You are currently browsing the Eric Feminella blog archives for July, 2006

The Future of ActionScript (ECMA 4)

The ECMA has released resources to the public reflecting the 4th edition of the standard. Being that ActionScript implements the ECMAScript standard, these future implementations will most likely become part of ActionScript in the future.

Adobe has members on the committee which is evident as many of the new features are following ActionScript 3′s lead (such as strict and standard modes).

The link below is a good starting point to see where ActionScript, not to mention Java, C# and many other languages will be heading in the future.

http://developer.mozilla.org/es4/proposals/proposals.html

July 28, 2006 News
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Apollo: FAQ

Adobe released the updated FAQ for Apollo last week. If you are not familiar with Apollo, it is a cross-operating system runtime being developed by Adobe. Apollo aplications can be developed using either the Flex framework, Flex Builder, Flash 9, or html and Javascript. It is a standalone runtime that dows not require a browser.

To learn more about this revolutionary runtime from Adobe read the FAQ: http://labs.adobe.com/

July 27, 2006 AJAX
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Flex 2 HTTP Network Monitor

In order to build and debug an RIA or web application which utilizes external data sources such as web services, xml etc, a good, quality network monitor is needed. Flex 1.5 had a built in Network Monitor that could easily be accessed in the Flex 1.5 IDE. However I have yet to find the same functionality available in Flex 2.0

At my day job I am building applications in Flex 2.0 / ActionScript 3.0 and although there are some good debugging tools available I have found that there seems to be a lack of an easy to use Network Monitor.

I have been using Charles, a great Network Debugger which is capable of displaying soap messages. xml, AMF, and various other HTTP protocols in an easy to view fashion. This type of HTTP monitoring is crucial to anyone who is building RIA’s with Flex 2.0

Check it out at http://xk72.com/charles/

July 25, 2006 AJAX / News
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ActionScript 3.0 / PHP / MySQL Messageboard

I built a custom messageboard for my site in ActionScript 3 / Flex 2.0 with the backend built in PHP / MySQL.

The purpose of the messageboard is so users can post their thoughts regarding my site. So feel free to post your comments, suggestions and what you like or don’t like, and how I can make the site better.

Click here to post your thoughts.

July 18, 2006 News
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AS3 EventManager

In an effort to develop one single, centralized event handling system for all of my applications I have developed a new EventManager for ActionScript 3.0 based on the concepts of previous AS2 EventManagers such as the ones from Jeff Tapper as well as the Cairngorm EventManagement system.

The EventManager is a simple class that you can use to centralize listeners and broadcast events from anywhere in an application. It is an absolutely essential part of all of my ActionScript 3.0 Applications.
Click here to download the AS3 EventManager

July 12, 2006 News
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ActionScript 3.0 / Flex 2.0 Local Debugger

Today I re-built my ActionScript Debugger from the ground up for ActionScript 3.0 / Flex 2.0. If you are not familiar with the ActionScript debugger it is a simple Local Debugger which recursively traces out various complex types such as Objects, Arrays etc to a seperate .swf file.

I will continue to build on the current functionality to take advantage of the various new type-checking features in ActionScript 3.0.

To see an example of the Debugger in Action click here

July 3, 2006 News
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ActionScript 3.0 / Flex 2.0 / E4X RSS 1.0 Blog Reader

One of the best new implemented ECMA features in ActionScript 3.0 is E4X – a native XML dataType in ActionScript 3.0. If you are traditionally used to traversing an xml document in actionScript 2.0 I am sure that you are more than familiar with recursive for-loops and endless firstChild.childNodes[i]… type syntax. E4X is a much better (not to mention standard) approach to parsing XML. You can now simply target a node and use for-each loops to loop thru child nodes.
I built a simple aggregator for my Blog in Flex 2.0 using E4X and it was a piece of cake.
July 2, 2006 News
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