I’ve been searching for a way to write view code in my Flex & AIR projects that is completely reusable, scalable and simple yet powerful. I’ve read about and used the questionably named ‘code-behind‘ techniques that Ted and Adobe promote. I’ve tried the ‘script src‘ technique that Tink is passionate about. I’ve used ‘view helpers‘ and I’ve even tried the rarely discussed ‘code-in-front‘ technique that Marc has written about. However, I’ve recently been creating my views with a technique I call the ’simple’ method which is in the same school of thought as Marc’s idea. Here’s a table that describes the five methods mentioned above for creating views in Flex:
Continue to try out each technique in a Flex application with source and find out why I especially like the all MXML ’simple’ method …
Continue reading ‘Flex View Component Techniques in MXML & AS’
The Nashville (615 Flex) User Group threw an Adobe sponsored launch party last night for the release of Flex 3 and AIR. Thank you to Aaron West for putting the event together.
Aaron snagged a few of us with his flip video camera answering the “Why Flex? Why AIR? Why CF?” questions for 30onair. You can view the videos on YouTube or view all the videos at the 30onair website.
I have started a series of posts on Flex from a ‘ground up’ perspective. View the series by clicking the ‘Flex Series‘ tab above. The URL’s to these articles won’t change, but the titles, text and examples will evolve (so be careful linking and quoting). The goal of the series is to establish a resource of Flex best practices specifically related to application structure and coding practices ((specifically not dealing with server side technologies nor GUI design)).
If you have suggestions for topics or feel that something could use another perspective or elaboration, please leave comments. I really appreciate involvement from the Flex & AS community. Continue reading for a list of assumptions that this series will make …
Continue reading ‘Flex Part 00: Assumptions’
This post is an extension of an earlier post entitled “Flex Part 02: Value Objects & Model Objects“.
Recap: Model Objects are similar to Value Objects in that they hold the same data, except that the Model Object is responsible for making sure that no ‘bad’ data gets into the VO. The Model Object enforces business rules like, “phone must be at least ten digits long” which a VO cannot do on its own. A Model Object may even include methods for easily manipulating properties.
In the earlier post I presented some example code for a Model Object. It turns out that what I provided is a pain to maintain over time. There’s just too much duplication and poor use of public properties. Continue reading for my attempt at a better, easier Model Object …
Continue reading ‘Flex Part 02+: A Better Model Object’
To view the connect presentation, click here (1 hour 20 min).
Ben Stucki delivered a great presentation last night to the Nashville (615) Flex user group. The topics were Degrafa, an open source declarative graphics framework for Flex and OpenFlux, a component model based on MVC (Model View Controller).
The presentation covers MXML syntax as well as complex CSS component skinning with Degrafa. Some of the examples are available on the Degrafa website at http://samples.degrafa.com.
Ben also shows off some of his work on OpenFlux - which looks very cool. If you are interested, skip to around 55:00 in the presentation. Also, check out Doug’s post titled “We’re not waiting for Flex 4” for even more cool info.
