If you missed out on any or all of the Build an app in a week web seminars that the EMEA Platform Evangelism team held last week, worry not. Below are all of the recordings for you to watch as many times as you wish. You don’t need any special software or app installed to view these beyond Flash Player.

The sessions are based around an application called EVA that the EMEA team are developing so you can get a real feel for how the Flash Platform designer to developer workflow can be leveraged to make creating rich engaging content easier.

• Erasing the designer-to-developer gap: Adding interactions to your design
  http://my.adobe.acrobat.com/p90445619/
• Connecting your design to PHP services:
  http://my.adobe.acrobat.com/p66013176/
• Connecting a web application to a J2EE back end using Flash Builder 4
  http://my.adobe.acrobat.com/p20174257/
• Working with Flash CS5 components in your Flash Builder 4 project
  http://my.adobe.acrobat.com/p49752948/
• Going multiuser with P2P in Flash Player 10.1
  http://my.adobe.acrobat.com/p93914495/
• Developing multiuser applications with LiveCycle services
  http://my.adobe.acrobat.com/p53039407/
• Bringing web applications to the desktop with AIR 2
  http://my.adobe.acrobat.com/p97751544/
• Code once and run on multiple mobile devices
  http://my.adobe.acrobat.com/p24983267/
• Rapidly build, deploy, and maintain Internet apps with ColdFusion
  http://my.adobe.acrobat.com/p57074073/

If you enjoy these then head over to the Adobe Flash Platform Events page and have a look at all of the other recordings.

For those who are interested in learning more about working with the Flex framework and Java, you’d be crazy not to attend the Flex on Java Exchange one day conference in London next week. There are plenty of great speakers and the programme includes a few panel style sessions so you can pose those questions you’ve been itching to know the answers to for a while.

Entrance isn’t free, but given the wealth of information in the sessions and the opportunity to network with such a high calibre of likeminded individuals the admission price of £95 seems well worth it.

Topics include:

• What can Grails do for me? Building Flex applications with Grails
• An introduction to the Spring ActionScript framework
• Flex & Java Communications
• Enterprise Flex applications with the Parsley framework
• An introduction to the Cocoa AMF framework

As well as the “park bench” open discussion sessions. Combine this with tea, coffee, biscuits (personal favourites of mine) and a free raffle for some great prizes; and this is a great looking event.

My friend and fellow Adobe Evangelist Michael Chaize, will be presenting the Flex & Java Communications session.

…you’ll see the new features in Flex 4, the integration of interactive designs produced in Flash Catalyst, advanced communications with Java using LiveCycle Data Services, Model-driven development, and Live collaboration services. Join Adobe for the opportunity to discover how when Flex meets Java you can revolutionize Enterprise applications development.

I will also be at the event, so please feel free to come up to either of us if you want to know more about the Flash Platform, be that the Flex framework, Flash Builder, Flash Professional, Flash Catalyst or our runtimes – Flash Player and AIR. You never know we may also have some stuff to give away at our booth…

If that’s piqued your interest, here are the details so you can block it in your diary…

Wednesday 16th June 9:30am – 6:45pm
Admission is £95 for the day
You can read more about the event on the Skills Matter site here.

We look forward to meeting you all. :)

One of the new features of Flash Builder 4 is the inclusion of the DCD workflows, or Data Centric Development to give it it’s full title; which allows for easy integration and wiring up of data from various server solutions. This new feature has peaked my interest by the fact that the DCD for PHP utilizes the Zend_AMF from within Zend framework. Something I hadn’t played around with too much.

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.

Initial documentation for Cairngorm 3 has been uploaded to Adobe’s open source site. There’s not a huge amount of info there at the mo’, but what is there is worth a read – especially once they get more detail up about the Presentation Model and how it functions with the Presentation Graphic Layer and the Presentation Behaviour Layer.

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).

I, like a lot of developers use a Mac and like most I use a local web server to test the applications I am developing; however, I have had a few issues getting my dev environment running exactly as I want it due to the fact I use MAMP Pro. While it supports mySQL and PHP out of the box it doesn’t lend itself well to other app servers due to the fact it has a different way of configuring the server compared to plain old MAMP.

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

If you weren’t already aware I’ve been writing a book on Flex component development which will be published by Addison-Wesley, called Developing Flex Components: Using ActionScript 3.0 & MXML to Extend Flex and AIR Applications. Originally it was targeted at Flex 3; however, as Flex 4 in the soon to be “new kid on the block” I’ve decided to re-write it so it now focuses on the new “Spark” components that are present in the Flex 4 framework as opposed to the “Halo” components that Flex 3 uses.

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.

My new book Developing Flex Components is now available to pre-order on Amazon (and all good book retailers). Currently being updated to focus on the new Flex 4 Spark components as well as the older Halo components in Flex 3.

I’ve just seen that my friends over at Emak Mafu have posted up a suggestion regarding Adobe Groups and why it’s not that useful. The example given is the fact that Chester over at Emak Mafu runs the Flex London User Group – which has over 1000 members – and uses Meetup.com to manage get-togethers. Imagine trying to migrate not only the details of everyone, but then getting the same 1000 individuals to stop using that site and migrate to Adobe Groups. Sounds simple doesn’t it, and that’s only the beginning…

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.

One of the more interesting aspects of Flex development is the ease and flexibility in which you can add that extra level of polish that good interactive solutions are known for. I’m not referring to good creative, but to transitions and effects; in other words how the user gets from one screen or area to another within your application without it being a first in first out style interaction

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.

It’s a loaded question. As I helped develop lifeviNe. In case you haven’t seen it, it is part of a solution for Nokia’s new mobile social networking software – think Brightkite meets flickr, youtube and del.icio.us to name few. The alpha version was launched on Tuesday of this week (it was a bank holiday here in the UK on the Monday). Currently the mobile part of the solution is only accessible to a selected few; however the big plan is to open it up to everyone in the near future.

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.