for looking at cumulative and internal time.”

Flex Persistent Framework Caching
http://weblogs.macromedia.com/jd/archives/2007/08/player_update_p.cfm

Flex Refactoring
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flex/videos/refactoringdemo/

Flex Skinning
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/flex_skins.html
http://www.scalenine.com/resources.html
“If you want to redesign the appearance of the Flex components more radically, you can do so by creating a new set of skins for the Flex components that completely replace the built-in Halo Aeon theme.”

Hibernate
http://www.hibernate.org/
“Hibernate is a powerful, high performance object/relational persistence and query service. Hibernate lets you develop persistent classes following object-oriented idiom – including association, inheritance, polymorphism, composition, and collections.”

Hydra / Adobe Image Foundation
http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/AIF_Toolkit
“The Adobe Image Foundation (AIF) Toolkit preview release includes a high-performance graphics programming language that Adobe is developing for image processing, codenamed Hydra, and an application to create, compile and preview Hydra filters and effects.”

Java 7
https://jdk7.dev.java.net/
http://today.java.net/pub/a/today/2007/08/09/looking-ahead-to-java-7.html

Java 6
http://www.sun.com/training/catalog/courses/WJB-110A.xml
http://www.sun.com/training/catalog/courses/SL-275-SE6.xml
http://www.sun.com/training/catalog/courses/CX-310-065.xml
Here are a few links with training recommended for Java certification. Might be something to think about for the future.

JavaFX
http://www.sun.com/software/javafx/index.jsp
“The JavaFX product family delivers the ability to create interactive content, applications and services from the desktop to mobile devices to the living room.”

Microformats
http://microformats.org/
“Designed for humans first and machines second, microformats are a set of simple, open data formats built upon existing and widely adopted standards.” Microformats are being used in conjunction with Adobe AIR.

Occasionally Connected Apps
Monitoring network connectivity
One of the draws to using Adobe AIR is the ability to monitor network connectivity. This is one area I want to work with and research a bit more in 2008.

OOP
http://www.friendsofed.com/book.html?isbn=1590598458
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/actionscript/articles/oop_as3.html
“Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm that uses “objects” and their interactions to design applications and computer programs. It is based on several techniques, including encapsulation, modularity, polymorphism, and inheritance. It was not commonly used in mainstream software application development until the early 1990s. Many modern programming languages now support OOP.”

Papervision 2.0
http://blog.papervision3d.org/
http://papervision3d.googlecode.com/svn/trunk
http://blog.zupko.info/?p=76
“Features: Faster! ShadeMaterials, Shaders, ASCollada (animation support), Frustrum Culling, Multiple Viewports, Render to Scene and more. More features expected soon.”

Prisim
http://labs.mozilla.com/2007/10/prism/
“Unlike Adobe AIR and Microsoft Silverlight, we’re not building a proprietary platform to replace the web. We think the web is a powerful and open platform for this sort of innovation, so our goal is to identify and facilitate the development of enhancements that bring the advantages of desktop apps to the web platform.”

Refactoring
http://www.refactoring.com/
“Refactoring is a disciplined technique for restructuring an existing body of code, altering its internal structure without changing its external behavior. Its heart is a series of small behavior preserving transformations. Each transformation (called a ‘refactoring’) does little, but a sequence of transformations can produce a significant restructuring.”

Spring
http://www.springframework.org/
http://www.theserverside.com/tt/articles/article.tss?l=IntrotoSpring25
“The Spring Framework is probably best known for offering features required to effectively create complex business applications outside of the programming models that historically have been dominant in the industry. Next to that it is also credited for introducing previously unfamiliar functionalities into today’s mainstream development practices, even beyond the Java platform.”

SQLite
http://www.sqlite.org/
http://sqlitebrowser.sourceforge.net/
“SQLite is a software library that implements a self-contained, serverless, zero-configuration, transactional SQL database engine.” This is used in google gears and Adobe AIR. Firefox also uses SQLite.

Struts
http://struts.apache.org/
“An open source framework for building Servlet/JSP based web applications based on the Model-View-Controller (MVC) design paradigm.”

Subversion
http://subversion.tigris.org/
http://svnbook.red-bean.com/
http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.4/svn-book.pdf
“Subversion (SVN) is a version control system initiated in 2000 by CollabNet Inc. It allows users to keep track of changes made to any type of electronic data, typically source code, web pages or design documents.”

Surface Computing
http://www.microsoft.com/surface/
“Surface computing is the use of a specialized computer GUI in which traditional GUI elements are replaced by intuitive, everyday objects. Instead of a keyboard and mouse, the user interacts directly with a touch-sensitive screen, replicating the familiar hands-on experience of everyday object manipulation.”

Swing
Java Swing By Marc Loy
http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/uiswing/
“Swing is a widget toolkit for Java. It is part of Sun Microsystems’ Java Foundation Classes (JFC) — an API for providing a graphical user interface (GUI) for Java programs. Swing includes GUI widgets such as text boxes, buttons, split-panes, and tables.”

Thermo
http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Thermo
“Thermo” is an upcoming Adobe product that makes it easy for designers to create rich Internet application UIs. Thermo allows designers to build on familiar workflows to visually create working applications that easily flow into production and development.

Technological singularity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity
“There is no clear definition, but usually the Singularity is meant as a future time when societal, scientific and economic change is so fast we cannot even imagine what will happen from our present perspective, and when humanity will become posthumanity.”

TouchLib
http://www.whitenoiseaudio.com/touchlib/
“Touchlib is our library for creating multi-touch interaction surfaces. It handles tracking blobs of infrared light for you and sends your programs multitouch events, such as ‘finger down’, ‘finger moved’, and ‘finger released’. It includes a configuration app and a few demos to get you started. It interaces with most major types of webcams and video capture devices”

UML
http://www.uml.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Modeling_Language
“In the field of software engineering, the Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a standardized specification language for object modeling. UML is a general-purpose modeling language that includes a graphical notation used to create an abstract model of a system, referred to as a UML model.”

Unit Testing
http://code.google.com/p/as3flexunitlib/
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/unit_testing.html
“Unit testing is a procedure used to validate that individual units of source code are working properly. A unit is the smallest testable part of an application. In procedural programming a unit may be an individual program, function, procedure, etc., while in object-oriented programming, the smallest unit is a method; which may belong to a base/super class, abstract class or derived/child class.”

WebKit
http://webkit.org/
http://webkit.org/blog/
“WebKit is an open source web browser engine.” This is the browser used within Adobe AIR.

This application should probably be broken down in terms of architecture. Refactoring this to PureMVC or Cairngorm would be a fun project. Perhaps after the remaining API examples have been completed.

http://www.seantheflashguy.com/flex/OdeoBasicExample/