Visiting the First European Flex 360 Conference
Flex is like a new island in the ocean about what you have read from books, heard from friends and decided that this is probably the place where you would like to live. 
The only reason you haven't moved there yet is that you still don't know exactly how is the weather there, is it going to be too crowded or too lonely, and is there something else to eat but bugs. As an unique opportunity, we found from Internet that there will be a so to speak tourism fair concentrating only on Flex island. There was no hesitation, we packed our bags and flew directly to 360 Flex Europe in Milan. The main reason why we wanted to be there was our doubt that the Flex tree grows poorly in Europe and we wanted some proof that this is not true (see previous post by Martin Where do the Flex Developers Live). Read more »
Using the GraniteDS and Cairngorm together
I have been using the Cairngorm framework in my application from the day I started to develop it. It has helped me a lot in understanding the Flex as it is somewhat different that is done in Java. At some point I wanted to start using the GraniteDS because of Spring but at the same time I didn't want to give up Cairngorm. Read more »
Where do the Flex Developers Live
We started this blog approximately a month ago. There were several reasons why we did it but the main one was and still is that we believe that Flex has a future and we would like to involve as many people as early as possible. Business people have waited for a long time to have finally good looking tables with sortable and draggable columns without an extra development request and Flex has it. Ok, there is of course a lot more in it but they don't care...at least today. As the guy in this clip says: "when I see the little kid and the look in his eyes...that's all I need" and probably it will be the same story with a Flex programmer and a business person for a while. Read more »
Java classes to Actionscript3 classes using Maven 2
At some point I found myself in a situation where I had data objects in Java and in order to use the same objects in Flex application I had to duplicate these classes in Actionscript 3. It was pretty boring and in addition to that, the possibility to forget to add or change some attribute was very high and it happened of course more than once. As I started to look around in web I had very low expectations to find a tool for converting Java classes to Actionscript classes. After some digging I found that actually there is a great tool, which does exactly what I needed. Read more »
Setting up a Java and Flex Project in Maven 2 for Beginners
Maven is a tool that provides an uniform and easy build process for your projects. In real life this means generally that you describe your project in one xml file and Maven reads this information to compile and package your project. The pros of this approach are that the project can be set up quickly in new environment, you can quite transparently add new features, and you have all the time clear overview of libraries that are used in your project.
Read more »
Sun Certified Java Programmer Mock Exam in Flex
You can jump directly into the Java mock exam demo here (written in Flex).
If you are ever planning to take the Sun Certified Programmer exam, you need at least four things: 1) the Java language specification; 2) a good study guide; 3) a exam simulator; 4) and free time for coding. The spec isn't an easy reading material, but with an "brain-friendly" study guide (by Sierra and Bates) they are essential to passing the SCJP exam.
While the "Head First" study guide is teaching you to understand and remember what you read, the exam simulator indicates if you are ready to take the real exam. There are several commercial exam preparation kits in the market: JQPlus (Enthuware), JavaCertificate.com, Whizlabs. Free mock exams are also available: see www.jdiscuss.com.
Last year, I have upgraded my SCJP 1.4 to SCJP 5.0, and wrote my own test tool in Flex.
Installing Flex Builder 3 Pro Educational license
As Adobe Flex Builder 3 Professional is available for free to all education customers, I ordered it last week and today I got it. To get your free education license go here: http://flexregistration.com. Tanks to Adobe to making such a great tool available for free to educational users. I am using Adobe Flex daily at work, building financial software, but there is only Windows. Now I can use Flex in my MacBook Pro for academic purposes: the combination is so natural! A bad new is that I also got the same error (see screenshot) also reported by the other developers.
Setting up the environment for Flex and Java development with Maven 2
To start developing Flex you have two choices: to use FlexBuilder or Flex plugin for Eclipse. As we would like to develop Flex and Java parallely, the Flex plugin approach is the only reasonable way to continue. At first you must have Eclipse (~100MB) installed. It can be obtained from here (must be at least version 3.3 or higher) and it must of course have Java development support. The plugin itself (~300MB) can be downloaded from here but you must have an Adobe ID to download it.
Read more »
Experience of Developing Flex with Maven
If you are building a small Flex application then the Maven is of course an absolute overkill but if you are working in a team and have to release the application that uses Java then Maven is worth considering. I myself started to use Maven in the Flex project because of Java. As it worked well I tried to move on and use it also with Flex. It took some time but in the end I was quite happy when I could just type in the command "mvn install" and the Maven took the Flex and Java source code, compiled it, packed into a war and deployed to my Tomcat server. The major reason why I initially started to use it was that I had to share the project source code and it would have taken a lot of time to setup the environment in the other computers. With Maven, I ended up having only one property file which had environment specific stuff in it and I could set up the project in Mac and Windows without problems.
Read more »
Windows classic skin for Flex 3
While I generally think that imitating operational system isn’t a good idea at all—in particular old-fashioned Microsoft Windows—however I have found that sometimes it is suitable, and even the best way to sketch-up your new Flex application. Especially when you are rewriting an old Windows legacy software and your client is a Mr. Dursley. Why not let him to use a familiar look and feel?
Therefore I created an new skin for Flex. This skin imitates Windows classical look and feel. I have used Flex 3 beta 3 and Flex skin design extensions for Adobe Flash. All you need is to import the skin artwork, or simply put .SWC file your in the Flex project folder. You should use both—Flash .SWC library and the cascading style sheet file.
Read more »
