Archive for the ‘Flex’ Category
Data Binding with FXG in Flex 4
One of the cool things about FXG is that it works with Flex data-binding just as your would expect it to.
Below is a simple example (which requires Flash Player 10 RC), followed the code, that shows data-binding with FXG and Flex 4:
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Defining and Reusing Symbols in Flex 4 FXG
If you have done Flash development using the Flash Authoring tool, or have done any low level work with the SWF format, then you should be familiar with the concept of symbols. Basically a symbol is a reusable object (graphics, buttons, MovieClip) that can be included in the SWF once, but referenced and used many times.
Flex 4 FXG has a similar concept of symbol, although the actual underlying implimentation is different. Using the Library and Definition elements, you can define a graphic symbol, which can then be reused multiple times within the FXG or MXML document.
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Everything there is to know about Flex 4 / Gumbo
About a month ago, the Flex team announced that nightly builds of the next version of Flex (code named Gumbo) were now available on the opensource Flex site. Along with early versions of the SDK, the team also posted a ton of other information, including specs and API docs.
Below is a listing of links and resources about Gumbo / Flex 4. Going through these will quickly get your up to speed on what is being worked on in Flex 4, and get your ready for playing around with the new builds.
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Flex Builder 2 free for students and educators
From the press release:
Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced that it is offering Adobe® Flexâ„¢ Builderâ„¢ 2 software at no cost to students and faculty at educational institutions worldwide…. Adobe Flex 2 will be available to qualified education end-users for free download on Adobe.com in early November.
You can read the entire press release here.
Sorting Date fields in a DataGrid in the Flex Framework
I was working on some new mini chart apps over the weekend for the MXNA reports section, and had a DataGrid that contained dates. I wanted to allow the user to sort the datagrid by the DateField, but by default the DataGrid sorts dates with a string compare (calling toString on the Date instance).
I tried to set up a custom sort function for the DataGridColumn instance that contained the dates, but because I was using a custom label format function for the column, Flex passed the labels to me, and not the data items (which would allow me to get access to the Date instance). Because of this, I couldn’t sort on the date.
Subclassing the mx:Application Tag in Flex
Now that there is a Free non-commercial license for Flex, I thought I would spend a little time playing around with it.
I went through this great tutorial by Robert Crooks, and was pretty impressed by how quick it was to put together the simple application. However, one thing felt weird to me, and that was mixing ActionScript in with my MXML. I am used to creating a class for my application controller. Including functions in an include file just felt weird to me (although behind the scenes they do get compiled into a class).
So, I asked around at Macromedia if it was possible for me to subclass the <mx:Application> tag with my custom class, and it turns out it is.
So, here is the modified code for the Coffee Application from Robert Crook’s tutorial. This one uses a custom controller class that extends the Flex Application class.
