Sean Moore - Flex Developer, AIR Developer, ActionScript Programmer » Flex Builder

seantheflexguyTV – episode 02: Flash and the City conference, AIR 2.0, Flex 3 with Java book review

seantheflexguy — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 23:14:01 +0000

Here’s the second episode of seantheflexguyTV! In this episode I talk about the upcoming Flash and the City conference in NYC. I also cover some of the new features and capabilities of AIR 2.0 and do a quick review of the Flex 3 with Java book. This episode should be a little more organized and focused. I put together some show notes this time, which you can download here. In addition I’ve collected up some links for you to check out that relate to the topics covered in the show. Thanks a ton for your suggestions last week and thanks for tuning in. The next episode will focus on Flex “Gotchas.” I’m looking to you, the viewer, to send any gotchas that you’ve encountered in your Flex development adventures. Please send them to: info@seantheflexguy.com I’m looking for problems with solutions if you have them. Nothing crazy just any weird issues you’ve found solutions for that others might benefit from. Thanks again for checking out the show, I appreciate your time and feedback. I have to send a HUGE shout out to Jens at Flash Magazine for the Vimeo Plus account for the shows going forward. Flash Magazine is now an official sponsor of seantheflexguyTV. Stay tuned for some exciting stuff moving forward. Well, until next time, take it easy…

seantheflexguyTV – episode 02: Flash and the City, AIR 2.0, Flex 3 with Java book review from seantheflexguy on Vimeo.

Flash and the City Conference Blog

http://blog.flashandthecity.com/

Flash and the City Speakers

http://blog.flashandthecity.com/speakers/

Elad Elrom’s AIR 2.0 Cookbook recipes (thanks again dude!)

http://elromdesign.com/blog/2010/02/01/10-recipes-on-adc-cookbooks-covering-air-20-new-apis/

AIR 2.0 info on the Adobe Labs site

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/air2/

Exploring the new file capabilities in Adobe AIR 2

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/air/flex/articles/exploring_file_capabilities.html

StorageVolume class info

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/beta/reference/actionscript/3/flash/filesystem/StorageVolume.html

StorageVolumeInfo class info

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/beta/reference/actionscript/3/flash/filesystem/StorageVolumeInfo.html

StorageVolumeChangeEvent class info

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/beta/reference/actionscript/3/flash/events/StorageVolumeChangeEvent.html

Interacting with Native Processes in AIR 2.0

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/air/flex/quickstart/interacting_with_native_process.html

AIR 2.0 New Features Overview

http://www.infoq.com/articles/air-20-new-features

AIR 2.0 FAQ on Adobe Labs

http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/AIR_2:Developer_FAQ

New Features in AIR 2.0 on Adobe Labs

http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/AIR_2:Release_Notes#New_Features_in_AIR_2__beta_2

AIR 2 Enhancements Complete Overview

http://www.insideria.com/2009/10/air-2-enhancements-complete-ov.html

Using the Microphone capabilities in Adobe AIR 2 beta

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/air/flex/articles/using_mic_api.html

TouchEvent class info

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/beta/reference/actionscript/3/flash/events/TouchEvent.html

TouchscreenType

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/beta/reference/actionscript/3/flash/system/TouchscreenType.html

MultitouchInputMode

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/beta/reference/actionscript/3/flash/ui/MultitouchInputMode.html

Multitouch

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/beta/reference/actionscript/3/flash/ui/Multitouch.html

TransformGestureEvent

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/beta/reference/actionscript/3/flash/events/TransformGestureEvent.html

seantheflexguyTV – episode 01: RobotLegs, Flex Unit 4, FlexPMD, FDT, RIATest and more!

seantheflexguy — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 16:05:07 +0000

Here’s the first episode of seantheflexguyTV! I’ll talk about several new Flex related tools and some software development books. I’d like to thank Jesse Warden for the inspiration and the nudge to get seantheflexguyTV started. More specifically in this episode I talk a little about: RobotLegs, Parsley, FlexPMD, RIATest, Hello Flex 4, Clean Code, 97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know, Flex Unit 4 and FDT. Please let me know if you love/hate the series and if you have any feedback. You can reach me by email at: info@seantheflexguy.com. Thanks for checking it out. If you have a tool, book, magazine or anything else that you’d like reviewed or any news stories please get in touch!!

O’Reilly InsideRIA: Overview of Flex 4 (Gumbo)

seantheflexguy — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 12:04:26 +0000

Last August I began researching and exploring the new features and capabilities in the next version of Flex, Flex 4 Gumbo. Adobe has been posting nightly builds of Flex 4 since last summer. Gareth Edwards was nice enough to help me to get set up and compiling the SDK at the time. Juan Sanchez was doing some initial blogging and Ely Greenfield released the infamous video demonstrating the new skinning techniques soon to be available. The Overview of Flex 4 (Gumbo) article was originally started as a presentation I was building in late August / early September. (I may still port the content back into a presentation in the near future. The InsideRIA Conference is coming up and a Flex 4 preso might be a good candidate for the “Call for Papers”.)

I’ll have to say this article was a labor of love. We made it through prefix and namespace issues, code updates and also various other updates to the product time line, etc. I really enjoyed working on the article and am very, very pleased that it’s finally been released into the wild. I’d like to thank Rich Tretola for his patience and help during the authoring process and would also like to send out a gigantic thanks to Matt Chotin for the time he provided to review the article. I’d also like to thank Deepa for all of the awesome content on the Adobe Open Source site, my article would not exist without it.

The new Flex 4 landscape is rich with features and improvements. Flash Builder and Flash Catalyst will empower a new sect of designers, devigners and deselopers into the world of Flex based development for the Flash Platform. I’m very excited to see what my Flash brethren bring to the table using Catalyst. I’m also very excited about the Unit Testing automation that’s available and many other developer centric updates that have been included in the Flex 4 framework and in Flash Builder.

When I first started looking into the code for how the new Spark component architecture is structured I got all warm and fuzzy. Spark totally separates the component logic from the view markup which should really standardize component development and also enable a whole new level of skinning and UX for Flex application development.

Anyone looking to upgrade their Flex 3 applications to Flex 4 please get in touch. I’m really excited to start talking about the possibilities of upgrading and refactoring to the new framework. I’m currently working on a Flex 4 application example that makes use of Cairngorm and the new version of Flex Unit so check back for that soon.

Here’s the link to my article, I hope it provides a decent overview of what’s available in Flex 4:
http://www.insideria.com/2009/06/overview-of-flex-4-gumbo.html

It should be an exciting week and the buzz about the beta release is already getting crazy! Here are a couple of important links:

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/flex4sdk_whatsnew.html
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashbuilder4/
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashcatalyst/

http://www.ashorten.com/2009/06/01/flash-builder-and-flash-catalyst-betas-now-on-labs/

Happy Flexing!!!

Flex Best Practices Presentations

seantheflexguy — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 23:10:00 +0000

The San Diego Flash Users Group invited me to give a presentation on Flex Best Practices last night. Thanks to everyone who took the time to join the meeting. Thanks to Kyle and Chris for inviting me to present. Also thanks a lot to everyone who provided all the great feedback and questions. Dan made the journey down from the mountains to join us as well. Several attendees inquired about getting a copy of the slideshow. I think the articles that I wrote for Adobe are actually much better and cover even more material than the Powerpoint presentation. Here are the links to the articles:

Flex best practices – Part 1: Setting up your Flex project article

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/best_practices_pt1.html

Flex best practices – Part 2: Development practices

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/best_practices_pt2.html

If you would still like the Powerpoint preso email me and I’ll send it along.

There was an example application that I wanted to share as well. I’ll post it on this blog in the very near future. It utilizes many of the practices and standards covered in my presentation and the articles. I’d like to provide a little info or blog post at least along with the example…soon….

I’ll be giving this same presentation on Flex Best Practices in March at the OC Flex Users Group. Thanks to ASFusion for the invite!!

Thanks again to everyone who made it out last night. The audience was really great and had great questions and a great discussion. I appreciate everyone’s time and feedback. Thanks to Dolores for all of the help getting ready for the preso too!!

Flex best practices – Part 2: Development practices

seantheflexguy — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 19:04:32 +0000

Following best practices during the development process can help organize and structure an application. Standardized development provides clarity, stability, longevity and scalability. I worked with several members of the Flex community and the Adobe Flex Team to create this article outlining over 90 best practices for the Flex development process. Thank you to everyone who helped review the article. Also thanks to everyone who provided input!! And, thanks to Adobe for the opportunity to write this!!!

Here is a short passage from the article:

“In this article, you will learn how to manage assets so that your application’s dependencies will be well organized. I will also discuss widely accepted ActionScript 3.0, MXML, and CSS coding standards currently being practiced by the Flex development community. I’ll review ASDoc, a tool that you can use to create API language reference documentation as HTML from your application’s source code. In the application architecture section of this article I’ll show techniques that you can use to help define the blueprints for your application’s foundation. I will cover some of the application development frameworks that are available to Flex developers and discuss when it makes sense to use them and when it does not. Lastly, I will cover best practices for unit testing so that you can test your codebase and ensure the code will perform consistently.”

Flex best practices – Part 1: Setting up your Flex project article

sean — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 15:56:16 +0000

Here is an article on Flex best practices that I had the extreme pleasure of recently writing for Adobe’s Dev Center. The article explores a number of things you can do to help clarify your Flex development process. The article was a community based effort and input was collected from quite a few prominent Flex, Flash and ActionScript developers. I would like thank Hong Qiu for a ton of great input and direction. Also many thanks goes out to the Flex team for their time and input. Lastly, many thanks to Dolores Joya, Eric Feminella, Matt Chotin, Jesse Warden and Chris Griffith to name a few, I couldn’t have written the article without your input, help and support.

I’m currently working on another article in the Flex best practices series. I’ve done a TON of research for the next article so it should be really good. Keep an eye out in the Adobe Dev Center for that sometime in September or October.

It was really, really, really cool to have an article published in the Dev Center, something I have wanted to do since at least 2002. Thanks again to Hong and Adobe for the opportunity!!

Some screen shots from the Adobe website:

Another Free Flex Book Up for Grabs!

sean — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 23:46:37 +0000

First off thanks to everyone who stopped by to congratulate me on my new “Flex Champion” status. Second, thanks again to Suzanne Nguyen and everyone at Adobe for this awesome opportunity. I am truly honored. Third, congrats to my fellow Flex Champions Chad Udell and David Flatley.

Now, on to the free Flex books!!!

Congrats to Anand Vardhan for being the first one to send in the correct answer to the last book giveaway question.

“What are three components that can be used for accessing server-side data with Flex?”

The correct answer was:

More information about Accessing Server-Side Data with Flex can be found in the online Adobe Flex 3 Help.

Anand already had a copy of Programming Flex 2 and he was kind enough to pass the book on to the second place winner who was Nuno Rosa from Portugal. Congrats to Nuno, you’re copy of Programming Flex 2 has been sent off. Enjoy that book, it’s a great one!

Now for what you’ve all been waiting for… The free book.

This week I have a copy of Flex Solutions by Marco Casario. The book is published by Friends Of ED so you know it’s quality. This is a massive book that covers a TON of information for Flex 2 and Flex 3 developers.

Here is this weeks book giveaway question:

AIR provides an easy-to-use, cross-platform window API for creating native operating system windows using Flash, Flex, and HTML programming techniques. What are three classes used to create and work with windows in AIR?

The first person to email me with the correct answer will win the copy of Flex Solutions. Good luck!

42 tech items for Flex Developers to research, study and watch in 2008

sean — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 16:14:20 +0000

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.

“Iâ€™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 AdobeÂ® 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 â€œcloudâ€ of computers. Users of the cloud only need to be concerned with the computing service being asked for, as the underlying details of how itâ€™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 RIAâ€™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, weâ€™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) â€” 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.

ActionScript 3.0 UML and Code Generation Tools

sean — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 16:52:53 +0000

If you are interested in generating UML and/or AS3 code you might want to take a look at the following tools. The price tags range from $0 to $239.

Cairngen - Free
http://www.ericfeminella.com/blog/cairngen
This tool provides AS3 code generation for Cairngorm based Flex projects. You’ll need to have Ant installed and know how to run and modify Ant scripts so there is a barrier of entry here. It would be great if Cairngen had a GUI.

VASGen – Free
http://selfmummy.com/vasgen
There are a few issues with VASGen, like no package name support, but the AS3 code generation is pretty good. This tool is definitely worth checking out, especially considering the price. If you aren’t planning on using Cairngorm and you want a free tool this might be the solution.

UMLet – Free
http://www.umlet.com
This app can be set up as a Flex/Eclipse plug in. Pretty cool, no code generation from what I could tell though.

Enterprise Architect – $239-$135
http://www.sparxsystems.com.au/products/ea.html
At one point I had a trial copy of EA that was generating AS3, if memory serves me it did take a few hours of changing settings and research to get the code gen working though. Unfortunately the current price tag is out of my reach so no further information is available.

Visual Paradigm – $70-$59
http://www.visual-paradigm.com/product/vpuml/personaledition.jsp
Visual Paradigm claims AS3 generation but I’ve seen some concerns, and have my own (that doesn’t look like AS3 to me, notice the lack of a package?).

Looping a Flex 3 Sequence Effect Animation with MXML

sean — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 03:54:35 +0000

Here is a cool tip from Programming Flex 2. This code is from a Flex 3 project. I believe the syntax is the same for both versions of Flex. Notice that the repeatCount attribute in the Sequence component definition is set to 0. This will repeat the Effect until you call the end() method on the Effect. In addition the repeatDelay attribute can also be used to specify a pause between the cycles of the loop. This is a pretty simple example but illustrates the concept.

View example:
http://seantheflashguy.com/flex/Flex3EffectsExample/Flex3EffectsExample.html

Here is the code:
http://seantheflashguy.com/flex/Flex3EffectsExample/srcview/index.html