Sean Moore - Software Developer, Digital Musician, Arduino Hacker » Uncategorized

Control Your Computer with Your Brain Using ActionScript (API Update)

seantheflexguy — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 15:41:34 +0000

Last year the first version of the NeuroSky MindSet Brain Computer Interface ActionScript 3.0 API was released. This is an open source API that’s freely available. The API simplifies the process of working with lower level Socket and ByteArray objects. The API is pretty straight forward to use. You basically register to listen for events that are broadcast by the Mindset. The listeners will receive the meditation, concentration, signal quality and EEG data that the Mindset captures from your brain. The most useful information is the meditation and attention levels. It can be used to create all kinds of interesting applications (games, etc.). Brain Computer Interfaces are starting to gain popularity and become more mainstream. The Mindset is still a little pricey so the developer pool is somewhat limited, but it’s a very interesting space to watch and be involved with.

The API updates are mostly just simple refactoring. The important thing is that the API is back online. There were some issues with the domain it was being hosted at and it’s been offline for a little while. It’s back now and available through GITHub. You can find the API here. There is also an example here. You can download the SWC here. This is all straight up ActionScript 3.0 so it’s available for use in Flash, Flex and AIR applications. Point to either the source code or the SWC from your application and you should be good to go.

Keep in mind you don’t actually have to spring for the Mindset ($200 US). The connector that comes with the Mindset developer tools has a mode/setting that will generate faux data that can be used to test your application. Obviously this isn’t as cool as using the actual BCI but if you want to simply check out the API and see what this is all about it’s a good option.

Sometime in the near future I’ll add the new features to the API that NeuroSky has implemented in2.1. I’m waiting for my Mindset to get back from the shop for some repairs and would like to have it to implement the new functionality. Another thing that I’ll be doing is adding a test suite to the API. Everything has been manually tested but if you run into issue please don’t hesitate to get in touch. It might take me a little while to respond but I’ll be in touch as soon as I can.

I’d like to send a HUGE, HUGE thank you to Omar Gonzalez for his time, patience and help getting this code into GITHub. 2011 is THE year I finally start learning how to use GIT. I’ve been using source control for a decade now (starting with VSS). Most of my experience is with SVN and making the switch to GIT has been, well, challenging to say the least (I’m mostly a GUI dude). I’m still getting the hang of it but Omar has been very helpful so huge props man, I really appreciate your time and help!!!!

Here’s the full link to the NeuroSky Mindset BCI AS3 API:

https://github.com/seantheflexguy/NeuroskyMindsetAS3API

Here’s the full link to the NeuroSky Mindset BCI AS3 API Example:

https://github.com/seantheflexguy/NeuroskyMindsetAS3APIExample

Here’s a link to a blog post I did last year that contains video of me interacting with some applications I wrote using the Mindset and my API.

http://seantheflexguy.com/blog/2009/12/30/neurosky-mindset-brain-computer-interface-actionscript-3-0-api/

My Flex and AIR Topics to Learn and Research for 2010

seantheflexguy — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 14:45:51 +0000

In the quest to become a well rounded Flex and AIR developer I’m always on the hunt for new areas to learn and explore. There are plenty of established pieces of the Flash Platform jigsaw puzzle to research as well. Every Flex and AIR project usually has one or more facets that are unique to the application being developed. Some have heavy emphasis on mapping components, others rely on LCDS. Others consist of a multitude of custom components and some utilize FMS or Red5. Some use PureMVC and some use modules. Over the past few years we’ve all seen various Flex and AIR applications that use one or more of these related technologies. Within the Flex and AIR ecosystem there are a multitude of areas that can be focused on. I personally think it’s probably pretty hard to be well versed in all of these areas. This doesn’t mean we can’t try! I think it’s getting to the point where Flash Platform Developers almost need to specialize in a few areas of Flash Platform related development (maybe it’s always been that way). Anyway, here are some areas that I am going to be looking into for the remainder of the year and into 2010. I’ll try to share some of my exploration and research on my blog however you can always follow me on Twitter to get information more frequently.

Flex 4

This is pretty broad but I want to build a full scale application using Flex 4 and as much of the Spark component architecture possible. Ideally I want to use Flash Builder for these endeavors.

Flex Unit 4

Unit testing and TDD are two topics that are of very high interest to me. I want to learn as much as possible about the next version of Flex Unit. There are improvements and new features that should really help and promote TDD for Flex and AIR projects. I’m really excited about the support available in Flash Builder for Flex Unit 4 and can’t wait to start exploring and using it. I’ll probably try to build some Flex 4 apps with Flash Builder to satisfy my first goal stated above and take a TDD approach using Flex Unit 4.

Presentation Model

I’ve developed several applications using Cairngorm and worked on quite a few existing applications that used it as well. I really want to learn more about pulling all code possible out of the view layer for Cairngorm based applications and using the Presentation Model to do so. I’ve been looking into this for a while and think I’ve gotten pretty close however I want to gain a solid understanding of this design pattern for use in Flex and AIR applications that specifically use Cairngorm.

LCDS Data Management Services

Simply stated I need to learn more about Livecycle Data Management Services. I’ve worked with BlazeDS to some extent however the features of Data Management Services are not available in BlazeDS so I’m going to switch my focus to LCDS for a while. I also want to learn more about how data synchronization works between AIR and LCDS. I learned quite a bit more about Java in 2009 (got an A+ in that class btw) to help with learning more about BlazeDS and imagine that will help me in my quest to master LCDS.

PureMVC

In 2008 I started looking into frameworks other than Cairngorm and actually ended up learning quite a bit about Mate. I even worked with Laura at ASFusion to author an article on Mate for Flash Magazine. I really like Mate however more and more people keep asking if I know PureMVC and I have to say “No.” If I learned Cairngorm and Mate I’m sure I can learn PureMVC. I just haven’t yet. 2010 is the year for me to get up to speed with PureMVC.

Flash Media Server

I actually worked with FMS on a project in 2007 however the usage was limited and it’s been a while. I imagine things have changed and there are new features to learn. This is another popular request that keeps cropping up. If I have time after getting through all of the items above I want to dig into FMS and build something more tangible with it using more features. I’d also like to look into Red5.

Flex Modules

Another thing that I’ve worked with a little bit but need a deeper understanding, specifically in regards to Cairngorm. This is another thing that I’ve been asked a few times. From what I know now working with modules isn’t really all that different to the way us Flash devs have been building apps since the late nineties. There are some technicalities though and I need to learn more about them. A more in depth look is in order though so I can say “Yeah I know how to use modules with Cairngorm.”

Flex Charting Components

Again I’ve worked with the Flex charts a bit. I’d like to take some time to really explore each one in great detail and perhaps create an example of my own. The animation aspects of the charts are pretty cool and any respectable “Dashboard” has to have charts on it . I also want to look into the ILOG charts.

Custom Component Development

The Flex component lifecycle is an area that I really want to explore in greater depth. I used to have it memorized however that was after reading Programming Flex 2 from cover to cover and then studying for the Flex 2 Developer Certification. I’m torn on whether to learn about the Flex 3 component lifecycle or just focus on the Flex 4 component lifecycle. Still debating on that a bit but I’ll probably try to build some custom components of both variety.

So that’s a rough roadmap of what I want to look into next year. Hopefully I can touch every subject but at least I can look back on this blog post and make sure I’m on task. I have a whole list of non-Flex subjects that I want to look into as well, maybe I’ll post those soon. Running Kannopy for the last two years has been really awesome but there are a lot of things that need to be taken care of on a business level that distract from development “play” time. This is something to keep in mind if you decide you want to break out of the corporate world and build your own company or start freelancing. There is always something to do. Accounting, marketing, bookeeping, budgeting, project management, project estimates, NDAs, contracts, client meetings, travel, invoicing, billing, collections, design, hardware and software maintenance, equipment purchases and setup, etc., etc., etc… Just remember that you ARE the entire team and company, a one man/woman Army

10 iPhone Games Reviewed (with screenshots)

seantheflexguy — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 12:28:55 +0000

Here are ten iPhone games worth checking out. The first one I got was the classic Pac-Man. Then I moved along to more of the arcade classics: Centipede, Space Invaders and Frogger. I played most of these games on Atari or in the Arcade growing up in the 80s.

Sifting through the other newer games specific to iPhone can be a bit daunting, or it was for me anyway. I took the plunge with Crazy Penguin Catapult 2 and was very pleased. Some of the great peeps on Twitter saw me posting about playing these games and pointed me to Fieldrunners and a few other killer titles. Fieldrunners is simply awesome, I’ve been playing it quite a bit lately. I also checked out a skateboarding game by Vans, geoDefense and Radial 50 Lite.

I’ve ranked these games below along with a few others for anyone else interested in checking them out. The point of all this for me is to of course have fun but also research some of the existing games for development purposes. I’m still on the edge regarding getting involved with iPhone development but these games have definitely inspired me.

1.) Fieldrunners
This is my favorite game at the moment. It’s great!! This game requires some level of planning and strategy. Tip; build a maze with your towers!

2.) Centipede
Pretty similar to the arcade classic. The “Arcade” mode is a little different than I remember but pretty close to the original. The “Ultra” mode is awesome!

3.) geoDefense
This game is like Fieldrunners. The graphics are unreal. This game is quickly growing on me. The “medium” levels are no joke. They just dropped the price on this game to .99, you have no excuses so check it out.

4.) Penguin Catapult 2
Very fun to play and the penguins are fun characters. I’m stuck at level 43 though atm. This is a really great game. I started with the Lite version and had so much fun playing that I purchased the full version.

5.) Pac-Man
The arcade classic. Really fun game. The controller needs to be bigger though.

6.) Brick 3D
Kind of like 3D pong or breakout in a way. Really fun game and it’s growing on me. The graphics are pretty awesome on this one too.

7.) Frogger
Another classic here. Pretty much the same as I remember from the Atari. This game needs to supply a controller though. Using your finger to control the frog isn’t that great imo.

8.) Radial 50 Lite
This game was suggested to me by the author via twitter. It’s pretty cool and a decent game for free. Not really my personal favorite style of game but it’s very functional, the graphics are great and it is pretty fun.

9.) Space Invaders
This is a pretty good remake of the uber famous classic. My main gripe is the speed that you’re able to fire lasers. It seems very slow which makes game play a little boring. Fix that and I’d be playing this a lot more.

10.) Vans Pool Service
I wish I liked this game more. I may just need to play it more but it’s just not that fun to me. The controls seem awkward and I’m not sure if I like the interaction style that’s currently being used. I’ll probably try to spend some more time with this game because I really want to like it more and it was expensive.

I have a list of about ten or so other games that I may review. Let me know if you found this post useful at all and leave a comment with any thoughts you may have. Also please let me know if you have any favorite iPhone games (or apps) that I can check out.

10 Awesome Flex Developers You Should Follow

seantheflexguy — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 22:29:52 +0000

These individuals have all inspired and/or helped me at one point in time. I’d like to take a moment to point them out and say thanks. I’ve personally either worked with, met or digitally communicated with all of these peeps. They have all helped me greatly and their insight is fantastic. You should check out their blogs or follow them on twitter to gain great Flex development advice, code, tutorials, articles, etc. Thanks to all of you very much!!!!

Laura Arguello
Laura and I worked together on an article on the Mate framework for Flash Magazine. She was instrumental in providing technical reviews and input regarding the details of the framework. Laura is the CTO at ASFusion. She specializes in RIA development using ColdFusion and Flex. She regularly gives presentations at tech conferences and user groups. She is a Certified Advanced ColdFusion MX 7 Developer and the manager of the Orange County Flex User Group.
Check her blog: http://www.asfusion.com/
Check her side project blog: http://www.mangoblog.org/
Follow on twitter: http://twitter.com/instante/

Matt Chotin
Matt provided input and feedback on both the Flex Best Practices articles I authored for the Adobe Developer Connection. In addition he reviewed and provided input and feedback for the Flex 4 Overview article I authored for InsideRIA. Matt is a Product Manager for developer-focused technology after having been a software engineer for 6 years. He is the Product Manager of Flex at Adobe.
Check his blog here: http://weblogs.macromedia.com/mchotin/
Follow on twitter: http://twitter.com/mchotin/

Eric Feminella
Eric and I have worked together on several Flex and AIR projects together and he’s also provided mentoring to me. Eric is one of the best Flex developers I’ve ever worked with and one of the nicest guys ever. Definitely an extra special thanks to Eric!! Eric is a Software Architect specializing in providing quality solutions and services for enterprise and consumer class RIAs targeting the Adobe Flash Platform and associated technologies.
Check his blog here: http://www.ericfeminella.com/blog/

Adam Flater
Adam and I started chatting on twitter in early 2008. He’s provided tons of great help and guidance on Flex, Java and design patterns to me ever since. Adam is a Technical Architect and Evangelist at Roundarch. His career has been centered on building innovative graphical user interfaces and research of emerging technology. He is also a contributor to InsideRIA and the creator of Merapi.
Check his blog here: http://adamflater.blogspot.com/
Folllow on twitter: http://twitter.com/adamflater/

Kevin Hoyt
I’ve seen several presentations by Kevin at Apollo Camp, the LA AIR Bus Tour and Flex Camp Orange Country. Kevin is probably my favorite presenter. He provides what seems to be effortless presentations that are easy to understand, interesting and just plain cool. Kevin is a Platform Evangelist with Adobe, and is actively involved with both the Flash and JavaScript communities.
Check his blog here: http://blog.kevinhoyt.org/
Follow in twitter: http://twitter.com/parkerkrhoyt/

Andy Powell
Andy is pretty much a guru in my book when it comes to Flex / server integration and development. Andy has answered a number of my questions about Java, BlazeDS and Spring integration for Flex development. Andy is a RIA developer located in the metro Atlanta, GA area. He is currently employed by Universal Mind where he builds really cool applications with tools like Java, Adobe Flex, Adobe ColdFusion, Adobe Spry, Hibernate, Spring, & other cool technologies.
Check his blog here: http://www.infoaccelerator.net/blog/
Follow on twitter: http://twitter.com/umandy/

David Tucker
I first noticed David’s work when he created the blog series on learning Cairngorm. He did such a great job it was amazing. He provided written explanations, code example and videos. Kudos man, I still send people there to learn about Cairngorm. David Tucker is a Rich Internet Application developer, author, and trainer. David currently serves as a Software Engineer at Universal Mind. In addition, David also blogs regularly at InsideRIA where he produces the Weekly RIA RoundUp podcast. David also recently completed the AIR 1.5 Cookbook (with a great group of co-authors) and the Lynda.com series, AIR for Flash Developers.
Check his blog here: http://www.davidtucker.net/
Follow on twitter: http://twitter.com/mindmillmedia/

Sean Voisen
I have to send extra special thanks to Sean because he is the one that first got me into Flex development in 2006. I had looked at Flex in 2004 and 2005 but never really got into it. At that time I was doing a lot of Flash based work but Sean helped me see the light. Sean is a really cool guy and a pleasure to be around. Sean works with a lot of different technologies and probably wouldn’t classify himself as a Flex Developer. Sean has been a teacher at the Art Institute of California and has worked with companies like AOL and Adobe.
Check his blog here: http://voisen.org/
Follow on twitter: http://www.twitter.com/svoisen/

Jesse Warden
I’ve been a fan of Jesse, or jesterxl since 2003. Back in the Flashcoders mailing list days. I first noticed Jesse because he would answer what seemed like an endless amount of Flash and ActionScript related email threads. He emailed me once in 2003/2004 and helped with a question I had posted. I’ve been a huge fan of Jesse ever since. Jesse also hooked me up with the team at Enablus where I did some Flex development in 2008 and 2009. Jesse is a professional software design & development consultant. His background is in multimedia, blending art & programming together. If it’s cool, and computer related, he wants to be involved. He is currently a Flex & Flash Architect at Roundarch.
Check is blog here: http://jessewarden.com/
Follow on twitter: http://twitter.com/Jesterxl/

Rich Tretola
I first started talking to Rich online in 2007 when he did some testing of an AIR app I had developed at that time. He provided very helpful guidance and insight to resolve some issues with the app I was having. Rich also has provided a much appreciated stream of patience and input for articles that I’ve authored for InsideRIA. Thanks again Rich!!! Rich has been building Internet applications for over 10 years and has worked with Flex since the original Royale beta version of Flex in 2003. Other than Flex, Rich builds applications using ColdFusion, Flash, and Java. Rich is highly regarded within the Flex community as an expert in RIA and is also an Adobe Community Expert. He runs a popular Flex and AIR blog at EverythingFlex.com, is the community manager of InsideRIA.com and was also a speaker at the Adobe MAX 2007 conference in Chicago and the MAX 2008 in San Francisco. He will be speaking again this year at MAX 2009 in LA.
Check his blog here: http://blog.everythingflex.com/
Follow on twitter: http://twitter.com/richtretola/

How do I learn Flex?

seantheflexguy — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 21:08:52 +0000

The world of Flex development is pretty big and it’s expanding all the time. There are many types of applications that can be built with Flex from dashboards to widgets, media playback utilities to Enterprise RIAs and don’t forget interactive kiosks and Internet aware desktop applications. One of the most common questions that I get asked is: How/Where do I learn Flex? I think one of the keys to mastery is a successful learning path. I also think that a solid foundation goes a long way. We’ve all heard the phrase: “crawl, walk, run…”

Here are some resources that helped me learn Flex. They are organized in a somewhat sequential fashion.

Beginner

Lynda.com

O’Reilly Programming Flex 3

Adobe.com

DClick Adobe Flex Coding Guidelines

CFlex, Community Flex

Using ASDoc

Intermeditate

AtTest (practice exam engine for Adobe Flex Developer Certification)

Flex Certification

Flexlib (open source user interface components)

Flex Unit

Subversion

Creating Flex components

Developing Flex RIAs with Cairngorm (Steven Webster, Adobe Consulting)

David Tucker

Mate Framework

Mate website
Mate: Event driven framework for Flex (Article for Flash Magazine by Sean Moore)

Adobe Flex Community Expert program

Advanced

Flint (more particles)

Paul Ortchanian (scripted 3D, particles, bezier)

Misc. Resources:

Adobe Developer Connection

Farata Systems Training

Comtaste (Flex training)

Beyond Flex

Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software

VTC – Design Patterns videos

Continuous Integration

Agile software development

SCRUM

UML

TDD

Test Driven Development by Example

How To Design A Good API and Why it Matters

New portfolio page and photo of my code at MAX 08

seantheflexguy — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 17:09:57 +0000

The last year has been an incredibly exciting one to say the least. A lot has happened for Adobe, for Flex, for the Flash community, for the world at large and for me personally. Looking back on this year I wanted a visual guide to show at a glance just exactly what I have been up to for the last 12 months. I needed this for myself, potential clients, my family and anyone else interested. There are still 12 projects I need to add but here is a start for now. I had the extreme pleasure and honor to work alongside companies like 2Advanced, Universal Mind and Adobe Consulting. I wrote two articles for the Flex Developer Center on Adobe.com, two articles for O’Reilly’s InsideRIA, an article for Flash Magazine and I did three technical reviews for Flex books.

As an pretty neat wind down to 2008 you can see some of my code that made it into the big screen at MAX last week. A couple of people were kind enough to let me know about this and as I was looking through the MAX photo stream I stumbled across a photo that showed the before mentioned code. Pretty cool! (This is some really, really basic code I released on this blog last summer to show the new Flex 4 components.) I wasn’t able to make it out to MAX this year but my I was there in mind spirit and well…code.

Sean Moore Flex Source Code at MAX 2008

Stay tuned for more exciting happenings. I’m currently reviewing another book now and I should be working on more articles in 2009. I should also be giving some presentations at some of the user groups.

Lastly I’ve been working on some music to help unwind from coding and writing.Here is a remix I did (mp3) for a track by a group Digitalism. The song is called Taken Away. Here is another track in the works too.

As always thanks for stopping by and taking a moment to peek into my little corner of the world.

5 new Flex and AIR books for Fall and Winter 2008

seantheflexguy — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:56:58 +0000

Here are five great Flex 3.0 and AIR books that are worth checking out in the next several months. Programming Flex 2 is an outstanding book and the updated Programming Flex 3 is sure to please. Creating Visual Experiences with Flex 3.0 by Juan Sanchez and Andy McIntosh is a must read and these AIR books also look really awesome. I’m putting these books on my radar for those cold winter (stay-at-home) nights approaching…

Programming Flex 3: The Comprehensive Guide to Creating Rich Internet Applications with Adobe Flex

Authors: Chafic Kazoun, Joey Lott

Available: September 24, 2008

Publisher: Adobe Dev Library

Description:

If you want to try your hand at developing rich Internet applications with Adobe’s Flex 3, and already have experience with frameworks such as .NET or Java, this is the ideal book to get you started. Programming Flex 3 gives you a solid understanding of Flex 3′s core concepts, and valuable insight into how, why, and when to use specific Flex features. Numerous examples and sample code demonstrate ways to build complete, functional applications for the Web, using the free Flex SDK, and RIAs for the desktop, using Adobe AIR. This book is an excellent companion to Adobe’s Flex 3 reference documentation.

More info.

Adobe AIR: A Guide for Developers

Authors: Mark Blair, Andrew Muller, Andrew Spaulding

Available: February 1, 2009

Publisher: Adobe Dev Library

Description:

The only authoritative resource on Adobe AIR’s first full release, with content created, reviewed, and critiqued by Adobe’s AIR team. Lots of resources exist for Adobe AIR and more are on the way, but most try to cover too much information for a technology that’s changing rapidly. What most developers need right now is a definitive introduction to Adobe AIR: How it works and how to develop for it. Written and approved by Adobe experts who know the real story behind AIR, the information in this book comes straight from the source.

More Info.

Professional Adobe Flex 3

Authors: Joseph Balderson, Peter Ent, Jun Heider, Todd Prekaski, Tom Sugden, Andrew Trice, David Hassoun, Joe Berkovitz

Available: February 24, 2009

Publisher: Wrox

Description:

With Professional Adobe Flex 3, put your prior experience with Flash, Actionscript and XML-based language to good use and learn how to use the Flex 3 platform to create rich Internet and Apollo applications. Understand the potential of the Flex 3 platform through practical examples and hands-on advice on topics like developing applications in MXML, creating custom flex components, charting, targeting Apollo runtime, and data interconnectivity. In addition, this book addresses the ways that you can contribute to the development of Flex 3, which is open source.

More info.

Creating Visual Experiences with Flex 3.0

Authors: Juan Sanchez, Andy McIntosh

Available: November 17, 2008

Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional

Description:

Don’t settle for Flex’s boring, standard user interface: set your Flex applications apart with the breakthrough skinning and programming techniques found in Creating Visual Experiences with Flex 3.0. Leading Flex developers Juan Sanchez and Andy McIntosh show how to build Flex and AIR applications that are stunningly beautiful — and amazingly usable. You’ll learn how to apply state-of-the-art branding and visual design techniques that add value to all your Flex applications, no matter what they do or who you’re building them for.

More info.

Adobe AIR Cookbook: Solutions and Examples for Rich Internet Application Developers

Authors: David Tucker, Marco Casario, Koen De Weggheleire, Rich Tretola

Available: November 20, 2008

Publisher: Adobe Dev Library

Description:

The hands-on recipes in this cookbook help you solve a variety of tasks and scenarios often encountered when using Adobe AIR to build Rich Internet Applications for the desktop. Thoroughly vetted by Adobe’s AIR development team, Adobe AIR Cookbook addresses fundamentals, best practices, and topics that experienced web developers and application designers have inquired about most. This collection also includes solutions for using this runtime environment to build truly innovative applications.

More info;

43 Hot Flex and ActionScript 3.0 APIs, tips and tools for Autumn 2008

seantheflexguy — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 18:03:06 +0000

Autumn is here again and it’s time to review some of the happenings from the summer. Here are 43 hand selected Flex and ActionScript 3.0 libraries, APIs, tips, and tricks. There have been several new APIs launched, Cairngorm was open sourced, a Flex 3 update was released and Grant Skinner created a new tweening engine. There have been new Flex application development frameworks released. There was a Flex code generator update and there have also been some design pattern updates released. You don’t want to miss out on this link round up!

Introducing Flex SDK 3.1 and Flex Builder 3.0.1
Flex SDK 3.1 is what the team considers a milestone build, a certification of all of that work and a roll-up into a build that is recommended for all users
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/sdk3_fb301.html

Cairngorm Moved to Adobe Open Source
http://weblogs.macromedia.com/amcleod/archives/2008/08/cairngorm_moved.html

Flex Architecture Basics – Models & Data Transfer Objects
Demonstrates a relatively easy way of setting up a small Flex application using a model and a data transfer object
http://nwebb.co.uk/blog/?p=228

Tutorial: ActionScript 3 Dragging Methods
This tutorial is all about dragging an object around the stage.
http://flashmymind.com/Tutorials/Actionscript/Advanced/actionscript-dragging.php

Flex Paginate Component
A little paginator component
http://www.darklump.co.uk/blog/?p=112

ModuleManager and IModuleInfo – loading Flex Modules dynamically
http://lowpitch.com/blog/2008/08/17/modulemanager-and-imoduleinfo-loading-flex-modules-dynamically/

Getting started with Degrafa
Simple code example by Mike Huntington
http://www.mikehuntington.com/?p=22

Advanced CSS with Degrafa
Another great code example by Mike Huntington
http://www.mikehuntington.com/?p=31

Alcon 3
Rewritten for Adobe AIR. This is a little debuger/logger, I used to use this back in the AS2 days and really enjoyed it. I still need to check this out but I’m sure it’s really cool.
http://blog.hexagonstar.com/alcon/

Remove css type selector warnings in Flex Builder
Quick little tip to remove css type selector warnings from the Flex Builder problems panel
http://www.nutrixinteractive.com/blog/?p=135

VBox, HBox with gradient background
http://www.igorcosta.org/?p=160

Flex designer/developer workflow video tutorials
A series of short tutorials that cover using Fireworks CS3 and Flex Builder 3 to create a visual theme for Flex applications.
http://www.ashorten.com/2008/08/11/flex-designerdeveloper-workflow-video-tutorials/

Six reasons to use ActionScript 3.0 – Lee Brimelow
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/actionscript/articles/six_reasons_as3.html

Custom flex skins
Creating web-applications with flex 3 is great. there are a ton of pre-made components, and an open-ended architecture to allow you to create your own.
http://the.fontvir.us/b10g/?id=111

Writing components in Flex, part 1

http://labs.flexperiments.nl/writing-components-in-flex-part-1/

Writing components in Flex, part 2
http://labs.flexperiments.nl/writing-components-in-flex-part-2/

Flash Enabled Blog Actionscript 3 API roundup
http://flashenabledblog.com/2008/08/26/as3-actionscript-3-classes/

Create bitmap data object from a display object
http://www.flexer.info/2008/08/20/how-to-make-a-bitmapdata-from-a-displayobjectuicomponent/

FCG 1.0 (Flex code generator)
Goes final and open source
http://www.dehats.com/drupal/?q=node/45

New ActionScript 3 Singleton Method
Daniel Love’s version using static initializers
http://www.daniellove.net/blog/?p=81

CSKDebugger
AIR debuger for Mac
http://ultra-web.co.uk/?p=178

Fill Colors
Fill Colors is the embodiment of the separation between style and layout in Flex and a demonstration of what’s possible in terms of skinning a Flex application
http://www.fillcolors.com/

gTween
Animation tweening library by Grant Skinner
http://www.gskinner.com/blog/archives/2008/08/gtween_a_new_tw.html

Functional Testing Framework for AIR AJAX apps based on Selenium

http://corlan.org/2008/08/15/functional-testing-framework-for-air-ajax-apps-based-on-selenium

Yahoo! Music API
The Yahoo! Music API gives developers access to the Yahoo! Music catalog of artists, albums, tracks, videos, ratings and more. It provides numerous ways to browse the catalog: through charts, search, similarities, genres, artists, and user recommendations and ratings.
http://developer.yahoo.com/music/

ActionScript 3 Flexible Layout Class
The NpFlexLayout Class is designed to simplify aligning DisplayObjects to stage dimensions and responding to changes in stage dimensions at run time by a user or between different users.
http://www.blog.noponies.com/archives/109

mediacorelib – media core library for ActionScript 3.0
The MediaCoreLib is an Actionscript 3.0 library toolset for playing audio or video files effortlessly. MediaCoreLib allows you to manage a playlist and seemlessly crossfade tracks.

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

Servebox ActionScript Foundry
An ActionScript 3 / Java framework designed for Flex 2 applications development. Its design is based on several design patterns,

http://www.servebox.com/foundry/doku.php?id=

Flest Framework
Flest is an ActionScript3 / Flex application framework for building enterprise level RIAs. It uses such design pattern as Controller, Factory, Command, etc. High efficiency, simplicity and practicality were set as its mandatory design features.

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

Guasax Flex/AIR MVC – The MVC Flex/AIR Framework
Guasax is an ease of use programming framework to provide ordered and scalable Flex applications. Life cycle of guasax framework is based in the MVC pattern to take on our program actions

http://www.guasax.com/guasax/web/en/index.php

Flex Mojos – HelloWorldTutorial
Tutorial for building a simple Hello World Flex application with flex-mojos

http://code.google.com/p/flex-mojos/wiki/HelloWorldTutorial

Scott Evans – public discussion of new FlexBuilder 4 IDE features
Scott Evans, a lead engineer on the FlexBulder team, has started a new blog – Getting and Setting that will be for public discussion of new FlexBuilder 4 IDE features.
http://gettingandsetting.com/

dpHibernate – Hibernate lazy loading with Adobe BlazeDS
dpHibernate is a custom Flex Library and a custom BlazeDS Hibernate adapter that work together to give you support for lazy loading of hibernate objects from inside your flex applications.
http://blog.mikenimer.com/index.cfm/2008/5/21/dpHibernate–Hibernate-lazy-loading-with-Adobe-BlazeDS

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

Alternativa3D — browser 3D-engine based on Adobe Flash
Create 3D-scenes in Flash: objects, mechanisms, buildings visualization. Import geometry from 3D-formats, upload textures (including animated). Three-dimentional projects and games, basic physics simulation (friction, collision).

http://alternativaplatform.com/en/alternativa3d/

KwikUML – build UML models of ActionScript and PHP classes
A tool to quickly build UML models of ActionScript and PHP classes and interfaces, as well as, SQL Entity Relationship Designs (ERDs). Built on Adobe’s AIR runtime, this desktop application allows you to not only build those models but export PNGs of the models for use in specification documentation and generate stub code from the models to use as a starting point once it’s time to actually begin development.

http://labs.otuome.com/kwikuml

KitchenSync
KitchenSync is an ActionScript 3.0 library for sequencing animations and other time-based actions.
http://code.google.com/p/kitchensynclib/

as3xls – read and write Excel files in Flex
Supports reading text, numbers, formulas, and dates from Excel version 2.x-2003 and writing text, numbers, and dates. Formulas also update to reflect changes in cells they reference.
http://code.google.com/p/as3xls/

ASDebugger – A run-time debugger for AS3 Projects
The ASDebugger allows you to trace variables. It has support for strings, integers, arrays, dates, arraycollections, objects and everything in between.
http://labs.flexperiments.nl/asdebugger/

as3corelib update
This is an ActionScript 3 library that contains a lot of useful APIs for working with AS3.
http://code.google.com/p/as3corelib/

swix framework – Flex development framework
Swiz is a framework for Adobe Flex that aims to bring complete simplicity to RIA development. Swiz provides Inversion of Control, event handing, and simple life cycle for asynchronous remote methods. In contrast to other major frameworks for Flex, Swiz imposes no JEE patterns on your code, no repetitive folder layouts, and no boilerplate code on your development. Swiz represents best practices learned from the top RIA developers at some of the best consulting firms in the industry, enabling Swiz to be simple, lightweight, and extremely productive.
http://code.google.com/p/swizframework/

Gaia – open-source front-end Flash Framework for AS3 and AS2
Gaia is an open-source front-end Flash Framework for AS3 and AS2 designed to dramatically reduce development time.
http://www.gaiaflashframework.com/

Penne Framework – lightweight framework for developing in Flex and Air
version 1.0 of The Penne Framework, a simplified Flex and Air framework, as a second option to the popular Cairngorm Framework.
http://www.flexpasta.com/index.php/2008/04/19/introducing-the-penne-framework-for-flex-3/

An ActionScript Compiler Written In ActionScript
“It’s enough to warm the cockles of one’s heart. ActionScript nerds around the globe can celebrate their graduation to “real programmer” status (whatever that means).”
http://www.brooksandrus.com/blog/2008/08/27/an-actionscript-compiler-written-in-actionscript/

Flex 4: flex.components example source code

seantheflexguy — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:08:59 +0000

Flex 4: flex.components

Here is a very simple example that displays some of the components that are located in the new flex.components package. The SWF is interesting because it is visually a little different than the classic Flex theme. No CSS has been altered in this example. Flash Player 10 is required to view the SWF. The following Flex 4 components can be seen: Panel, CheckBox, List, RadioButton, TextArea, TextInput, ToggleButton, HSlider, VSlider, VScrollBar, HScrollBar.

JPG showing the components: Flex 4 components screehshot

SWF with the functional components: Flex 4 components SWF

Here is the sample source code:

layout=”flex.layout.VerticalLayout”
backgroundColor=”white”
xmlns:ns=”library:adobe/flex/gumbo”>