I’m used to consuming data in Flash via remote objects through various AMF implementations; but I hadn’t played with Zend_AMF or the full Zend framework stack. So while front-end communication via AMF hadn’t changed for me – per se, I still had the issue of working with / learning the Zend framework for the actual server application development.

After reading a lot of documentation I discovered that there was a command line tool that took some of the heavy lifting out of setting up and developing with the Zend framework, and I’m all for automation. So I hunted around Google for a bit to see if anyone had hooked this in to Eclipse – fortunately for me someone had, unfortunately it wasn’t as flexible as I wanted so I put my fiddling hat on to see if I could improve on. If you’d like to see how I got on you can read the full step-by-step article here.

It’s obviously early days, but good to see that Cairngorm hasn’t fallen by the wayside, as it’s been quite quiet when it comes to updates over the past year or so. Hopefully with this version there will be more focus on helping those new to Cairngorm get up to speed but without sacrificing those who are already familiar to the older version 2.x framework (and vice versa).

Recently I was invited to speak at Scotch on the Road London, and as the only self professed non ColdFusion developer there I decided it was high time I got ColdFusion installed and running under MAMP Pro. So after much Googling and reading I came to the conclusion that there just wasn’t a clear set of instructions on how to get ColdFusion to play nice with MAMP Pro. Luckily I’m not easily put off and after a few hours of swearing at my Mac and many install / uninstall cycles I eventually got it working. So for those who also use MAMP Pro and would like to integrate ColdFusion with it I have put a screen cast together that goes through the entire process of integrating the two together.

Please excuse the audio – I’ll redo it at a later date but I wanted to get it posted sooner rather than later.

Integrating ColdFusion with MAMP Pro from FlashGen on Vimeo.

If you are following along the code I paste in to the MAMP Pro configuration template is below so just copy and paste it in to your config file.

# JRun Settings
LoadModule jrun_module /Applications/ColdFusion8/runtime/lib/wsconfig/1/mod_jrun20.so
<IfModule mod_jrun20.c>
    JRunConfig Verbose false
    JRunConfig Apialloc false
    JRunConfig Ignoresuffixmap false
    JRunConfig Serverstore /Applications/ColdFusion8/runtime/lib/wsconfig/1/jrunserver.store
    JRunConfig Bootstrap 127.0.0.1:51800
    #JRunConfig Errorurl url <optionally redirect to this URL on errors>
    #JRunConfig ProxyRetryInterval 600 <number of seconds to wait before trying to reconnect to unreachable clustered server>
    #JRunConfig ConnectTimeout 15 <number of seconds to wait on a socket connect to a jrun server>
    #JRunConfig RecvTimeout 300 <number of seconds to wait on a socket receive to a jrun server>
    #JRunConfig SendTimeout 15 <number of seconds to wait on a socket send to a jrun server>
    AddHandler jrun-handler .jsp .jws .cfm .cfml .cfc .cfr .cfswf
</IfModule>

UPDATE
Since producing this video Living-e no longer maintain MAMP and MAMP Pro, it has been taken over by a company called AppSolute so where I mention locating the living-e directory in your Library > Application Support directory, you will now need to refer to the Library > Application Support > appsolute directory instead.

UPDATE 2
For those of you who are working with ColdFusion 9 check out Adam Tuttle’s post / video on how to get CF9 to work after following my video

That said, the original (Flex 3) chapters are now up in the Rough Cuts section on O’Reilly’s Safari digital book service. I’m not sure what will happen to these original Flex 3 chapters once I’ve finished the book – I don’t know whether I’ll be able to release them as PDFs or not – due to contracts and the like, but if I can I’ll add them to the site.

It can now be ordered from Amazon if you want to get in before the rush :p. As I mentioned if you have a Safari account you can buy or access (depending on your account type) the rough cut chapters as they are updated.

Now couple that with the fact that Groups is still rough around the edges (I’m being tactful here) and has a few defects at this time – like a working search, (try searching for Flex United Kingdom as a term. Bizarrely this will return results from Toronto, Dallas, MAX North America). Even funnier is the fact that as a resident of the United Kingdom I, as many other British nationals refer to our home country as the UK. This is unfortunately not allowed as a search term as UK is only two characters. It doesn’t inspire you to take the plunge and start to organize your “thousand ‘man’ virtual march” from your current home to a new one on Adobe Groups does it?

Chester has a simple solution. Instead of attempting to get every established user group to migrate to the behemoth that is currently groups.adobe.com why doesn’t Adobe just provide a nice interactive listings tool? Heck it could even be a cool AIR app. It could easily link to the current site that the group occupies and still provide a central site for people interested in Adobe technologies to go and find a group. I’ve linked to the wireframe that Chester produced for context

As Chester says

The functionality goes something like this:

• User enters location
• Google maps zooms in
• User checks the checkboxes of the technologies/apps they are interested in
• Groups pop up on the map
• User slides the ?distance? slider to set how far they would travel (eg. 2km, 10km, 50km etc.)
• Groups appear/disappear as this is increased/decreased

So while the current incarnation of Adobe Groups may not be viable for all it doesn’t need to disappear – just provide something more suitable for groups who are happy where they are. As it currently stands if you’re not on Groups then as far as Groups is concerned your group doesn’t exist.

This is one aspect of Flex development that places it above other rapid development solutions

For the uninitiated Effects like most things in Flex are usually declared in MXML (but as with everything else in the Flex framework they can be instantiated in ActionScript as well – see the more advanced examples below). The basic structure of an effect is as follows:

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<mx:EffectName id="effectID" target="effectTarget" />

As you can see it is pretty much the same structure as any other MXML tag. The nice thing about effects is that you can string them together to form more complex visual displays. So for example if we wanted to have a panel grow in size and move once it was at the right size we can easily do this using a <mx:Sequence/> tag to wrap a <mx:Resize/> and a <mx:Move/> effect together we can simply do this as shown below. As you can see as it is wrapped within a Sequence block so that the Resize effect executes first; then once it has finished the Move effect is executed

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<mx:Sequence id="resizeThenMove" target="{myPanel}">
	<mx:Resize widthTo="400" heightTo="400" />
	<mx:Move xTo="200" yTo="200" />
</mx:Sequence>

One thing to keep in mind is that if you set a duration within the <mx:Sequence/> tag the amount isn’t divided between the elements in encapsulates. So if you set the duration to 1000 (1 second) the <mx:Resize/> and <mx:Move/> effects in the previous example would run for 1 second not 500 milliseconds each.

If you want to combine your effects then you can simply replace the Sequence tag with a Parallel tag. This will execute any effects that it encapsulates simultaneously. Again, if you set the duration in the <mx:Parallel/> tag the combined effects will take the total time to complete.

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<mx:Parallel id="resizeAndMove" target="{myPanel}">
	<mx:Resize widthTo="400" heightTo="400" />
	<mx:Move xTo="200" yTo="200" />
</mx:Parallel>

Now once you are happy with the basic effects and combining them you can start to create some interesting visual displays. The main thing to note is that if you just wanted to target a specific effect at a component of your choice you don’t have to create a new effect to do this. You can just provide your effects individual IDs and then apply any of them to any target you feel like. So if you update the effects inside the <mx:Parallel/> block with individual IDs you can then invoke any of the effects directly.

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<mx:Script>
	<![CDATA[
		private function targetEffectOnComponent(e:MouseEvent):void
		{
			moveEffect.target = e.currentTarget;
			moveEffect.play();
		}
	]]>
</mx:Script>
 
<mx:Parallel id="resizeAndMove" target="{myPanel}">
	<mx:Resize id="resizeEffect" widthTo="400" heightTo="400" />
	<mx:Move id="moveEffect" yTo="200" />
</mx:Parallel>
 
<mx:Panel id="myPanel" layout="vertical" horizontalAlign="center">
	<mx:Button id="myButton" label="Move ME" click="targetEffectOnComponent(event)" />
	<mx:Button id="myButton2" label="Resize my container" click="resizeAndMove.play()" />
</mx:Panel>

If you try out the example above you’ll see that if you click the second button, called “Resize my container” it not only resizes, but moves the Panel. However if you click the button called “Move ME” it accesses only the <mx:Move/> effect of the <mx:Parallel/> effect block.

That’s it for this part. Next time we’ll look at instantiating effects in ActionScript.

The basic premise is that your lifeviNe enabled Nokia NSeries phone geo-tags all of your media as you roam – pictures, music, videos etc and then uploads them to the site when you are near a wifi access point. These collections of images then form ‘vines’ (journeys) that you or your friends (and anyone else come to mention it) can view and explore via the lifeviNe site. The cool bit is that other peoples vines can cross yours so you can see what people took pictures or videos of at the same location for example.

I’m not going to divulge the full technical details, but if you know me then it has to be either Flex or AIR. In this case it was obviously Flex. I would do a shout out, but it may lead to recruiters fishing for potential recruits – they know who they are :p

I’d like to say how much I enjoyed working on the project and with the team at R/GA London and I look forward to the opportunity of doing something else with them in the future.

Yes it does have a useful interface for the debugger, a visual layout view, various importers and wizards and a memory profiler (if you have the Professional version), to name a few; and all are great features. However when compared to other tools of a similar nature Flex Builder has a selection of ‘holes’ it really needs to fill. From my perspective there are some core features / functionality that really should have been included in Flex Builder 2, and hopefully if enough people agree then perhaps some of the following might get in to Flex Builder 4. To that end I’ve put together a list of elements I’d like to see in FB4. Most of these I have had reiterated from numerous developers I know so I don’t think this is a “What Mike wants” lists.

I’ve put the items in a list below (in no particular order) and where warranted I’ve gone in to further detail below it.

• Templates
• Embedded assets in the Design view
• Asset import paths
• CSS Editor Linking
• ResourceBundle integration
• ASDoc integration
• Larger scope of document tags
• Font Embedding
• Tasks i.e TODO / FIXME

Template

Templates are a big thing for me personally as I have a default set of comment blocks and stub code I put in to almost every ActionScript class. However I currently do this via a keyboard macro application and via “snippets” templates that are part of JDT. Not a really clean process as Flex Builder doesn’t come with either of these out of the box (or functionality that comes close). Both JDT and FDT have templates, as do numerous other eclipse based plugins, so it can’t be hard to include them.

Embedded Assets in Design View

I like the design view. Even if you are intimate with MXML and ActionScript the design view helps speed up the initial structural layout of your application / view. That said when it comes to embedded assets, especially images or SWFs, the results are a bit hit and miss. Sometimes it will display the embedded object whereas the norm is to just show you a generic icon marker scaled to the dimensions of the embedded element. This makes the use of the design view almost worthless as you can’t realistically align or position anything in relation to potential elements within your assets. This is a real problem as it permeates the entire application and doesn’t give a truly representative view of what your current design looks like.

I personally tend to have both the embedded and non embedded code in my files and then just comment out the one I need to use, not ideal but it works.

At this point in time based on the information floating online in regards to Thermo I don’t think that it will a) be integrated in to FB4 to begin with b) actually offer the functionality required.

Asset Import Paths

Within the property inspector if your component supports images you get the option of locating an image (the small folder icon that appears to the left of the image path text input. Now this still has me confused. If I click this icon it opens a system “Open Files” dialog that allows me to locate a file on my machine.

I’m confused for a few reasons, firstly if you are in a team environment and you use source control anything added this way will likely not be included in your project submission as it doesn’t import the file in to the project structure it just makes an @Embed link to the file wherever it may be on your machine. Secondly, why is it showing me the system “Open Files” dialog in the first place? The likelihood is that I have already imported assets in to a folder within my project and I want to add one of those without the hassle of typing the full path. So surely common sense would dictate that this would open up a dialog that was scoped to my project folder – like the “Select Artwork Folder” does when using the Artwork importation wizard. And finally this is just a really bad habit to get people in to. We have a structured project layout for a reason, it keeps everything organized and in one place. Even Dreamweaver warns you if you have assets located outside of the project. This for me personally fails on usability and functionality and really needs resolving.

CSS Editor Linking

With each new version of Flex Builder the CSS editor get a little bit better but it would be really handy if you could just CTRL / CMD + Click on a CSS reference in a styleName tag and be able to jump directly to the CSS entry in your stylesheet. That’s all nothing more just the ability to save a few extra seconds not having to open the CSS file and scroll / search for the entry you need.

ResourceBundle Integration

ResourceBundles are a good thing. So why does it take a totally separate command line driven process to create them? When dealing with localized content the traditional “Flash” appraoch is to rely on XML and load the language that is relevant as required. If people are going to move over to using ResourceBundles then the process by which you create them needs to be integrated in to the Flex IDE. It’s confusing enough for most to get their heads around in the first place, but then to expect them to open up a terminal window and duly type away is pretty poor process at the very least and annoying at most.

ASDoc Integration

While we can all run ASDoc from the command line it does dilute the value of Flex Builder through its absence. Most if not all Flex Builder users now resort to running ANT scripts to manually run ASDoc in the background. Again ANT isn’t part of the stand alone version of Flex Builder so you can’t do this out of the box. This is one of my all time top features I’d love to see in Flex Builder 4. If it worked like JavaDoc does in eclipse I’d be over the Moon.

Larger Scope of Document Tags

It would be really great to have greater support for the accepted tags used for automatic document generation (see JavaDoc). While we have quite a few already it would be good to get to the same level (as relevant) as JavaDoc, NDoc et al.

Font Embedding

Having used Flex for quite a while now I’m pretty accustomed to most of its quirks and processes. However on a recent project I had a real eye opener with embedded fonts. It turns out that the corporate font of a well know mobile devices manufacturer didn’t embed identically via the three main accepted ways of font embedding. i.e via CSS @font-face embed code, via the [Embed] meta data tag and through straight in line font embedding via the fontFamily=”" MXML attribute. that said this paragraph isn’t about quirks in font embedding; it’s more about the “rough” approach to embedding the font in the first place.

Most I would suspect embed their fonts via CSS and this while quick to do could be made a lot more streamlined. I’d personally like to see a font selector so I can select the font (and the appropriate weight / size) and have that all added automatically. Think Artwork importer for fonts. Also if you use an embedded font for your CSS there isn’t a clean way to switch out the CSS embedded fonts for non embedded fonts.

Tasks – TODO / FIXME

This is a nice little feature that while there is a third-party plugin to perform the basic functionality it has been in hibernation for a few years now and doesn’t look like it will revive anytime soon. For those who have no idea what I’m talking about let me explain. In eclipse and therefore Flex Builder there is a panel called Tasks. This acts as a todo list / bookmark system that operates by automatically adding an entry if you place a comment inside your classes or MXML files that is proceeded with // TODO or // FIXME and then a sentence or two describing why have added it. The real advantage this has is the very fact it adds it to the Tasks panel as you can just double click the entry and it will load up the class and go straight to the issue. It also provides a mechanism for you to manage and highlight interim issues that need to be resolved that may not necessarily break the application. All in all very handy and worthy of inclusion I feel.

Summary

I personally don’t think these items are a big ask. In fact I think a lot of these could be easily added in as there are already “dead” or “dying” third-party solutions that could do with updating or incorporating, only time will tell if that is the case.

If you have any additional things you think should be in Flex Builder 4 please feel free to add then in the comments. If you think I’m talking out of my hat, feel free to let me know :p

We now have all of the sessions and speakers sorted out and I’m pleased to announce that Peter Elst and Marco Casario are going to do a session (they were just attending initially but I pinged Peter on Twitter and they are now speaking :D). Don’t let this overshadow the rest of the speakers though, while some may not be as well known in the community they are top of their respective fields and some of the best Flex specialists in the UK

The sessions cover a wide spectrum of Flex related topics, not all are developer orientated so there will probably be something for everyone – have a look at the schedule below and you’ll see what I mean.

2.00pm Start
2.15pm Keynote – Andrew Shorten, Adobe
2.45pm Building your 1st Flex application – David Arnold, Academy Class
3.15pm Styling, skinning, designer/developer workflow – Chris Jenkins, Tribal
3.45pm Break / ’show and tell’ – Monochrome
4:00pm PureMVC – Justin Clarke, Samuel Williams, LBi
4.20pm Flex and ColdFusion – Niklas Richardson, Monochrome
4.40pm Flex and Java – Bryan Hunt, Emak Mafu
5.00pm Break / ’show and tell’
5.15pm Who you need on your Flex team – Neil Middleton, Monochrome
5.45pm Application development best practices – Dan Thomas, Moov2
6.15pm Break / ’show and tell’
6.30pm SQLite with AIR – Marco Casario, Peter Elst
7:00pm Flex component development, Mike Jones, Pixadecimal / FlashGen.Com
7:30pm Q&A Ask The Panel session
8:00pm Pizza and Beers

You can find out more on the Flex Camp London ‘08 site

Places are filling up fast, so if you want to attend sign up now!